Please pray for:
· Strength, energy, good health & rest
· Safe travel & good connections
· Clarity in hearing the guidance of the Holy Spirit
· Grace in relationships
· Holy Spirit’s anointing for teaching
· Understanding through translators
· Cross-Cultural sensitivity
· Healing & deliverance as Jesus ministers to people
Background
In the mid-1980s, Neil began bringing his church members on trips into the mountains south of Cancun, Mexico, visiting missionaries who were planting churches among the indigenous people. Later, Neil led some Nehemiah Team ministry schools in the 1990s in the former Soviet Union after communism collapsed and the doors were open for Bible teachers. Nearing the year 2000, Neil began the Outfitters for Adventure missions organization through his church in Morris, MN. Nehemiah Team, headquartered in Germany, encouraged Neil to lead ministry schools through Outfitters. Neil sent young people trained through Outfitters for Adventure to teach in ministry schools in various locations in the Soviet Union, the Republic of Georgia, and Mongolia. In 2001, young people from Outfitters for Adventure started a church in downtown Fargo. Almost all participated in mission trips through Outfitters or other mission organizations in their early years. In 2004, Neil brought teams to visit churches in the Kisii District of Kenya, where they were asked to help needy children whose parents had died of the complications of HIV/AIDS.
In 2018, Neil's church in downtown Fargo joined hands with Heartland Community Church in West Fargo. Neil is now a volunteer pastoral staff member at The Church in the Pines, Alexandria. On annual trips to Kenya, Neil has continued interviewing children supported by sponsors in the USA. The children's stories are updated and sent to the sponsors with new pictures each year. Neil teaches
in 8 to 10 churches and helps train the Kenyan pastors.
Neil left Morris yesterday morning, March 18, and will return on April 10. He will visit our missionary friends, Joe and Karin Medley, in Nairobi. Joe and Karin lead a ministry organization that trains teams in friendship evangelism as they share the love of Jesus with their Muslim neighbors. Then Neil will travel to the Ugandan border in northwestern Kenya to teach in Riverside Ministries churches, led by our dear friend Cosmas Solamba who lives in Nairobi. Neil's translator, Francis Omondi, oversees the churches in the Kisii District Neil assists through Outfitters for Adventure. After teaching in Francis' friends' churches on the Uganda border, Neil and Francis will spend the balance of their time teaching in churches in the Kisii District, where they will interview the children.
Neil will return to Kenya in August to participate in teaching at Riverside Ministries' nationwide pastors' conference, led by Cosmas Solamba. During the August trip, Francis Omondi will bring Neil to teach in Riverside Ministries churches in the Mombasa region along the eastern seacoast of Kenya.
Neil spent last night with our friends, Scott and Annie Crump, at their home in Hudson, WI, along with their 4 dogs, 8 puppies, and the 2 dogs they are dog-sitting for their children. I asked if they had to find a doggie bed for Neil to sleep on, but they said he had his pick of bedrooms upstairs now that their children are grown and have flown the nest. Scott and Annie met in Morris, where they attended our church before joining the church planting team that started Harvest Community Church (HCC) in downtown Fargo.
On Saturday, Neil had a great phone conversation with HCC's first pastor, Nate Rooney, who grew up in Kensington and attended New Testament Church and school in Alexandria. Many of you know Nate's sister Vanessa, who attends The Church in the Pines with us in Alexandria. Some of you also know Roxanne Rooney, Nate's mother, who taught in the New Testament school and worked in their church office. Nate's wife Andrea, sent her mother and her mother's friend along with Neil on a Kenya Site Visit several years ago. Our friends in Kenya still fondly remember her as the woman pastor who demonstrated Jesus' love by providing a spa experience by painting their fingernails and toenails and washing their hair.
Neil's plane is due to fly to Amsterdam from MSP early this afternoon. Your prayers will be flying with him and transporting him on the second leg of his flight to Nairobi.
Love,
Ruth Thielke
thielkeruth@yahoo.com