50 Million in 10 Years
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Author: East-West Ministries
Pioneers of Faith
Spreading light through dark lands
When the Soviet Union fell to pieces, it left not only Russia but also all of its former nations in spiritual darkness. As more individuals caught the vision of what God was doing through East-West, they supported the ministry and its expansion into new regions—like the former Soviet nations of Central Asia.
Consumed by the hopelessness of atheism in the early nineties, Central Asians desperately needed the love of Christ … and they needed a leader to advocate for the gospel within the region.
During an East-West evangelism training in Russia in 1994, God brought the right leader, Alek*. Alek traveled from Central Asia to attend this training, where he learned evangelism and church planting methods that he could use to ignite the spread of the gospel in his own dark nation.
Through his training and continued support from East-West, Alek has been enabled to train like-minded leaders to be pioneers—spreading the gospel message in their spiritually dark nations.
Even though his nation’s religious identity has now shifted from atheism to Islam, Alek still perseveres to share the gospel with his own people.
“It is challenging work because 99% of the people identify themselves as Muslims,” Alek said. “It is also exciting work because we know that a system of rules or rituals cannot change a person’s heart, but God’s love and grace can change their eternity.”
Today Alek has seen the gospel penetrate not only his nation but four neighboring nations as well. By being intentional each day to evangelize the lost, train new leaders, and plant churches that multiply, he and his fellow ministry partners are seeing gospel movements spreading across the former Soviet nations.
Trusting God
Sometimes I feel a real need to step back and take a look at my life and ask myself very penetrating questions. Questions like these:
- What do I consider my greatest weakness?
- What is God asking me to do that I keep putting off?
- Why do I have such fear in certain situations?
As I look at these questions and identify the areas I really need to grow in, I find it usually comes back to one big question … Will I trust God and step out by faith in His truth that is clear in the Scriptures?
Trusting God—choosing His way over your way—is the biggest issue in all of life.
It’s hard for me to even consciously think of not trusting God, especially since I have experienced nothing but His “goodness and mercy all the days of my life.” But my flesh is always at work to keep me from living out that trust.
Each new day brings the intense battle of “faith vs. sight” to the forefront of my life, and when the trust of His love and truth wins the fight, there are no regrets.
When we trust the Lord and step into His truth, we will always find blessings. But often those blessings don’t come right away or sometimes they come as a result of pain or difficulty. In those moments, it’s hard to let faith win the battle.
But when we truly recognize the truth of God and believe His plan—even the painful parts—to be covered with love and His best intentions for us, we will come to desire His will more deeply than anything the world can offer.
Jesus once said this:
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. –John 4:34
That should also be our response. If we believe everything we long for is found in Jesus Christ, then we need to trust God in His plan and say, “My food is to do all that Jesus asks of me.”
One discerning Christian leader once said, “We have all of Jesus we want. Not all we need, but all we want.”
We must call ourselves to a simple renewal of our desire for Jesus and our trust of the Father. We need to tell Him, “Yes, Lord. I trust you totally in this situation. Your will be done.”
God moves the world in harmony with His will for our lives. Today, at everything, may we say, “Thank You, Father, I trust You.”
John Maisel, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of East-West Ministries International, resides in Dallas, Texas. He has authored books such as Is Jesus God? and Radical Trust that challenge all people to radically rely on Jesus Christ.
Buy John Maisel’s latest book: Radical Trust. All proceeds benefit East-West Ministries.
Piercing the Darkness
In the beginning
When the Iron Curtain crumbled, an unprecedented opportunity surfaced—the opportunity to take the Good News of Jesus Christ into the former Soviet Union that had been crippled by decades of communism.
“Russia at that time was a total wasteland—economically and spiritually. It’s hard to imagine that people survived in the way they did when you look back. But when it opened up, it became evident that there was a deep hunger for truth and the gospel,” said Bud Toole, Co-Founder of East-West.
