Includes both announcements and summary reports. (I had to guess on some of the dates--feel free to send corrections!)

08 Jun 98 CONFERENCE: DAKAR '98 Announcement
June 8-12, 1998 is the First Annual West African Regional Consultation Sponsored by InterDev and the Fraternite Evangelique du Senegal in cooperation with AEA, World Vision, and AD2000. Anyone who is interested is invited to Dakar, Senegal to attend this Working Consultation to facilitate Strategic Church Planting Partnerships among the Least Evangelized Priority People Groups of West Africa. The West African Regional Consultation hopes to facilitate the development and establishment of culturally relevant churches in West Africa through: building relationships, cross-fertilization of ideas, identifying the least reached, priority ethno-linguistic people groups in the region, formation and support of new, operational language specific partnerships, helping ministries, stimulating strategic planning, and channeling new Kingdom resources in to the region of West Africa and its emerging language specific partnerships. For more Information, please contact: Wayne McGee, P O Box 47, Ashford, Middlesex, TW15 2LX; UK <wmcgee@xc.org>

04 May 98 CONFERENCE: The Cutting Edge Announcement
"The Cutting Edge," an international conference for leaders of Christian ministries to children at risk, will convene May 4-8 in England. The conference, sponsored by the International Council of Children's Ministries, will seek to clarify what work is currently being done, explore issues and review major trends in Christian care for children at risk, address areas of common need, and explore potential partnerships for outreach to children at risk. For information, contact Deborah De Kockat at <ddekock@viva.org> or write Viva Network Conference Service P.O. Box 633 Oxford, England, OX2 0XZ UK.

15 Feb 98 CHILDREN'S MISSION EXPO 1998 REPORT
By: <NancyFritz@aol.com>

Smooth sailing to the airport and all the way to Indianapolis. The 11 of us who were traveling together, gradually found each other on the plane. Even I hadn't even met a few of the women going with our group from Denver. We were met at the Indy airport by the children's pastor of the church hosting the conference. He ended up being a great help to us and I think us to him also during the weekend...

The first night we had a message from Bob Sjogren... about the Top Line and Bottom Line of the Bible. It is the core teaching of the Perspectives course that I (and many of you!) have taken. Bob did it on Power Point with great sound effects on a huge screen. Many who had come with me were hearing this message for the first time and completely understood it. It was great!! It set the foundation upon which to build for the whole conference.

The second night the plenary speaker talked about Children at risk. He shared many statistics and stories of the horrible things that are happening to children all over the world. It was a sobering call to action. There is a day of prayer for these children scheduled for June 7th for whoever will participate. An 8 minute video with pictures and statistics with just music- was shown at lunch one of the days. We didn't get to see it, but those who did said it was very powerful, and not to watch it without a box of tissues. Let me know if you would like more information about this day of prayer.

Our booth stayed steadily busy throughout the conference... Our biggest sale items were the skits and skit videos, the Children Of the World Calendars and our new Kids Around the World: The Turks, Video. There was a VCR in the booth room we were able to use to show videos...

Our seminar went very well. The 4 of us CP staff moms tag-teamed the 70 minutes and focused on resources for teaching children about the Unreached Peoples and the 10/40 Window. As they came in we asked each person how many children they influence in their ministry, and at the end told them the number for the 38 people in our seminar was 14, 600+, and the 2nd time we did it, the number was over 10,000. What a privilege and responsibility to influence that many children for missions! They loved the hand motions Gwen taught them to go with the song she wrote on the video... Gwen B. was also on a panel about homeschooling where she shared about Sonlight Curriculum. She felt that that went very well also...

The other exciting outcome of the conference was that there were enough churches represented from Denver who would be willing to be involved in putting on a regional conference like the one we attended. We are tentatively thinking of doing it in October of 1999 at a church near here. I wouldn't have to do it alone, but would have a large team of people to do it with me. From our churches alone we would probably have several hundred attendees...

So all in all it was a wonderful conference and we came home with new ideas, curriculum and satisfaction in knowing that we were able to train and put excellent tools into the hands of many people. We even had a lot of fun doing it! Thank you for praying for us. Isn't God good?!!

