FEBRUARY 2013 Letter - LIVING WELL

We’re back! We thank you for your many prayers and support! As we write this letter, we returned less than a week ago. Besides the physical recovery from the long trip, we have finished writing and presenting for two events here in OKC since our return.

We enjoyed seeing the children of Wisdom Community School again and many of our pastor friends. We were able to spend time at the school, getting to know their community and the children better.  We spent time learning from people who are running community schools.

Please read Ed's letter about God’s message to him while were there! We are already planning our next trip. [see details] God is giving us a big mission for this summer! Please consider whether God may be calling you to be a part of the mission.

We also made some significant progress towards providing year-round, clean drinking water with a new well for the children of Wisdom. Please pray with us that the project will go forward. What a great opportunity for those children! Right now, they drink from a hand-dug well that is dry during three or four months a year (no water to drink or wash their hands).

At the follow-up to our pastors’ conference, we heard many testimonies from pastors of what has happened since last June when they spent a week with us. One young pastor shared how he took four couples in his church through the material that we had taught him. Now those four couples are teaching other couples.

A well-dressed, articulate man got up to speak. He said that he had something to say even though he had not been at our conference and was not a pastor. He shared that his pastor had been at our conference and had taught his church the lessons on marriage. The man identified himself as being a high court officer in their government. His office processes divorce requests. He explained to these pastors that the number of people seeking divorce now in Zambia is increasing at a staggering pace. In his government office, using what he had learned from his pastor, he had been able to reconcile three couples! He also challenged the pastors to spend more time strengthening marriages and help slow the growing swell of divorcing couples. What an unexpected blessing we received as we heard him speak and challenge these pastors!

We are leading a team that is presenting an event on February 23 to celebrate marriage. Together Forever is open to the public (for married/engaged/seriously dating couples) and is featuring Michael O’Brien, a Christian recording artist. We heard Michael sing and share his marriage testimony a few years ago. His music appeals to all ages and his testimony is very powerful. Our evening includes specialty coffee bars by Café Evoke (and other drinks), photos (photo booth, portraits, party pics), great door prizes, and exquisite desserts. We will honor couples who have been married 50+ years and encourage those who are in their early years. The event is at Putnam City Baptist Church; contact us or visit the church website.

You are a valuable part of our ministry! We love and appreciate you and your support of what God is doing! Our love in Christ,
Donna and Ed Edwards
P.S. Please pray with us about our next mission to Zambia. 

MISSION ZAMBIA JANUARY 2012

Since undergoing training in Marriage and Family at the Seminar, we resolved to start having similar sessions for couples at our church. We have been having marriage enrichment sessions every Sunday, from June to the end of August, this year. We have begun to see in attendance, even couples who are not members of our church.* Pastor Sostern Banda

I can confess that I didn’t have a proper or effective ministry to the Couples. However, after attending the Seminar, we decided to re-organize our couples’ fellowship in our church. Subsequently, we first gathered thirty married couples. Presently, we are now holding monthly couples’ fellowships. Consequently, we have had three couples added to our church, through the ministry to the couples.* Pastor Gideon Mvula

*quotes from a follow up meeting at the end of August after our June conference

These two pastors express why we continue to go back and train more pastors.

After our last mission trip (June 2011), God spoke to our hearts about doing more work in that area. Our Zambian partner there is very efficient, effective, godly, and influential among the pastors. We had our most fruitful mission trip ever. We believe that the Lord is leading us to return there in January of 2012. We have two goals: 1) to minister more to the ones that we taught last June, and 2) to further investigate other ministry opportunities for a team in June 2012.

Our ministry time will include meeting again with the pastor couples that we taught. We will also do some teaching to men and women separately. We will speak at a Bible college nearby and speak in churches on marriage.

Our time to investigate and prepare for next summer will focus on discerning the best place to conduct our next marriage seminar for pastors, exploring how we can help with a school and children located in a slum in Ndola, opportunities for leadership training, and possible men/women’s conferences.

Since we are not sponsoring a weeklong conference on this mission in January 2012, we are able to keep the costs lower than the usual summer mission. We will meet in churches (at no charge) and will not give away Bibles. Our costs will include transportation (airfare is the largest cost), lodging, food, visas, translators, and teaching materials. Our budget is $7500 for the 13 day trip. We will leave January 5 and return January 18, 2012.

Please pray with us for this upcoming mission. God has ordained this work and called us to it. His mission effort will succeed through the generous support of His people. Please join us as we obey the call and allow Him to work through us in touching many in His Name.

Blessings,
Ed and Donna Edwards

To donate, click here. [All contributions are fully tax-deductible and you will receive a receipt.] For more information about past missions to Zambia, enter "Zambia" into the search box on this page.

