After weeks of waiting, our team finally got to return to the Grapevine in Bangkok, Thailand, just across the “death road” from Thammasat University. After an unusually wet monsoon season, flooding came to Bangkok (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15867661) starting in October from the north and affected an estimated 12.8 million people, including our team, campus, campus house and students. Thankfully, there was enough warning for our people to get out and find high ground. A special thanks goes out to the Muang Thai Church and former Globalscopers Andy and Jen May for helping out and housing folks for us during the almost 2 months that our team was displaced.

However, as you can see, there is a lot of work left to be done and unfortunately a lot of furniture, decorations and household items will need to be replaced. Probably the most expensive casualty was the soundboard. This past week our team, Michal Ruth Penwell, Beth West, Grace Curtright and Bank Light, worked diligently to clean all of the dirt, mud and mold from the entire campus house. We just received an update that they were almost done cleaning, just a little bit in the kitchen to go. Monday afternoon they were headed to the mall to buy paint, carpets, bookshelves, a kitchen pantry, kitchen utensils and surge protectors. They are also going to be scouting out couches, tables and chairs.

By our best estimates, it looks like about $6000 will cover all of the things that need replacing in the Grapevine. Would you be willing to make a one-time donation to help the Grapevine recover from the floods? The new semester starts January 9 and our goal is to be ready to go by then. Any amount would be greatly appreciated and would help us continue to reach college students in Thailand for Christ and bring His Kingdom here on earth. If you’re interested in giving, you can give on this site at http://cmfi.org/bangkok-thailand (look for the urgent box on the right). Please pass this along and share the news on facebook with anyone else who might be interested in helping us out.

While the El Pozo campus ministry in Puebla, Mexico, is dedicated to being culturally relevant to its Mexican students, the CMF team takes the lead once a year to share an American tradition that means so much to them: Thanksgiving.

Last year, for example, the ministry had about 200 people at the annual Thanksgiving lunch, including 50 children from a local orphanage. This year, the team decided to separate the two events and focus on Thanksgiving with the students and have a Christmas party for the kids from the orphanage. “We planned for 120-150 people and, as usual, cooked all day on Wednesday and Thursday to make sure the mega Thanksgiving feast was ready,” says Kami Burns, leader of the Globalscope Mexico team in Puebla.

“So the students started to arrive,” reports Kami, “and they didn’t stop. We started serving food at 2:15 p.m. and at 3:15 the line was still 40 people long! The portions had to get smaller, but every single one of the 230 people who showed up to celebrate Thanksgiving with El Pozo ate turkey, dressing, green beans, mixed vegetables and pineapple casserole and washed it down with some sweet tea.”

Kami and her teammates couldn’t help but be amazed as the day unfolded. “As I was carrying casseroles from our kitchen out to the serving line, pushing my way through the crowd, tears came to my eyes as the weight of the miracle that was happening out in the new building would hit me. Not only the fact that it was a huge ministry event and that the food was going much further than it should have (loaves and fishes, anyone?) but I was so blessed by the presence of the individuals represented by each of the 230 plates of food.”

Baruk, a freshman student, spoke for many: “I’m thankful for the staff here. They’ve accepted me just as I am since the beginning.” His friend Luis then thanked Baruk for inviting him to El Pozo and added, “I guess I’m still new here, but I feel like I belong because I’ve been accepted and loved.”

And Kami and the El Pozo staff had a wonderful Thanksgiving to remember. “I’m just thankful for those two and their 228 friends who brought me to tears on Thursday by showing their gratitude for El Pozo,” she said.

Have you or someone you know benefitted from being a part of a campus ministry? CMF’s Globalscope international campus ministry provides these important communities in countries with little other Christian influence. You can be a part of a simple and inexpensive way to take campus ministry around the world!

Today we are starting The Great Globalscope Give, a Text-to-Give campaign designed to help raise funds for our Globalscope ministries…one $10 donation at a time.  Just text GLOBAL to 85944 and reply YES to make a $10 tax-deductible donation to Globalscope international campus ministries.

The funds will go to help sustain and grow our campus ministries in Chile, Mexico, England, Germany, Spain and Thailand. This campaign started today and will run through Wednesday, November 23. Check out this video and please share it with anyone who has a heart for campus ministry.

Caleb Mallard is a rarity in his culture: a native Englishman who is also an evangelical Christian. He knows from first-hand experience how few people in England are Christians, or even see the relevance of the Church in our secular world.

Caleb earned a theology degree from Birmingham Christian College and has served as the pastor of Dickens Heath Village Church for the past seven years, while also working with Canvas, the Globalscope team in Birmingham that works with students at the University there. He’s currently moving into a full-time ministry with Canvas because, in his experience, “there are no ministries in the UK that are engaging with non-Christians and atheist students as well as Canvas.”

