Roes Update August 2006

Dear Friends and Family,

We have just completed a new DVD about that contains a video of a short term mission team installing one of our eDOT’s eLearning Centers in the Ukraine. Check it out at –> http://www.roesgarden.com/2006/08/prayer-requests/elearning-center-video/ . The DVD also has videos about why Europe is a mission field and the latest video about our ministry eDOT (electronic Discipleship Outreach Training). If you would be interested in receiving one of these DVD’s to share with your friends or your church, please email us.

We also wanted to tell you about some exciting new initiatives that eDOT is starting this fall:

• Translation of a Moody Bible Institute course into Farsi (the language of Iran). By the year 2020, 40% of Europe’s population will be ethnically Middle Eastern. With such a huge influx of people, eDOT is working with several organizations to make an impact for Christ with these immigrants. But by providing these resources in Farsi (and soon Arabic) online, the impact will not only be in Europe, but wherever the Internet and these languages exist.
• Visiting All Nations Christian College in the UK in September to help them start a distance learning program. This is a missions college for training people for cross cultural missions service anywhere in the world.
• Participating in an internet conference for reaching Muslims.
• Rapidly finishing the first course being translated into Italian where the classes will begin in September.

We are excited about what eDOT is doing and look forward to when we are with the team in Europe working on these projects full time. We just need to raise 25% more of our monthly support before we can set a departure date and go. Please continue to pray for eDOT and for us.

Your friends,

Courtney and Krista Roes
www.RoesGarden.com

Greatest Fear

Normally when God calls someone to another culture to serve as a missionary, their first fears are “Am I going to miss my family?” or “Will I be able to survive the elements?” My fear came in the question of “Oh God, please don’t make me buy one of those really small cars?!?!” You see, I’m not exactly a small guy. I stand 6 ft tall (1.83 meters) and over 200 lbs or over 91 kg (way over). My first vehicle that I drove was a 1979 GMC Suburban with a 454 engine in it. That equates to something like a 7.2 liter engine. I once had 15 people in there. (this was before seat belt laws) Once a VW bus rear-ended it only to total the bus and there wasn’t even a scratch on the Suburban. It helped that the Suburban had a dual ball hitch on the back that went into the engine block of the VW.

But the vehicles that came to mind when I thought about moving to Europe (especially with a heart for Eastern Europe) were the old Soviet made vehicles that you could dent by hand (and subsequently pop out the dent by hand too). These vehicles have two cylinder engines in them which are smaller than some of the motorcycles found in the US. I have a weird fear that I am going to be in one of these things, be in an accident, and have a permanent suit of armor around me.

Well, now because of the increase of gas prices in the US, the Smart Car is coming. Not until 2008 but that may be because it only has a 60 HP engine and it’s a long drive from Europe. You see, most of the world has been dealing with high gas prices for a while and so they have learned to minimize their vehicles but not here in the US where a Hummer is considered the next minivan. Why even the “mini”-van is no longer even remotely small. But now with the over $3/gallon prices (which is really nothing to the over $7/gallon in Europe), the US is starting to see smaller can be better.

I am now resigned to the fact that the Smart car would be a fun car to drive. I hear they get special permission to be “creative” in their parking.

eLearning Center Video

One of the opportunities that we get to be a part of as members of eDOT is to help in the installation of eLearning Centers in Eastern Europe which are used to help facilitate online discipleship training and for outreach opportunities. This summer an eLearning Center was installed in Yalta, Ukraine. (I blogged about it in God & 10 People – What could happen?) From the pictures and stories that came from that trip, we put together the video (shown below) to help those that want to know more about what happens at an eLearning Center, may be interested going on a short-term trip with eDOT to install an eLearning Center, or just may be interested to see one of the reasons I (Courtney) will be traveling to the Ukraine once we are on board with eDOT full time. Check out the video:

Please continue to pray for us:

• Pray for the continued success of the eLearning Centers as a way for people to be drawn into the church in Eastern Europe and as a way for people to be discipled as those that are living in Christ.
• Pray for us as we are continuing to raise our monthly support funds. We have commitments for 75% of our monthly needs. At 90% we can buy our plane tickets and set a date for our departure which we would like to be in October (which would mean we would need to hit 90% in September)
• Pray for the eDOT team as they are working hard to get courses into Italian as a new school there is starting online education this fall.

We have also created a DVD with the video shown above and two other videos: Post-Modern Europe – which explains why Europe is a mission field and eDOT’s video – which shows a lot more about all the different ways eDOT is using technology to build the church in Europe. We will be sending this DVD to some strategic people but if you would like to make sure you receive a copy, just drop us an email.

The Tooth Fairy visits (repeatedly)

As you can guess from this photo, we have had a special visitor to my parents’ house (that’s where we are living right now). The tooth fairy has come not once but three times in the past couple of weeks to our house carrying her bag of quarters. Alex is now missing the two top and two bottom front teeth plus two teeth in the back. We are still trying to figure out how he is eating but the missing teeth haven’t slowed him down any. If you didn’t look at him, you would think he was a teenage boy with all that he has been eating lately. You have to love this smile as it is the one he will be entering into kindergarten with this next week. Wow, time flys.

PS – We have a new poll up on the site (on the right side). Please let me know your thoughts?

I never learned how to write

Apparently, I just had a holiday that I didn’t even know to celebrate. You see, August 13th is “Left Handers Day” and yes, I am what so many of you refer to as a southpaw. So yesterday I saw a web article about this holiday with a bunch of links to different sites about being Left Handed. One of these articles talked about how a left handed person should learn to write long hand or as some say, cursive. I had never learned this.

I grew up when they were stopping teachers from trying to “correct” left handedness here in the US (but it is still happening in many parts of the world) but teachers did not know how to teach a left hander how to write. I was actually taught to hold my paper tilting the top of the paper to the left (left handers should actually tilt to the right or some even say to put the paper at a 90 degree angle to the right). My writing was horrendous. My left hand was continuously covered with pencil lead from writing that way. I got high marks in almost all of my classes except penmanship. I would write papers and get bad grades just because the teacher couldn’t read them. So in about third grade, my mom pulled out our manual typewriter and taught me to type my papers.

Ironically, as the manual typewriter got replaced by an electric one. Then that was replaced by a word processor and then with a personal computer, my typing skills got to the point where I was faster at a keyboard than with a pen and paper. It was also my dependence on the computer to complete my school work that led me into working with computers.

I have to believe it was God’s foresight that allowed me to have a teacher that didn’t know how to teach a left hander to write. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be the computer geek that I am and I wouldn’t have the skills needed to work with our ministry eDOT. Isn’t God great?

What things has God been doing in your life to prepare you for what He has called you to do? If you say “Nothing”, then I suggest you look closer.

Suppose heaven didn’t exist

“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

—Alfred Tennyson, British poet (1809-1892)

Suppose heaven didn’t exist. Suppose the question of where our immortal souls go beyond this life existence was just fact. Every soul went to the same place no matter how we live our lives here on Earth. They all went to hell. I’m not talking about a place where there’s a man with horns and a pitchfork. No, I am talking about a place where there is no chance of having an intimate relationship with God. No relationship whatsoever.

How would this affect how we live our lives today?
Read more >>

Brad Pitt, my twin brother

Krista found this site, http://www.myheritage.com(click on Face Recognition) where you can upload a picture and it tells you what famous celebrities you look like. We uploaded a picture of me and it said that I was a 63% match to Brad Pitt. Go figure? Krista said she knew it all along. Do you see the resemblance?