Chiang Mai, as a whole, has done well in managing COVID-19 with 42 confirmed cases reported, and we see restrictions slightly lifting this month. The pandemic occurred during the annual Thai new year called Songkhran, and everyone honored the government’s requests to stay at home and not go out to celebrate.

“Confinement” to our houses in Spain only permits people to leave their living quarters to go straight to work and back, to the ATM machines, to buy food or medicine, or to walk their dogs close to home. As of today, the police have fined around 400 people across Spain for civil disobedience to their orders as they were unable to prove their reason for running around. 

SALUNGA, Pa. —  Dave Houser began his role as the discipleship coach for Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) on August 3, 2020. Houser’s first major project is launching a pilot program called Advance, which is a short-term, U.S.-based program for discipleship and mission training.

LANCASTER, Pa. — COVID-19 has forced many people to embrace new forms of resilience, often spurring on great creativity. Two Lancaster leaders serving the refugee and immigrant communities have been doing just that: Patience Buckwalter, executive director of the Grape Leaf Empowerment Center, and Krista Martin, Eastern Mennonite Missions’ (EMM) Kingdom Team director. 

NAIROBI, Kenya — As the world faced COVID-19, gathering food for Ramadan celebrations was difficult in places like Nairobi. Many workplaces shut down due to COVID-19, and as a result, many Kenyans lost their income, facing significant food insecurity.

How can we engage and equip the thousands of church leaders in Africa who have little or no biblical training? How does the church multiply and grow under these circumstances?

In January 2016, I returned to Prague after a year in the U.S. to find Petra, a young woman new to our church, leading a Bible study and mentoring three to four young women.

Multiplication is the heartbeat of EMM. When my parents were church planters with Eastern Board (now EMM) and Lancaster Conference (now LMC) in northeast Pennsylvania, they were part of a group of church plants that multiplied from Wilkes-Barre Christian Fellowship (out of the Weaverland district of Lancaster Conference.) 

On a blustery afternoon, I grabbed an umbrella as protection from the sun and slid on my flip flops. Leaving my boisterous home-schoolers with my husband, Steve, I walked around the corner to my neighbor’s house. 

Christ’s transforming love compels us. These are the first five words of our mission statement. We recognize that Christ’s love is not static — it is transformative. This means that we expect Christ’s love to change us to be more like Him. This kind of transformation happens when we approach God with a posture of humility, repentance, and openness to what Jesus might have to show us.