After living in Birmingham for the past 10 years, Caleb has a real passion for the university students. That, coupled with his experience working in a local church, has convinced him that the British church has to develop “a completely missional mindset,” he says. “That is one of our (the Church’s) greatest challenges. God has put it on my heart to engage with those who are missed by the Church.”

Caleb is always pleasantly surprised at how well the Canvas team members engage with atheist students, and how willing the students are to talk about Jesus. “It just doesn’t happen here in the UK, and without God in it, Canvas wouldn’t be able to operate the way it does,” he says.

Recently, the Canvas team has been able to connect many of it’s non-Christian students into a leadership group that looks for ways to better serve and reach out to people who aren’t part of the community. “These are students who don’t know Jesus yet, but they’re committed to what Canvas is, and that blows my mind!” he says. “God is at work in their lives and they don’t even realize it!”

Steve and Kay Carpenter of CMF’s Mexico team recently announced that the property transfer of the former Eagles school facility in northwest Mexico City was completed on Oct. 20 after seven years of fund-raising and legal work. CMF is now the owner of the building that is the home of the Eagles Christian Church.

The property was purchased from Medical Teams International (MTI) and their ministry in Mexico, Manos de Vida. The building was originally built as a school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Atizapan de Zaragoza in northwest Mexico City. It is an understatement to say it is heavily used in CMF’s ministry in the area. In addition to worship services, Bible studies, Sunday school, weddings and baptisms, the facility is used as a community center and a missionary school. It also serves as a host site for community seminars, cookouts, dinners, marriage seminars, youth sleepovers, soccer teams and tournaments, medical clinics, English and homework clubs, men’s breakfasts and even garage sales.

“This is a much-used, much-appreciated and much-prayed-over piece of property that is really an instrument of God’s grace,” wrote Steve. “His people have used this property in one manner or another for many years. We thank God for making this moment possible and for entrusting us as His stewards of the property and His message in the Eagles neighborhood.”

When Michael Tomczak went to Thailand recently as an exchange student to work with the Globalscope campus ministry team in Bangkok, he never expected to be sitting in the mud in the middle of the night surrounded by Thai classmates on the edge of a four-foot sandbag barricade that is the last line of defense between a flooding country and it’s capital city. However, as the devastating floods continue, that where he and other members of the Grapevine team have been hard at work for three straight days.

Beth West, a member of the Grapevine team, sent a quick report this weekend, in between stints with Michael at the sandbag barricade and shelter. She had high praise for the “new kid,” who “not knowing Thai, jumped in and worked all day to protect a country that isn’t his alongside people shouting instructions he can’t understand. After three straight days of work, everyone knows his name, that he will do anything you ask, without a word of complaint.”

Meanwhile, Beth also reports a growing camaraderie among the workers at the flood zone. After the final exams were posted many students at Thammasat University went home, but those who remained are taking care of the 2,400 plus victims at the flood shelter on campus and building a floodwall at the canal near the river.

“We’re building ridiculously awesome and close relationships with the students,” she writes. “Maybe we have seen each other before in passing, but we’re now bonded together with water, sand, sweat and energy drinks. Everything on my body hurts, but that’s about par for the course here. We’re been working around the clock. I just got up from four hours sleep after 20 hours of work, and that schedule will continue for at least a few more days until the real flood surge comes.”

Beth West, a member of CMF’s Globalscope Bangkok campus ministry team, shared news this week about the devastating floods in north and central Thailand, and reports that the waters are moving further south every day.

“Right now the team and I are safe and will continue to be all right, but many people have lost their homes and more than 300 people have died,” writes Beth.

Much of north and central Thailand is under one to two meters of water right now. The historic province of Ayutthaya, home to a number of Grapevine students, has been especially hard hit. Students report that their families are safe, but their houses are uninhabitable.

The flooding is expected to move into the Pathum Thani province just north of Bangkok where the team is located by this weekend (Oct. 16).

“Today the roads are wet but passable, though transportation is hard to find and stores are beginning to run out of stock as people make preparations,” she said. “For the past few days we’ve been working side by side with our Thai neighbors to create sand bag walls.”

Thammasat, the university where the team ministers, is hosting flood evacuees in an old gym and may soon open up shelter in the stadium just across the street from the Grapevine facility. “Yesterday I went to the shelter to volunteer with a student. We spent a lot of time looking for extra space and clearing and cleaning rooms to make sleeping space for the estimated 1300 plus people who will come to the shelter,” said Beth. “We plan to take a group from Grapevine to volunteer, and hopefully those students will return to help as they have time.”

At their Wednesday evening Bible study, the group focused its prayers on Thailand and the flooding victims. The staff also cut the cost of the free dinner they serve for the students each week and used the remainder of the budget to purchase canned goods to donate to the relief effort. Students brought donations of clothing, towels and toiletries, and packed bags to take to the donation site.