05 Feb 98 CONFERENCE: AIMS F'ship of Mission Agencies 1988
Dr. James F. Engel, who created the Engel Scale of Receptivity used widely in evangelism and missions, will address an upcoming conference in Dallas, TX. Sponsored by the AIMS Fellowship of Mission Agencies (AFMA), this retreat for missions agency leaders is set for February 5-7, 1998. In addition to hearing Dr. Engel, retreat participants will also engage in interactive workshops with cutting edge experts leading discussion. Workshops will address the concept of strategic alliances for bringing closure to the Great Commission, as well as financial and marketing concerns, and security issues in an age when communication is dominated by the electronic media, and specifically by the internet and worldwide web. Anyone planning to attend the AFMA retreat should make room reservations with Holiday Inn Select (1-800-360-2242). Registration for the retreat and for the meal package should come to AIMS, PO Box 64534, Virginia Beach, VA 23467, attn: Pamella Foster. The registration deadline will be January 23. The conference fee will be $150, with discounts for AFMA, EFMA and IFMA members. For more details, call AIMS at 757-579-5850, or e-mail aims@aims-usa.org From: Bob Williams <bob@aims-usa.org>

30 Jan 98 CONFERENCE: National STM conference 1998 Announcement
Once again its time for me to beat the drum for the National Short-Term Mission Conference, now in its 9th year. This year's conference features a mix of STM-basics (training the leader, training the team, effective debrief and followup, etc.) and several hot-button workshops (Serving the earth, serving the poor; 2/3-world women and STMs; prayer journeys; etc.) More than 30 workshop choices, plus keynotes by Doug McConnell of Wheaton College and Rev. Emilio Battz, an indigenous pastor who has worked with dozens of teams in his remote Guatemalan village.
WHERE: in San Diego at the HanaLei Hotel
WHEN: Friday, January 30, 7 pm, until Sunday, Feb. 1, 2:00 pm
For More info: call 1-800-636-3334 From: KJHurst@aol.com

21 Jan 1998 CONFERENCE: CHURCH MISSIONS MOBILIZATION, MANILLA 1998 REPORT
by Chito Navarro <chitonavarro@xc.org>`

The first Joshua Project 2000 Conference in the Philippines drew an impressive response and attendance last Jan. 21-24, beyond even the expectations of the organizers themselves. By the third day, the conference moved to a larger venue, thanks to the generosity of the "Word for the World" Fellowship. 120 missions executives and 300 delegates from 118 churches came and strategized together to adopt 25 people groups and 9 countries in Asia...

Called "The Church Missions Mobilization Conference," it focused on partnering churches with each other and with selected missions agencies to adopt tribal groups and to plant churches in those tribal areas. It was coordinated by AD2000, Philippine Missions Association and Asian Center for Missions, with AMNET as secretariat.

What impressed many mission veterans was the willingness of churches to involve themselves directly in missions. The probability that neophyte churches may make mistakes should not disqualify them as a mission's force. Rather, we should rejoice and help prepare training programs for them.

The second distinctive of the conference was the need for unique mission methods that will accommodate increasing short-term missionaries--globalization has opened many doors for short-term missions and tent-making opportunities. Most of the priority people groups already have small numbers of believers which make training nationals to reach their own tribes very feasible. Empowering national believers is proving to be an effective method of evangelizing and discipling tribes and can be sustained by short-term missions. We need to develop modular training programs that would enable churches to have short-term missions programs and train tent-makers onsite.

The 400 delegates to the Church Missions Mobilization Conference formed 17 partnership and focus groups per tribal people to consolidate and firm up initial commitments to partner or at the very least coordinate with each other. The purpose of these groups is to start with common interest and relationship building, then lead to coordination and cooperation, and then on to partnerships. The Subanon, Maranao, Manobo groups are already in the stage of partnership and resource sharing. The others like the Badjao and Dumagats are in the stage of missions awareness trip and training. The rest are in the various stages of planning and praying together.

There are many groups that are already in missions and have had successes, like Tribes and Nations Outreach, Glad Tidings, Asian Center for Missions, New Tribes Missions, and the like. It is our goal to bring these agencies in contact with interested churches. For this to succeed, we all need to go the extra mile with each other. The danger to avoid is concluding that one church or agency has the answer because of past successes. God is sovereign and works with all of His children, no matter how inadequate some may appear for the moment.

03 Jan 98 CONFERENCE: MISSION2000 1998 Report
From: Bob Williams <bob@aims-usa.org> Participants at the missions conference in Germany were challenged with the incredible need of unreached people groups. As a result, on the event's final evening, 42 unreached people groups were adopted by individuals and churches... and a short-term team was sent to one of the world's most isolated unreached people groups... This was the third Mission 2000 conference held in Germany. Convening in September on the premises of YWAM Bispingen, it was jointly organized by AIMS-Germany in partnership with a branch of YWAM North Germany. The motto of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement, "a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000," has also been the motto for this conference... Speakers George Otis Jr. and John Robb stressed the importance of prayer in the task of reaching unreached people groups. Medical doctor and mission leader Betsy Neuenschwander showed in a new and touching way how God feels about unreached people groups. Author and speaker Bill Stearns taught on effectively mobilizing for missions. The event stressed the importance of going beyond theory and putting specific missions principles into practice immediately. Attendees also participated in intensive prayer times for more than 100 unreached people groups. Mission2000 coordinators can be contacted at CompuServe 100330,2724 or <100711.2622@Compuserve.com>

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