3 MONTHS IN LIBERIA!
October 22, 2020
Dear family and friends,
Vickie and I thank you for your prayers, your interest and your faithful giving to our Training Leaders International (TLI) ministry. We consider ourselves blessed to have such a faithful team.
I am writing to let you know our plans for 2021 and to ask for your continued financial support. Although short term travel has been suspended because of COVID 19, TLI is providing their teachers other opportunities to serve the global church. Therefore, I have committed to helping TLI’s Diaspora ministry in Southern California, as well as continue to work with our partners in Tanzania to open a non-formal educational site. Finally, I have accepted an assignment to spend 3 months (considered extended travel) in Liberia this coming January- March, at Grace Life College and Seminary. Vickie will not be traveling to Africa with me.
TLI’s last trip to Liberia was in March ’20, and was abruptly ended because of the pandemic. Since then, TLI has conducted some Zoom teaching meetings, but lessons are difficult due to the nature of online teaching and technology that can be troublesome. This is not the instructional environment that we prefer as the norm.
Therefore, here is an anticipated summary of my ministry in Liberia: I will be teaching 2 classes for the seminary – Exegesis of 1 Samuel and Introduction to the Gospels and Acts.
I will train a group of students who have excelled in our training and have graduated from our non-formal courses, who will in turn be able to teach our non-formal curriculum. I will be training these future trainers.
Grace College and Seminary buildings in construction are pictured on the right. Soon to be finished!
I will participate with the elder team at Grace Life Church and meet with a cohort of leaders weekly to prepare, discuss and give feedback to Sunday morning preaching assignments.
I will speak at local churches on Sundays.
I will be meeting one-to-one with college and seminary students, answering their questions and assisting them with their school assignments. The TLI online curricula is excellent, but it is even more effective when teachers and trainees are face to face. I have a well-established relationship with the leaders of the school and many of its students because I have had reoccurring trips to this area.
Diaspora training in the Western United States TLI has a division devoted to training church leaders who have immigrated to the U.S., but they have little or no theological training. There are thousands of immigrant [diaspora] churches in the United States. TLI does not currently have a director for the West (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada) even though the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area has at least twice as many immigrant churches as anywhere else in the U.S.. When I return home from Liberia, I will be working to establish relationships with immigrant pastors in the area so that churches, denominations and para-church ministries know of TLI’s work. My goal is to set up several training partners at local churches who will begin establishing training centers. Our Diaspora curriculum is almost identical to the non-formal courses that we teach in Africa, India, and other nations, but it is tailored to U.S. immigrant churches.
Tanzania
TLI has received full funding for the translation of our materials into Swahili which will greatly enhance our outreach in Tanzania! No small feat!! I am working so that when the travel restrictions are lifted, TLI teachers can quickly travel and train smoothly. Please pray! This video is from my trip to Tanzania in March, 2020. They sang for us after lunch break!
Vickie and I continue to be active at Christ Community Church in Laguna Hills. We love both teaching the pre-school class and attending our community group. I have had frequent opportunities to teach and preach at church also. I also have recently joined our missions team and will have the opportunity to encourage other missionaries who have been sent out by our church.
This is a long letter. Thanks for reading and praying!
Bob and Vickie Burris
This three-month trip to Liberia will be expensive: food and lodging, health insurance, and we are paying for the students travel, books, and lodging. COVID has devastated the country, and their financial resources which were already compromised, are scarce. If you are so inclined, you can contribute at https://trainingleadersinternational.org/give. The ministry area is ‘staff members’.
How to Pray for Africa
Many of my mission/training trips have been to Africa: Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Liberia. I train national leaders to read, understand and preach the Bible.
According to the Bible, my/our efforts will be in vain unless we pray, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:5-7 ESV.
As I contemplate what I do, without your prayer support, it will be nothing in God’s eyes. Conrad Mbewe writes about this need for prayer for Africa,
A GREAT VIDEO AND AN EXCELLENT BLOG POST
First: James K.A. Smith on love, desire, knowledge, change, agape, and eros. You may need to watch it twice. Don’t let the length keep you from watching, it goes fast!
Second: a great article by Brett McCracken. He will help you navigate the complexities of your own convictions and entertainment choices while examining the utterly depraved wickedness of the Netflix movie Cuties. He writes, “It seems we’ve been so blinded by confirmation bias and negative partisanship—driven more by ‘owning’ the other side than by actual positive convictions—that we’re willing to justify something heinous because we don’t like the people calling it heinous….New Pew research sadly shows that many Christians are only slightly less confused than non-Christians on sexual ethics.”
July 2020 Update
Dear friends and family,
The COVID crisis and unrest in our country has been difficult. Through it all we pray for peace and for Gospel opportunities. We continue to pray for travel to open so that we can train church leaders to lead Gospel-centered churches!
Here’s an update and prayer list. I’ve also included a link to an article by a TLI trainer. He traveled with us to Ambo, Ethiopia last January.
https://trainingleadersinternational.org/stories/892/opening-the-bible
1. Trips. We are grounded from flying. I returned from my last trip on March 15 and we have no definitive date for restarting trips. At this point, we cannot obtain insurance to travel. Please pray for an end to the pandemic and an opening up of airports and countries, especially Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Liberia. My best guess for travel would be March 2021 – a trip to Embo, Ethiopia.
2. Tanzania. I am in conversation (read Zoom meetings when his internet is working and the electricity is on) with a potential partner, in Tanzania, about starting a training site. We have a donor interested in funding a Swahili translation of our materials which will open up the course work to 2,000 pastors and church leaders that have no training at all. If the details can be worked out, the future is bright for Tanzania and the work of the Gospel. Please pray for willing and able students and the opening up of travel! I am trying to mute my excitement until everything is set. We are 90% of the way there!! Below is a picture of our “test” group in Tanzania. We hope to see them again soon. Our potential partner is second from right, back row. Pray for Peter!
3. Video Review Project. I have been working on a project with 4 other trainers to make a video review of Course One of our non-formal curriculum – “Knowing God, Knowing Scripture, and Knowing Ourselves (role of the pastor).” We are concerned that the students will forget what they have learned if the time between trainings is too long. Pray that the video will serve the students well.
4. African economic hardship. In Liberia and Ethiopia (and many other African nations and the world), many students have lost their jobs and have no money to buy food. American Christians have generously donated to care for them. Pray for an opening up of the economies in these countries and that the students will be able to return to work and classes when the crisis is over.
5. Speaking opportunities. I have been studying Job and Psalms with great benefit to my soul! I will use much of the material at a High School camp I will be speaking on August 2-5. Pray for these students, that they would become aware of the incredible privilege it is to be saved and to be used to expand God’s Kingdom in prayer. Additionally, I will also be filling in for four weeks for a pastor friend going on sabbatical in August. I will be preaching and using the course material from TLI on Biblical Theology to tell the story of the Bible. Pray that the Scriptures would spark in them a renewed zeal for reading the Bible and for participating in God’s story in their lives.
6. Family. Our family is doing well – we’ve had no serious illnesses and most everyone is working remotely from home. By the way – our three grandchildren are all very athletic, super coordinated, way above average, brilliant in every way by some accounts, and we enjoy them often! Vickie has had a 4-month hiatus on teaching at the hospital, but that should open up soon. We have not been able to worship with our church family, Christ Community Church, Laguna Hills, in person, but have been part of the live Zoom services. We miss our incredible pre-schoolers and should be able to begin teaching them again in September.
Thank you for your continued support during these difficult times and again, please pray that the COVID crisis would end, so that our travel would resume and the gospel would go to the nations via well-trained pastors and Gospel-centered churches!
Bob and Vickie Burris
