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Starting in February i will only use my main blog www.brentdongell.com for updates. Please feel free to ask questions about what you would like to see or know that is going on. Thanks.

Last Few Weeks and This Week: Transitions

Last Few Weeks:

Thank you for those who prayed for my health while the IWU(Indiana Wesleyan University) missions team was here. After 2 days rest I was back in action although I lost my voice and haven’t completely gotten it back until a couple of days ago!

Evy's Last Dinner

The IWU team Leaving

At the Gathering family camp where the (IWU team helped out) we had 12 kids make decisions for the Lord.

On June 10 I sent the IWU team and Evy Mazellan who had become a close friend and surfing buddy back home to the US. (it is ridiculous, but you can watch part of my goodbye present to him here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ4VXKCREnI)

I took a few days to rest that weekend afterwards!

This Week:
I found housing for me after my roommate Graeme Els gets married to Annie Wright on July 4 and they live in our current place.

I have a great opportunity to go to the nights of Hillsong Conference July 7-10 in Sydney Australia, and then spend a few extra days in Australia.

Following that, My parents have also made it possible for me to go on the family vacation July 18-30 in Lexington and Holden beach North Carolina. This will be great so I can spend time with the family and meet my new nephew Kylan Jackson.

We will also be visiting my grandparents on the farm who are in their later years of life. They practically are the coolest and godliest grandparents ever!

What this means:
I move to a temporary spot for two weeks before I head to Australia and the US in July.

When I return I will move into Jeff and Beth Fussner’s place.

Since the Fussners are moving to the US I will be without the huge support I have received from them, although cession|community and the Jones family will be a big help.

It will also mark close to the midpoint of my 2 year commitment here in New Zealand and so I will have to more seriously start prayerfully considering my next placement after my 2 year commitment here is done.

Tongan group praying

God answers prayers:

Although my voice was gone longer, my actual sickness only kept me down for a few days.

God has provided a great housing opportunity for me in this high stress time.

My ministry is expanding: I was able to sit down with a Nazerene missions team and brief them on New Zealand.

I will spend a day prepping Phil V, an exchange student from Germany, who became a Christian here in New Zealand and is returning to a less spiritually encouraging situation back at home.
I came expecting God to affirm a call to evangelism, but instead he is really reaffirming my heart to disciple and mentor: I am closely involved and working with a lot of young adults who are either up and coming youth leaders or people who are trying to reengage and take their life and Christian walk more seriously.

Last Week This Week MultiCultural Experience

LAST WEEK:
Evangelism Conference: I spent the majority of the week at the Evangelism conference for the Wesleyan Methodist church.
Very multicultural and fun. I sometimes wonder if i wasn't meant to be have a different colored skin.

Youth Rally on Friday Night at a Samoan Methodist Church: The rest of the stories come from this rally. There were over a thousand people there!
You can see a some of the performances below.

Can you give a greeting… and solo?!? Ozzie, the host came to me during the rally since the other “European” who was supposed to give a greeting didn’t show. Soon, I was wearing a t-shirt standing up on stage next to guys in a button up shirt and suit saying, “Greetings in the name of Jesus.” Then Oz called us back up and said, "Now they are each going to lead a hymn in their traditional language! Of course English came up first, It was “O for a thousand tongues” which I know some words to, but then I found out they sing it to a British melody which is different than how we sing it in America! talk about suffering for the gospel…

Kids sniffing powder… Crazy! This was mind boggling to me. At the youth rally I saw two boys playing on the floor with paper and dirt or candy powder or what ever they had. What I didn’t realize until they were bending down to sniff it was that they had been pounding the candy down into powder and using the paper to put it in a line to sniff like you would drugs. How in the world would they know how to do this unless they have seen it done before? When I asked them their age they said they were eight years old. I attached a picture.

“We are going to welcome back up the Tongans, Fijians, Samoans, Koreans, and Brent.” As Ozzie called us back up to the stage this was what he said. …apparently I became my own nationality this week.

Wow... I know a Christian now! One of our most talented and evangelistic teens, Sela Sosoli, who played the keyboard and sang said that after the rally one of her old school friends found her and made the comment above. She said she was there because she had to be, but definitely wasn’t a Christian and shocked to know that she had a Christian friend... Sela!