Anniversary Celebration

We had a wonderful day! June 2nd was our 38th anniversary and they had quite a celebration for us. At lunch, they had a beautiful flower arrangement. Then they had a procession of women as they all sang "Come and See."

They presented us with a cake, a bouquet of red roses, cards, and gifts. Then they had us stand and let everyone come by in a receiving line to shake our hands and give their greetings. They certainly know how to celebrate! They are very gracious.

At this hotel, they have their own band that plays, usually in the evening. When they heard about the size of our group at lunch, they started playing at lunch, for tips. On Wednesday, they sang and played  John Denver's "Country Road." Very interesting to hear it sung with an African accent! But we really enjoyed it. Our hosts saw our delight and made sure they sang it again for our anniversary celebration.

We had a pastor and his wife sit with us at lunch on our anniversary. They had both been married before but have been married to each other for 41 years. He confessed how he and his wife had argued and would say bad things to each other - even saying, "I know now why your first husband left you." They talked about how much our teaching had helped them.

For dinner, our hosts took us to an Indian restaurant, owned by one of their church members. We have not eaten Indian food very often. The owner made suggestions for us; they had too many options for us to choose. We enjoyed all of the dishes they served.

At dinner, we learned about our host, Rev. Charles Mwila - his time of study in the U.S. and his participation in writing a new constitution for Zambia. Very sharp guy! And a real man of God and gracious host.

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For more on the Zambian mission, see:

• Pastors Express Appreciation
• Their Words
• Questions, Questions 
• Ndola, Zambia, Family Enrichment Conference 
• Conference in Ndola, Zambia 
• Conference Begins

THEIR WORDS

Since this group of Zambian pastors/spouses knew English, we ask them to write out for us how God had been at work in them during the week. They didn't have to sign their names. We are including pictures but they do not correspond to the testimonies.

God has changed my life in this way:
(spelling and wording are their own)

“Before this seminar started or was even announced to me, I was planning to leave my wife because things were hard. I was not getting along with my wife on daily basis. The situation changed when me and my wife attended the seminar. God has changed my life. My wife and I believe through His grace, I and my wife shall not be the same.”

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 “My house is completely healed through this conference. I’ve learnt a lot of things which I never came across in my life. We need more again.”

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 “God teaches me to be faithful to my wife. My marriage passed through hardship, I was not faithful to my wife but this time I sat down with my wife and I openly apologize to her for my behavior. Praise God I am a changed person.”

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“To me it is God fulfilled mission and touching the Father’s heart—absolutely a breakthrough—saved, delivered, restored and revived again. Almost lost my marriage due to being busy with the ministry and yet I was burning out and stress up. My life saved and my marriage refreshed. God bless you, Edwards. I never forget this glorious refreshing.”

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“It can be difficult sometimes to strike a balance between our cultural beliefs and principles with Biblical principles. This conference has helped me know better because Ed and Donna made a Biblically sound presentation that was eye opening.

I also feel much conversant and well equipped to help other marriages teaching them what I have learnt and also making use of the written materials that have been used in this training.

I thank God, Donna and Ed, as well as all the Living Well partners and supporters for this great and rare privilege that has so blessed my heart. God bless you all, Thank you!”

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“I never used to have time for my wife and children. I tell you from now on I will be a good husband and a good father as well as a good pastor. Ed and Donna you are a bless, God has used you to change my life. I pray that He Almighty God will continue to shower His blessing on you and all the people supporting this precious ministry.”  -----

“I built a very strong wall between my wife and I. Every time an argument arose I ran out of the house and came back after hours just to sleep. But now, that wall was broken the very day Ed and Donna spoke to me about the need to tackle arguments by allowing each person to express themselves.

I am more interested to hear my wife speak and I have learnt a lot from her. My marriage will never be the same again after going through the seminar.”

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“This seminar has exposed dark spots in my married life. Consequently, it has placed on me, the personal responsibility to take action, with the view of allowing God to effect corrections in my life.

This seminar has availed my wife and I, and open opportunity, to interact forthrightly, with truth regarding the hidden areas in our relationships, which we could never address or face up to, without a deep verbal or emotional confrontation.”

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Praise God for the work He did in the hearts of the people!

For more on the Zambian mission, see:

Questions, Questions

Ndola, Zambia, Family Enrichment Conference

Conference in Ndola, Zambia

Conference Begins

Maasai Pastors, MOROGORO

A new experience for us was having Maasai tribesmen at our conference. We were able to recognize them by the large holes in their earlobes.

Maasai tribes live in rural areas around Morogoro. The Maasai are known for owning herds of cattle (they think that they own all the cattle in the world) and for their colorful, red garments.

Some of the Maasai men, still wearing their red garments, have moved to towns and cities to do security work, with the goal of going back to their rural home and cattle.

Some of these traditional tribesmen have come to Christ and become pastors.