“We started underground in Russia, but the dynamics began to shift when the Iron Curtain fell. We could go into universities and even in the streets to tell people about Jesus Christ,” said John Maisel, Founder of East-West. “Handing out Bibles and literature was like giving water to someone who hadn’t had it in years. They would swarm around us in the streets, thirsty for God’s Word, even though they didn’t know what they would find.”
When John and Bud saw this thirst, they felt compelled to carry the Light into this dark territory and East-West was born.
“We just wanted to do our part and show up. God would demonstrate Himself if we did that,” John said. “Our only philosophy was to trust the Lord and be pioneers for the gospel in Russia.”
This same pioneering spirit of following God’s call to expel darkness still saturates East-West on every level—from the founders, to our missionaries, to you—our ministry supporters.
“We followed where He led us,” John said, “and He brought people alongside us to support His work. Whether they’ve been with us since the beginning or for a few days, we could not have accomplished anything without their support. The people touched by East-West are eternally grateful to our ministry supporters . . . as am I.”
“God has taken the ministry far beyond anything I could have imagined,” Bud said. “It has been the ultimate blessing of my life to see what God has done through this flawed bunch of nobodies. If we stay close to the cross, He’ll continue to bless the work we’re now doing all over the world.”
Then & Now: Short-Term Mission Trips
For twenty years, East-West has been taking the gospel to the nations. Almost since the beginning, we have had short-term mission trips that give people the opportunity to GO.
Pictured above is our very first short-term mission trip team. They went to Russia to share the gospel almost twenty years ago.
Now our mission field has extended beyond Russia. While we still send teams there, we also send them to South Asia to share the gospel in remote villages, to East Asia to teach students about Jesus through cultural exchanges, to Latin America to tell people about Jesus in their homes, and to orphanages or village children in various parts of the world to help them make Jesus their best friend.
We also take trips to Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Europe. And we’re developing new trips that will help you utilize your passions and gifts to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ in countries around the world.
What’s Your Priority?
Being willing to share Christ with people requires us to prioritize God’s kingdom values over our earthly values. There’s a tension there. But the decision all comes down to our spiritual values.
Just as with any investment, we won’t give up what we have right now unless we believe that we’re trading it for something even more valuable.
In order for us to share the Gospel boldly, we must value God’s glory more than we value our own. We must love people enough to take a risk so they can spend eternity in heaven instead of hell.
Everything that Jesus did was based upon His Father’s Kingdom values. The reason why He went to the cross—enduring pain, humiliation and rejection—is because He loves us more than we could ever imagine.
After all of that, this may come as a surprise to you. God’s #1 priority is not your personal happiness.
He is not after your promotion. He’s not after your fancier car or your bigger house. He is not after anything other than transforming you into the image of His Son … preparing you to rule with Christ for all eternity.
In order to fully understand our need to be bold witnesses, we must to truly grasp the brevity of this life. The Psalmist wrote:
Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. —Psalm 39:4-6
That sounds pretty grim. But in the very next verse, the Psalmist offers the reason for our hope:
But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. —Psalm 39:7
To have the right perspective, we must find where our hope should lie. Our hope found is in Christ, and Christ alone.
God says, “I love you. I made you. I designed you. I took residence within you. I created you in My image. I created to live the abundant life … but you’re not taking advantage of that abundance. You’re hopping like a rabbit instead of soaring like a bird.”
I don’t know what it means to lose my life, but I do know that the One who asked me to lose my life loves me with a perfect love.
I trust in that.
And I believe that when we trade in all our toys for the sake of His kingdom, God will say, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
John Maisel, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of East-West Ministries International, resides in Dallas, Texas. He has authored books such as Is Jesus God? and Radical Trust that challenge all people to radically rely on Jesus Christ.
Buy John Maisel’s latest book: Radical Trust. All proceeds benefit East-West Ministries.
Then & Now: Evangelistic Literature
We’re still celebrating our 20th anniversary this month. Let’s take a look at how another aspect of our ministry has developed in the last 20 years.
