baumann ronald marti 1998 turkish world outreach

8/11/2019 Baumann Ronald Marti 1998 Turkish World Outreach

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T H E U M N N S

Marti and I plan to visit the southeast in July, checking in with a couple of our supportingcongregations and getting to visit with our children and grandchildren. Jeff and Robbie withtheir children, Stephen and Katherine, are still living in Stockbridge,Georgia. The kids will enterkindergarten this Fall having finished a year of preschool recently. Russell continues to enjoy hisarchitecture profession and is living in west KnoxvUle He has been involved with Rugby at theUniversity of Tennessee and runs an occasional lOK race Susan completed another year of 5^

grade teaching in the Knoxville schoolsystem,having what she feltwas her most successful yearin teaching. Andrew is well into his senioryear at the University ofTennessee in Knoxville Hejust completed another Summermini-termto stay ahead in his course work.

K T H E R I N E N D S T E P H E N

GR ND JUN TION

We have now begun our third year of mission work with Turkish World Outreach. It wasSeptember of 1995 when we made our trip out here to look things over . It seems like it wasonly yesterday when we were saying tearful good-byes to our Zambian brothers and sisters inChrist. no er fact that s hard to believe is that we s tarted raising o ur s up po rt for fieldmissionary activity nearly nineteen years ago - November of 1979 What wonderful, almostexotic, memories we have of those years, and what dear friends we have made.



ZAMBIAN JOURNEY

We have received several letters from our Zambian friends (over the past year or so) reportingprogress in their work there. It is a great blessing to know that the work of the church iscontinuing in Zambia without the presence of missionaries. In fact, that was our goal when we

went to Zambia in 1980- to establish self-supporting congregations which could carry on witfi thework of the church. We have as a prayer request to our Lord and a goal for ourselves to visitZambia in 1999. There is a great need for Bibles in the vernacular. We also see this as anopportunity to encourage the leaders and the congregations to keep the faith throughpreaching and teaching while there. Please praj with us as we seek to know God s will in thism a t t e r

M E D I C L P R O B LE M S

Marti has completely recovered from the broken ar m that she sustained last September. She fellwhile on a school-sponsored roller skating outing at ihe local rink. Upon reaching the skatingsurface, she immediately discovered that it was in very poor condition. As she was making he rway off the floor she fell twice. The results were a broken right arm near the wrist (unfortunatelyshe is right-handed) and a broken blood vessel After 6 -7 weeks in a cast and two months ofrehabilitation (physical therapy) she was pronoimced well. She has a one percent physicalimpairment which is insignificant.

1 was caught off guard recently (13 May) when 1suffered a mild stroke. After a very strenuous

weekend of difficult yard work and two days of a heavy workload at the office, 1 noticed thingswere no t right on that Wednesday morning. 1cannot say exactly when it happened, bu t 1startednoticing speech difficulties (pronouncing words) and a marked tiredness in my left arm. In tryingto use my keyboard to send some E-mail, 1found that my left hand had lost much of its dexterity.1also had some left-side facial paralysis. After approximately nine hours in the emergency rooman d one overnight in the hospital, 1 was released having recovered almost all normeil function.The resulting fatigue that 1felt lasted about a week. 1have now returned to work on a full-timebasis and am feeling really good. My blood pressure is in a normal range now, my pulse rate isgreat, 1 have lost about 15 pounds and my diet has been adjusted with almost no salt allowed.Regular exercise has been prescribed.

This newsletter is published bjr: Turkish World Outreach508 Fruitvale Court Grand Junction CO 81504 970434-1942 mai ^o



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T H E Z M B I N R E V I S I T

We are proceeding with plans tovisit Zambia in Jime of 1999. We continue to maintain periodiccorrespondencewith several individuals and/or congregationswhich are located inthe MumbwaDistrict and the Kafue Flatsarea. By the time of our visit next year, the congregations will havebeen on their own for four years. Wepraiseour Lord for keeping them alive and well. At thesame time, even though we have not been made aware of any major problems, we have not

deceived ourselves in thinking that there havenot beensome problems. Consequendy, thereareseveral important reasons for us to return to Zambia for a three-week (or so) visit. Therecontinues to be a great need for Bibles in the vernacular (which are impossible to obtain in mostrural areas), and thereis an ongoing need for song books. Dueto ZCM's rathersudden departurein 1995, we feel that our visit could serve as timely encouragement to all the Christians and theircongregations. If there are some recent or lingering problems, we could, through the guidance ofthe Holy Spirit, help them work these out in a Biblical fashion (in love). There may be someopportunities for preaching and teaching as well. I get excited just thinking about it Pray forus to know God s will in this matter. Pray with us as many important plans must be made:airline tickets booked and paid for; accommodationswhile there (a hotel most likely); rental (oruse) ofa 4WD pickup truck (this may be the most difficult thing to secure); availability of Biblesandsong books through the Bible Society of Zambia; good health as we travel there, spend timethere and on the trip home; and so forth.

TURKEY IS I^ORT NT

The importance of Turkey in the history of Cluistianity is well-documented. Thirty-fiveof itscities, including Tarsus and Ephesus, are ,mentioned intheNew Testament. Even though Turkeyremains culturally primitive in the rur^ areas, the cities are rapidly modemizmg and arenoticeably affected by the worst of Western influence. To make things worse for the Christianchurch, there is a strong religious movement to reestablish Islamic law in the nation. Somechurch growth is now beginning tobe seen, and although the number of Christians is relativelysmall, there is some interest being shown,in Christianity. It is reported that more than 50% ofTurkey's population is under 25 years old. With this in mind, along with the fact that youngpeople are generally more receptive to new ideas, it is imperative that Christ be presented tothem now to offset tiiose worst Western influences an d this radical Islamic push

S TR N G E B U T T RU E

Research has revealed that out of 332,000 missionaries m the world (using a broad definition ofthe word missionary ) only slightly over 1% are working among unreached peoples. To put it

another way, of all the missionaries in the world (using a narrow definition of the word missionarv ) nearly one-half ( ) are working,with the people of Latin America (including theCaribbean)^and sub-Saharan Africa. Using the same narrow definition, we find that only 3.5are working with the people of Eurasia (Central Asia) and the Middle East (including Turkey)and North Africa. To putityet another way, tliere are over 400 missionaries per one million nonChristians in Latin America, and only seven missionaries per one million non-Christians in theMiddle East and North Africa. Our prayer should be are we using our mission resourceswisely ?



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baumann ronald marti 1998 turkish world outreach

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