The pastors are sorting out their traditional beliefs and their devotion to Christ. Their familiar red-draped fabric, beads, and enlarged earlobes are traded for suits and ties. But often they go back to their culture dress; we thought that their dress was interesting. The Maasai we encountered wore short or long pants under their familiar red, draped fabric. But other Africans explained to us that the Maasai traditional clothing leaves them “practically naked,” when they drape only one cloth around their shoulder in the most traditional way.

We did not address their attire but a more significant issue - the marriage. Their major shift in thinking is what they confessed to be a mistreatment and neglect of their wives. Their sincerity showed through the intensity of their listening and speaking.

This conference was the first conference arranged by ALARM that the Maasai pastors had attended, opening the door for them to attend many more. The Maasai pastors were so enthusiastic about the conference that they asked ALARM to come to their villages to teach.

Group Discussions

These pastors and their wives enjoyed getting to know each other as they discussed a case study about a pastor who put the priority of his ministry before his wife and children. These couples strongly identified with the pastor in the case study - a man who spent six out of seven evenings in church ministry and was not involved with his family. Their priorities changed, putting theri marriage and children above ministry, but most of all, putting their relationship with God first. Many of them realized for the first time that the activity of ministry is different than their personal relationship to the Lord.

LIVING WELL Monthly Letter, April, 2010

Spring-like weather lured us into thinking about warm and pleasant days. But when Spring officially arrived, winter howled back to remind us of an unbelievable year. Hopefully, we have ended our relationship with the 2010 winter season.

Spring signals time to plan for our summer mission to Africa. We are returning to Tanzania. We will teach in a new location, Morogoro. We will also meet with pastors and wives whom we taught last year in Dar es Salaam. Joining us on the Living Well team this year are Megan and Rhett O’Briant who taught with us in Zambia two years ago. June 9-21 are the dates of our 6th trip to east Africa.

We felt compelled to return to the same country as last year. After teaching and training there for a month, we built a closer bond with the people than ever before. Our desire is to teach a new group of pastors/wives in Morogoro and to bring additional training and encouragement to those we taught last year. Tanzania stays heavy on our hearts for many reasons but at the forefront is their spiritual battle with the dominate Muslim faith. They risk their security and faith to plant churches in predominately Muslim neighborhoods. 

Our mission is to teach pastors/wives in the area of Biblical marriage/family and train them in building marriage ministries in their churches. 

Why do we teach/train instead of evangelizing, digging wells, or doing a medical mission? All of these kind of missions and others are noble and have merit. But we have found that:

• Africa has been highly evangelized now and the Christian church is established in all east African countries. “World wide Christianity has become increasingly African....There are now more practicing Christians in Africa than on any other continent, and by the second decade of the new millennium, Africa will overtake Europe as the continent with the greatest number of people who identify themselves as Christians, whether or not they practice their faith.” (Neil Lettinga, PhD) We believe that it is up to the Africans to reach their own people; our role now is to train them.
• Clean, accessible drinking water is one of the foremost physical needs of Africans. Clean water will satisfy one of their physical needs, but will not meet their spiritual and eternal needs. We know that people with abundant supplies of water can still live decadent, empty lives. As Jesus said “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
  
• Physical diseases and disabilities abound in Africa; they have great needs for treatment. However, their treatment is temporary. They will still have the same difficulties next year.

We are not trying to say these missions are not good or needed but we believe that God has called us to a different work, one which will equip the African church to thrive and reach their culture. The African pastors that we train do not have the opportunity for a formal education. We partner with an African ministry, Africa Leadership and Reconciliation Ministry (ALARM) who is permanently located in the area and have an ongoing relationship with the pastors and training in different aspects of ministry.

Why do we train on marriage and family? Why not discipleship, the spiritual disciplines, etc.? Our experience and expertise is in marriage ministry, having worked in that area over 20 years. We have found a great disconnect between an African pastor’s role in ministry and his role in the family. His family is usually treated as unimportant compared to his ministry in the church. We believe that a truly transformed life will be most evident to the culture in their family life. That factor is why God said that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.

Thank you for your love, support, and prayers.
Our love in Christ,
Donna and Ed Edwards

Donna Edwards, Living Well Ministry of Oklahoma City, leads Conference in Commitment to Marriage Strengthening

Donna shows the group how quickly they can impact thousands of marriages as they teach others and those teach others ....
Pastors stand to make a commitment to model godly, marriages and to implement marriage strengthening practices in their churches.

Zambia pastors and wives at Family Enrichment Conference

Men often sit much closer together in the Zambian culture than men would in the U.S.

Women bring any nursing children (as old as 2 or 3) with them. As the children grow restless, they find small items to amuse themselves.

The pastors and wives sit on hard bench seats (no cushions) all day as the team teaches.