In the beginning we distributed evangelistic literature in the form of Bibles and New Testaments. The people in Russia were so hungry for truth, that they would swarm teams in the street to get their hands on Bibles (see photo above left). Eventually, that was a became a big part of the ministry so teams would bring in boxes and boxes of evangelistic literature to distribute throughout Russia (see above right).
Now, East-West has worked with several partners to develop evangelistic literature for people in all stages of coming to Christ. We then train the local believers how to use it to evangelize or start conversations with their neighbors (which you see in the top photo from East Asia).
Most of our literature is translated into multiple languages so that it can communicate the universal message of the gospel in many different nations (like in the middle photo from Latin America).
Some of our partners develop literature that is used during our mass media evangelism campaigns (like the bottom photo from India).
Then & Now: Staff
We’re celebrating East-West’s 20th anniversary all month long. Today, we’re looking at how our staff has grown over the last 20 years.
East-West started as a few men going into to Russia to evangelize and train the people. After a few years, another handful of men and women joined the cause as missionaries and support staff (as seen above).
But now, East-West has over 100 missionaries serving in more than 47 countries worldwide. Because our missionaries work in unreached and restricted access nations, we cannot include a recent photo of our field ministry staff for their safety.
Additionally, our support staff based in Texas has grown into several departments—like financial services, evangelism, human resources, development, moblization, training, and more—with a number of staff in each one. What a difference 20 years can make!
Owned by God, Part Four
The Ultimate Trust
When we think about whether or not we truly trust God as the owners of our lives, we cannot overlook the story of Abraham in Genesis 22. God tested him in a powerful way to make sure that he really did trust the promises he received many years before.The chapter starts with “And God tested Abraham.” To me this test is the apex of Abraham’s walk with God and his trust in Him and his promises.
First, there is no confusion about what God has asked him to do. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his promised son. And Abraham committed to carrying it out.
What Abraham is about to do may seem like blind faith or unimaginable to us. But Abraham quickly examined the unusual request through his heart and mind.
Hebrews 11 tells us how Abraham reasoned with his belief—knowing who was asking him to do this—and he obeyed.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
—Hebrews 11:17-19
To me this had to be a supreme test of who Abraham was trusting. His heart loves his son. But he trusted the God who had given him Isaac more than he trusted his right to have Isaac.
Abraham would obey … not in blind faith but in great faith in the promise of the One who “owned” both daddy and son.As with Abraham, God will test our hearts as well. Why does God faithfully and constantly test our faith through the circumstances of life?
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. —1 Peter 1:6-7
As with Abraham, God knew what Abraham would do, but Abraham didn’t until he was tested. I may say I believe this or that, but I really don’t know what I would do until I am confronted with a chance to choose between God’s truth and my cultural reality.People like us won’t really have to battle with what is good versus what is evil. Our test and struggles are usually between good and God’s ultimate truth. And in this way, we will have to endure the testing of our faith regularly.
Is your Father asking you to give up something that you may think you cannot live without? Trust Him. It’s only because He wants to give you something better.
Whatever our choice is, go with God … even when we may not understand the bigger picture. He will never break His promises. And we will never experience them unless we “step out” in faith and obey Him who owns us.
John Maisel, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of East-West Ministries International, resides in Dallas, Texas. He has authored books such as Is Jesus God? and Radical Trust that challenge all people to radically rely on Jesus Christ.
Buy John Maisel’s latest book: Radical Trust. All proceeds benefit East-West Ministries.
Then & Now: Evangelism
This month, East-West celebrates our 20th anniversary! So all month long, you’ll get a look at us throughout 20 years of ministry.
Today, we look at how our evangelism efforts have evolved over the years.
When East-West first began, evangelism was largely done by Americans who would go to Russia to share the gospel after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
John Maisel gave many speeches and lectures at universities throughout Russia (which you see above) as a way to share the gospel with those who were largely unfamiliar with it because the decades of communist rule had made atheism the “intelligent” choice.
Now, evangelism remains one of our core ministry strategies. However, we now encourage and equip believers in regions like Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America (see above) to share the gospel with their own people.