The team appreciates your prayers and concern. “Please continue to pray for the people who have lost their homes and family members, as well as the organizations, volunteers, and government agencies trying to help the flood victims,” writes Beth. “Please also pray that our community at Grapevine, both Christians and non-Christians alike, would take full hold of the opportunity to spread the love and peace of Christ in a tumultuous situation.”

CMF Mobilization Director Shannon Garcia has a very long list of available opportunities to serve on the mission field, but three fields have risen to the top of her “urgent” pile.

At the very top of the heap is an outstanding opportunity for the right person on the other side of the world. An Asian manufacturing facility owned by an American corporation in a large East Asian city is looking for an energetic self-starter with a bachelor’s degree in chemical, mechanical or industrial engineering, or a related field. Two or more years of applicable work experience is also required. The primary responsibility would be to evaluate, improve and document plant-manufacturing processes. On the ministry side, the job offers many opportunities for interaction with national plant employees and for participation with the established CMF team in varied community outreach activities.

In addition, the Globalscope teams in both Mexico and Thailand are looking for young, committed, singles or married couples to reach out to college students.

The Mexico team is specifically looking for single males and married couples who will commit to the ministry for two or more years to work with students at the Universidad de Las Americas (UDLA) in Puebla, Mexico.

The Thailand team is specifically looking for self-starters, single or married, who have the initiative to learn the Thai language, create campus events and programs, and add a new dynamic to the Grapevine ministry to college students in Bangkok. The team is also in need of people who have experience in finance and/or administration or multimedia experience (photos and video).

Sound interesting? Shannon would love to hear from you and can share lots more information about these and other opportunities to begin your cross-cultural adventure.

Gene and Melba Morden (Turkana, Kenya) report that bandits have been raiding farms and murdering innocent people, including children, in surprise attacks along the Kerio River in Turkana over the past several weeks.

The bandits are using cell phones to coordinate their attacks, in which they steal livestock and shoot the farmers. Four people were killed by the bandits this past Friday alone in Kangirisae. Another was killed at his irrigated farm at Nachoto, only six km. south of Nakor, where the Mordens previously lived. This was the fourth attack in two weeks along the Kerio River.

“All the people east of the river had forded to the west, and now everyone on the west, including the kids in the primary school, is reported to have run for their lives,” writes Gene Morden. “Everyone is scared. They are away from the only source of water at the river. We pray they have found the courage to go to the hand pumps further north.”

The police have been slow to get involved, but have finally begun to engage in the situation, he added, and have reportedly caught at least one of the bandits. The government came through the area and disarmed the local populace a short time ago, so they had no guns with which to defend themselves.

“We are praying for a stop to the violence and for peace to return,” writes Gene, “but how do you go back to your farm where your husband, father, brother, friend was shot dead? The Turkana usually desert places where bad things have happened. Pray that people will soon return to their homes, gardens and clean water.”

More than 140 participants, including 68 campers and 72 caregivers, attended a camp for the mentally and physically challenged in Bakchesserye, Ukraine, recently, reports CMF missionary June Johnson, a nurse who served on the medical staff of the camp.

Only about 20 percent of the participants were Christians. The youngest camper was 3 years old and the oldest is in his 50s. Each day’s program began with a “wake up/work out” to words and music that made everyone wiggle and grin. After breakfast, they studied the life of Abraham in small groups, and attended morning and evening worship services with skits, a message, puppets and songs.

Several of June’s colleagues assisted at the camp. Dr.Ludmilla works with June at the Premorski Church clinic and Era is an associate from the Berdanski Church clinic. In addition, a  team from the Ukraine Christian Medical Association traveled five hours south to serve all week. They brought a surgeon/dentist with two assistants who performed some minor procedures and pulled teeth. Another team member fitted reading glasses and another gave massages.

The families of the campers were overwhelmed by the care given to their special needs relatives. When June asked the mother of a 20-year-old autistic man how the camp had met her expectations, the mother responded with tears and amazement in her voice: “The attention . . . these young healthy leaders give so much attention to the children.”

“The Great Gardener, master and owner of His orchard, desired to share Himself with them and He did that by harvesting the fruits of the Spirit from the program team, teenage helpers, local church members, medical staff and kitchen crew,” June writes. “Love gets you out of bed after only five hours of sleep to help a wheelchair-bound 20-year-old get ready for the day. Joy makes you sprint up the hill to help carry a wheelchair-bound 50-year-old man down to the beach. Peace brings a smile when three boys with Down’s syndrome clamor to get your attention at once. Patience understands that her anger is out of fear. Kindness offers to feed him so that his mom can eat her meal. Goodness prompts you to play peek-a-boo with an 18-year-old just because it makes her smile. Self-control calmly answers the same question for the 32^nd time.”

“As believers, we are called to bear spiritual fruit for God’s use,” she adds. “The fruit is our gift back to God for His glory. Once again, it was an honor to serve alongside all of these Ukrainian Christians because they were like a free, you-pick orchard, open 24/7 to everyone. Their fruit wasn’t plastic but real and ripe, sweet and for the taking.”