Int'l Leadership Team in Colorado

This past weekend HCJB Global's International Leadership team met in Colorado Springs. Leadership participated from Singapore, Quito, Ghana, Scotland and Spain.

Cole Video from Ghana

Karen and I were just in Ghana, W. Africa. We were evaluating the recent launch of HCJB Global's Sub-Saharan Africa project called Africa Voice and Hands. This project seeks to integrate media and health care to change lives across the region. God is using these efforts in a powerful way and we are blessed to be a part of this.

This video I took while I was there tells the story of what we are doing through the voices of our partners in the region.

Curt & Karen

HCJB Global's new Strategic Partner

I just got off the phone with Lee Sonius, our regional director for Sub-Saharan Africa in Accra, Ghana. He was updating me on a medical team that HCJB Global currently has on the ground there, and today they saw over 250 patients in a village near Accra. This is in alliance with a new strategic partner that has been focused for years on media work, but is now using health care as part of their efforts to reach people in Ghana. Karen and I will be there next month and will be able to see what God is doing through these efforts.

Here's the recent press release:

HCJB Global recently began a strategic partnership with Theovision International, a large mission organization that has been working in Accra, Ghana, for nearly 20 years. HCJB Global joined with the organization, specializing in recording audio New Testaments, because of its growing interest in radio, said Sub-Saharan Africa Executive Director Lee Sonius. “Audio Scriptures and radio go hand in hand,” he explained. “Theovision has just received three FM radio permits from the Ghana authorities for three different towns. We are committed to helping them get these stations on the air, and we want this to be accomplished in the coming years.”

The primary focus of Theovision, which also has offices in Nigeria and Kenya, is the recording of the New Testament in African languages. So far Theovision has completed recordings in 168 languages, covering 80 percent of the languages spoken in 28 countries.
“In the villages where the audio Scriptures are used in listening clubs, we will also help Theovision as they begin to provide community healthcare and development,” Sonius added. “This will be done mainly with a four-wheel-drive, mobile medical clinic that can access even the remotest areas of Ghana. We’re also looking at helping to provide clean water to villages, through wells with hand pumps.”

Theovision’s ministry is important because “50 percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is illiterate, so even if the Bible has been translated into a specific language, many of the speakers cannot read it,” he said.

Cole Moving Update!

Last Thursday, we signed a contract for a rental home in the north part of Colorado Springs. We are praising God for His eternal goodness to us as He provided us with a place in just two days! We returned to Florida on Saturday night, along with a bunch of Super Bowl football fans, and are now packing up the last items in our home here. Later this week we’ll be driving the long haul out to Colorado and will move into the house there on February 11. Our new address is:

Curt & Karen Cole
12123 Stanley Canyon Rd
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

While in Colorado last week, we had the chance to attend the inauguration of HCJB Global’s new president, Wayne Pederson. It was a great time of celebration and looking forward to the doors God continues to open up for us as a mission. We’ll continue to be driven by local partnerships in both media and health care, and it will be exciting for Curt as he’ll be working with Wayne and the team in Colorado Springs on those initiatives.

Pray for us as we say good-byes this week, especially for Karen as she has taken care of her Dad for the past couple of years.

Thanks for standing by us. Westward ho!

Curt & Karen

Moving in God's direction ...

I just returned last week from a trip with our new President, Wayne Pederson (far right in the picture). We traveled first to Spain, where we had meetings with our leaders from Sub-Sahara Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Here's a picture of us in a very chilly Spain.

Tomorrow Karen and I fly to Colorado Springs to spend a couple of days looking for a home to rent. Things have come together very quickly. We now have a renter for our home in Florida, and they move in on February 6, so we have been busy packing and getting ready for the big move West.

Part of the reason we can now move is that Karen's father is on hospice care so he is getting alot of additional help. Karen's brother Ken is also now the primary caregiver, so that makes it a bit easier for us to move on, which has been our plan since we left Ecuador 2 1/2 years ago, to be working out of our home office and serving our international leadership from there in Colorado.

While in Colorado Springs, we'll be attending the inauguration of our new President and I'll also be giving a presentation to our board during their meetings on Friday. Then back home to hopefully pack up the U-Haul for the move. Thanks for praying for us, and please pray for God to provide the home He wants for us. Nothing more and nothing less!

Joy in the journey,

Curt

We just got back yesterday from our family time together in Ecuador. A great time of reliving memories and making new ones, but really hard to say good-bye. Not sure when we'll ever be back together there as a family.

God was so good to give us 14 years there and our kids still consider Ecuador home. We enjoyed both ex-pat and Ecuadorian friends, as well as a little beach place we had gone to for many years.

It's like we closed a chapter of our lives, all those years in Quito, but we are now moving on to the next chapter. As of January 1, Curt is now overseeing HCJB Global's ministry efforts in Africa and the Middle East. This means a more direct focus on Muslim ministry and unreached people groups in this part of the world. This also means a move in the near future to our mission's home base of Colorado Springs. We'll keep you posted on that.

Happy New Year!

At the end of October, I visited the Gulf Region of the Middle East to attend a conference with other agencies that are doing ministry in this part of the world. This is a place where the number of Christians is miniscule and where the evangelical church is still very much in its infancy. But God is working, and He is using dreams and visions to reach many Muslims.

While at the conference near Dubai, I heard a story from one of the neighboring Gulf countries about a Christian Filipino maid who awoke one night to some noise in the house. As she peeked out her door, she noticed someone standing outside her master's bedroom. She was scared and didn't say anything, but the next night she saw the man again standing at her master's bedroom door. On the third night, she saw the same person open the master's bedroom door and walk in. The next morning, the maid finally told her employer what she had seen and said it must have been a thief. The Arab smiled and responded, "No, it was not a thief. That was Jesus. For three nights, I've had dreams about Him and last night I asked him to take over my life."

In this part of the world, where God chose to reveal Jesus to humanity, He is revealing Jesus in ways that we cannot even imagine. There is hope in the Middle East and it is exciting to play a small role in this through our media efforts. But sure and check out something we are deeply involved in called OneHousehold.com.

Karen and I want to thank each of you for standing by us this past year. It's been a year of growth and renewal for us, and we know you've been there, praying and supporting us. Our prayer this Christmas season is that God will reveal the miracle of Christ to you in new and exciting ways.

Serving Him,

Curt

Curt & Karen Cole
HCJB Global
ccole@hcjb.org
www.colecurrents.blogspot.com
onehousehold.com