CEE Story From The Mission Field
Amazing General Meeting for Missionaries
April 2, 2004
The Annual General Meeting for North CEE took place last month in Mikolajki, Poland. This yearly event took on a different format for the first time and focused its sessions exclusively on training for missionaries, something that seemed to reach a great need among those gathered. Training Coordinator Preston Pearce said that more than once he heard the comment, “this is the best AGM ever!”
The training team and the Regional Leadership Team worked hard to bring well-rounded, accurately targeted training seminars that would help their colleagues prepare for the challenges they will face in bringing the gospel to a lost world. These seminars ranged from practical workshops in leadership training, to inductive Bible study. There were sessions focused on spiritual warfare, interpersonal communication, reaching business professionals in urban settings, profiling people groups, cross-cultural discipling, and helping missionaries in their first term to process the fears and difficulties encountered thus far in their journeys.
"I even found myself studying outside of class time,” said one enthusiastic participant. The same mood was resonated many times over on evaluation forms filled out by the missionaries. When asked what it was that was so popular about this training format, the general response was that it brought continuity to AGM and missionaries walked away feeling that they had not just been encouraged but had been equipped to serve better.
Just as God was busy working through the training sessions, He was also hard at work in other arenas. The worship time each day, with Scott Patty and his music team from Grace Community Church in Nashville, Tenn., was centered around this year’s theme 'Forward By Faith'. Anytime you have 224 missionaries coming together to worship in their native language, you’re going to have a lot of excitement and this was no exception. The worship also extended to an opportunity to take the Lord’s Supper in recognition of upcoming Good Friday. This service was especially meaningful to many who enjoyed sharing this intimate act with their colleagues who so well understood the passion of their hearts.
Kenny and Terri Pope were responsible for the childcare teams that conducted VBS for the MKs, as well as the youth team. God did a tremendous work among the young people. It was truly a time of revival as evidenced by seasons of praying and confessing sin that lasted well into the night.
The parent of one youth summed it up for the group when she said, “this is a week she will never forget!”
Another high point of this AGM was the Lottie Moon Auction. This was a time for the missionaries to give to Lottie Moon through bidding for donated items from the missionaries and from the American volunteers. The items up for bid ranged from Kraft macaroni and cheese from America to a hand carved chess set from Ukraine. Most items went for hundreds of dollars. The auction brought in over $29,000. This is a record high to date and now poses a challenge for the AGM South, which will be held in Athens this June.