Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Missioblogging 2006: Night #1

Tonight was the kickoff of Valley Bible Church's annual missionary conference. It runs through this coming Sunday, February 26th.

Each year for five days VBC invites a number of the numerous missionaries that it supports to come and speak to the congregation. This takes the form of sermons, reports, as well as displays, slide shows, materials, and a children's program. There's also a chili feed on Friday evening. I'm not sure what the natural or logical connection is between missionary outreach and the stimulated production and emission of greenhouse gases, but it's been a tradition since before my family began worshipping there, and that's been nearly seventeen years.

Unfortunately, my schedule this week does not allow me to attend any sessions before this weekend, so in lieu of trying to bluff my way through a live account, I'll summarize each installment and post a nightly update on the conference's featured missionaries.

Tonight's field report was provided by Ben Benthien of the Tacoma/Pierce County Chaplaincy, followed by the missionary challenge from Bob Rodgers of Northwest Independent Church Extension.

Oddly enough, one featured missionary couple isn't on the speaking or presentation dockets at all: Ben & Jennifer Bogle, serving in Papua New Guinea with CrossWorld. The Bogles live in Mulia in the mountains of Papua New Guinea and are currently studying the Dani language. Ben's primary responsibility is to care for the patients of Immanuel Hospital, using that as an avenue to share the Gospel.

Jennifer home-schools their children (Evelyn, Hannah, Sarah, Nathaniel).