THIS WEEK:

• Heavy week of Master's homework
• Dinner with a young fringe couple in the church
• Schedule prep for the IWU mission’s team coming in 2 weeks
• Organizing an All Youth Leaders meeting across the Wesleyan churches this Saturday
• Inviting nonChristian neighbors to dinner tomorrow night.

A Cultural Experience!

LAST WEEK:
Evangelism Conference: I spent the majority of the week at the Evangelism conference for the Wesleyan Methodist church.
Very multicultural and fun. I sometimes wonder if i wasn't meant to be have a different colored skin.

Youth Rally on Friday Night at a Samoan Methodist Church: The rest of the stories come from this rally. There were over a thousand people there!
You can see a some of the performances below.

Can you give a greeting… and solo?!? Ozzie, the host came to me during the rally since the other “European” who was supposed to give a greeting didn’t show. Soon, I was wearing a t-shirt standing up on stage next to guys in a button up shirt and suit saying, “Greetings in the name of Jesus.” Then Oz called us back up and said, "Now they are each going to lead a hymn in their traditional language! Of course English came up first, It was “O for a thousand tongues” which I know some words to, but then I found out they sing it to a British melody which is different than how we sing it in America! talk about suffering for the gospel…

Kids sniffing powder… Crazy! This was mind boggling to me. At the youth rally I saw two boys playing on the floor with paper and dirt or candy powder or what ever they had. What I didn’t realize until they were bending down to sniff it was that they had been pounding the candy down into powder and using the paper to put it in a line to sniff like you would drugs. How in the world would they know how to do this unless they have seen it done before? When I asked them their age they said they were eight years old. I attached a picture.

“We are going to welcome back up the Tongans, Fijians, Samoans, Koreans, and Brent.” As Ozzie called us back up to the stage this was what he said. …apparently I became my own nationality this week.

Wow... I know a Christian now! One of our most talented and evangelistic teens, Sela Sosoli, who played the keyboard and sang said that after the rally one of her old school friends found her and made the comment above. She said she was there because she had to be, but definitely wasn’t a Christian and shocked to know that she had a Christian friend... Sela!

THIS WEEK:

• Heavy week of Master's homework
• Dinner with a young fringe couple in the church
• Schedule prep for the IWU mission’s team coming in 2 weeks
• Organizing an All Youth Leaders meeting across the Wesleyan churches this Saturday
• Inviting nonChristian neighbors to dinner tomorrow night.

Last Week in Pictures & This Week

PUB DISCUSSION-A group that held a forum on questions about God in the local pub.  Cool incarnational concept in a drinking culture with good conversations where this approach is not to taboo!

• YOUTH HIKE- Went on a youth hike on saturday.
   Paul Milbank who is the youth leader and forest guide for the day, :) is also the one who has asked me to be the best man in his wedding and we work closely together with cession|community right now.
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
• FALL'S COMING- New Zealand is going into fall and I'm seeing a lot more yellow and red leaves then two years ago when i was here. 
• LIFEKIDZ VOLUNTEERING-
  
  
  
  
  
  Lifekids is a holiday program that runs for physically and mentally challenged kids during the week on the property where we have church on the weekends.  We help out on field trips when they need extra volunteers as an act of service and a few pictures are included here as well.

Last Week, This Week

A few cession|community pictures

Raglan- a great surf beach

evening meal before service

Yeah Kids Table

Last Week
Here are excerpts from two messages i received from the coffee shop friend who has returned home to Sweden saying,
"just wanna tell u that all that u and heidi did for me made me feel so blessed and improved my relationship with God too.
I got my [purity] ring from my grandma and I wear it with pride and I just feel like a new, happier person."

"here(Sweden) its so hard to find people who wants to do something fun without alcohol. miss hanging with people who have some imagination! u know?
id love to have you and heidi to sort of keep me motivated you know? specially about the ring, just because its pretty new to me. but at the same time it has made me just a more "at peace" person, and happier. and god is on my side and he helps me. I thank god everyday for leading me to you guys, because it gave me so much. and I just realy needed to talk about it with people that understood. and it helped a lot!
no im not with him anymore, he wasnt realy that understanding about the ring. and I have to be with someone who respects it and understands, otherwise it wont work.
and ive decided to step back from boys, and focus on me and my relationship with god.
and if i do decide sometime in the future to be with someone it has to be with a guys that has my beliefs. u know?"
Cool huh!?!"

This Week
I have some heavy planning to do with organizing the schedule details for the IWU missions team that comes in less than a month on top of my regular schedule. Really cool conversations are taking place right now. One person asked just recently why "heaven was so important?" and at a discussion forum last night a guy asked, "So does that mean i am going to hell?" and "Do Christians think they are a superior religion?" Some very nitty gritty and good conversations happening. Thanks for your prayers and support.

I attached a picture of Raglan. This Saturday, I took a group of 7 others surfing and it was a good opportunity to build relationships on the 2 hours drive both ways
I attached a few pictures of cession|community and the meal we have before the night service. Yeah for the kids table!

This Week Last Week Good questions in Cell Group

Here is me in my Easter Suit! yeah, i was the only one wearing anything close to an easter suit this last Sunday, although people thoroughly enjoy that i still wore brown sandals (called jandals here) with the outfit.




i
Last Week: We had our interactive stations of the cross exhibit running all easter weekend. This was a good opportunity for a few people to visit our church that wouldn't otherwise come. Stations included things such as weaving as an act of committing to help with poverty in the world, observing art, watching a video on suffering, collecting blankets for the city mission, etc. At cell group we had one person discuss how they were trying to reclaim their faith. The solution wasn't as easy as asking them to say a prayer of confession, but you can help me to prayer for a reassurance with this individual in their heart and mind of the truth of God and Christianity.




This Week: Students are on 2 week holiday so this is a good time to connect with teens, and this will also be a big week for easter followup. One of my big responsibilities is supporting the church plant at cession|community and creating a system for contacts and followup to really target and value newcomers will be one of my crowning achievements over the next couple months.

Last Weekend This Weekend

Last Weekend:
cession|community put on our annual Easter Egg Hunt for about 340 visitors which is up from the years before.   This was a great community event and with a lot of positive feedback and a lot of followup on my part to do over the next few weeks!





This Weekend:cession|community puts on our Stations of the Cross exhibit all weekend. This is another way of cession being able to express itself artistically and reach out to the community in its own way.
Cell Group: Since March, i have been starting to lead a cell group which has been a huge blessing. The cell group is small but already culturally diverse: american, fijian, samoan, and 2 from vanuatu. One girl mentioned that she had not been to church since her dad had died since she had felt forced growing up. We had a dinner at my place a few nights ago and invited some people outside of the church and made some really good connections in providing steps for them to get involved in a church setting or cell in the near future.

Thanks for your prayers.
Brent Dongell

Connecting Through Surfing

So anyone that knows me, knows that i use my recreation as the easiest way to connect, teach, and enjoy other people.
Well this last weekend, i was able to take 7 others down to a batch overnight on the east coast of New Zealand called Tairua. This was the sunset on Saturday from the place.
The first night we went out to the beach adn the stars were beautiful, here was my picture of the southern cross
I was testing out the waters on teaching people how to surf because i have had so many people that are interested in learning. So i organized this trip to see how i would do.
I was also really excited about the group. Vanessa and B are twins from Vanautu and Vanessa helps out with a Nazerene youth group that the Wesleyan churches have tried to be working more closely with. It was fun to see them connect with Paul who is the youth pastor at the church where i am at cession|community. Daniel(between them) is their good friend and also goes to cession. Jason is one of the teens in the youth group and it was good to see him stretch himself. Rachel (to the left) is a youth leader with Paul, and Evy is now a good friend who is my surfing buddy and was helping teach a little. He gave a morning thought about how the waves are like our lives that was really thought provoking, which was also awesome and a big step for him.
It was cool to see the group gel together and to see new and deeper friendships being formed. God was awesome for providing a good and safe weekend. On a social front it was a total success. On a surfing front, I wish the first time surfers would've stood up, but it was a good learning step to see what i am capable of in leading. Cool.