Estonia Expedition237 Video

Estonia sits along the Baltic Sea, just below Finland. Tallinn, Estonia's capital city is only about 40 miles south of Helsinki, across the Gulf of Finland. From Tallinn (our Northern European ministry center) you can be in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Riga, Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Vilnius in less than two hours.

We are working to help new emerging leaders grow and develop new groups of believers who are multiplying across the nation. Estonia is in need of evangelism in much the same manner as the rest of Europe. Most people notionally recognize Christianity's principles, but have little desire to commit themselves to Christ.

Please pray for Estonia and our new Expedition237 team which is being developed to work with our national partner.

Expansion - Reaching People for Jesus

Recently I have been asked by United World Mission leadership to head up an initiative which includes several people and direct what is being unofficially called "Expansion Ministries." This will be a group which includes Expedition237, Career Missions and Global Church Partnerships. Our vision will be to develop a new structure which mobilizes a new generation into the world and to continues to look for strategic nationally lead partnerships to connect both long term people and forward thinking churches.

God is permitting me to assemble a team of people which includes Keith Keller (next generation leader); Diana Carney Kauffman (communication and mobilization specialist); Ken Campbell (church mobilizer/mission coach), Rick Slager (West Africa ministry developer), Tom Telford (church mission consultant), and possible one other person I am presently in dialogue with.

Will you pray for us? Our desire is to see God's heart for the nations become a reality by seeing the US and National Church being everything Jesus set it in motion to do. Things immediately in front of us are:

1. Successful transference of mobilization activities
2. Tweaking of am appointee coaching process
3. Additional development of the Expedition237 structure
4. Building the church partnership process

I often find myself working hard to get things done but then God brings my back to the place of trusting Him for results. So pray with us to The Lord of the Harvest for His dreams for His creation to become a reality.

Blessings,
Mark and Cathy

Pennsylvania Trip

What a day!

It was a great day for food and fun as Cathy and I had a chance to reconnect with many of you that pray and support us in ministry. After several days of meetings and talking to people I had the privilege to share our heart about how we can be a blessing to the peoples of the earth at Crossway Church.

Then we changed clothes and got down to the business of eating and having some fun with you, our friends. They sky was as beautiful as could be, the days was cools and sunny. It could not have been better.

Cathy want to thank all of you who could make it and for those who could not we will try to connect on future trips to Pittsburgh.

Please pray as we are expanding UWM. Not only are we adding a few more staff but we are growing by adding more missionaries. My prayer was for 50 new people this year and I think we may end up over 40. This is the most ever. God is at work both in the nations as well as peoples heart who want to be on the front lines.

Thank you for all you do with us - we are blessed to be your friend.

Mark & Cathy Szymanski

Trip to Wisconsin

I just returned from a trip to Wisconsin and Illinois where I had the chance to meet with some individuals considering missions as their next step into God and some missionaries already serving with United World Mission. As I traveled across the state I could not help but seeing the beauty of God world all around me. This is America's dairy land. There are fields as far as the eye can see. It was a real treat to experience this state.

Please pray for two couples (the Skeltons and Van Cleaves) as they consider and move into their next steps of serving God overseas. While in Wisconsin I had meetings concerning Mission Inter-Senegal. I am involved in bringing some solutions to issues dealing with their rapid expansion. I have been discussing these for some time and we are preparing to implement these soon. I will be traveling to Africa this fall.

Thanks for your prayers and gifts.

Mark & Cathy Szymanski

Orientation Success - Workers for the Harvest

Each time I go through this process I am amazed by God. Each one of these people has been specially designed and equipped by God to do the things He has set up for them to do. God is doing amazing thins around the world through His people. His heart longs for His creation to be redeemed and brought back to Himself.

Please pray with me as we join with Him is seeing the nations filled with worshiping, serving, disciple-making churches that change their world by word and deed. The harvest field is ripe and ready so pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers.

Mark

Family Update

I wanted to show you all a picture of our family. It is hard to imagine that everyone is growing and getting so big. I'm standing beside Cathy who is seated on the top right step. Matt and Devon are seated at the top step left beside Cathy with their daughter Lilly Ann. Kristen and her daughter Bailey are seated in front of Cathy and beside me. And Laura and Jason are seated in front with their two kids Christian and Hannah.

Enjoy,
Mark and Cathy

New Church Partnership in Birmingham AL

Thanks for praying for me as I traveled with Kevin Mason who lives and works in Northern Europe. We had the chance to develop a partnership between Developing Church Networks which is a group whose focus is to assist new church plants in Alabama, George, Mississippi, Florida and now in Missouri. You'll see us here is the picture: Kevin Mason, Royce Collins, Monte Erwin, Todd McMichen, and myself.

Things went very well as we are moving forward to a place where DCN churches will be provided the necessary help to connect to new churches not only in Northern Europe but also in Cuba, Senegal, Vietnam, Thailand and Congo.

Our desire is to have 10 locations arounf the world were churches can partner with to see nationals church planting initiatives move forward. I can see the day when we have connected 150 to 200 churches around the world to strategic relationships.

Keep praying for me as I need to focus on developing the needed infrustructure to make this work well.

Mark and Cathy

PS: Pray for our candiate orientation which starts this Saturday 6/16. We have people coming taht are headed to Central Asia, Africa, Russia and Europe.

New Partnership in Beginning Stages

This Friday, June 8th I am headed to Birmingham AL to begin dialoguing with a network of new churches (www.developchurches.com) that number about 35 in all. Their desire is to begin to do missions together. I will be introducing them to the opportunity to connect with church planting networks in Estonia, Latvia and Sweden.

By connecting these groups together it is our hope that more churches will get planted in Northern Europe and the Alabama/Georgia region. So please pray as this is the beginning of a new "Northern European Network"!

Anytime we bring together visionaries and practitioners who are establishing new churches among unreached, under-reached, or unchurched people (what ever your terminology is) we get exited because this is at the center of God's heart - reaching His creation with the good news and seeing disciples made which can through word and deed continue to touch their society and bring glory to God.

I'll give you an update next week but we can not succeed without prayer for His will to be done. I humbly asked you to remember this weekend. If you want to see more of what I am doing go to our Partnership page on our web site.

Cuba Summit Update

Great Time - Fantastic - The Best Ever... These were some of the comments of our time in Toronto. The whole purpose of this meeting was to get an update on from our Cuban brothers on how things were proceeding and how the partners could continue to contribute to see Jesus made famous on this island.

We heard about how the training centers we operating and developing new leaders, we heard about how partner churches were helping through ministry colaboration, we heard of a desire to plant another 45 churches in the next 5 years. All this is very exiting.

Thank you for praying for me as I led this meeting. The attached photo is just a portion of those who attended. Keep praying for Cuba, the government, the church and for the people who still need to come into relationship with Jesus. To date we have 10 churches involved, a denomincation from Canada and a Latin Seminary. We are looking for four more churches to adopt a province so if you have a desire to get involved give me a call or drop an email.

NOTE: (Adoption of a province means training & sending a qualified Cuban missionary to a province, purchasing/building a house which doubles as a church & training center & providing ongoing training so that from this location other churches are started that reach the people of the region)

Cuba Partnership Meeting In Toronto

Please keep me in prayer as I head to Toronto May 29th to lead our Cuban Partnership Meeting. We have a lot to report and accomplish. We are challenged to help this national partner continue to progess and see a church in every town, village, and neighborhood of the island.

Pray for the national leadership, the partners who are involved in seeing the vision happen

Global Church Partnerships

One core value for us is helping the local church succeed in reaching people both locally and globally. In fact I believe that the local church’s response is not to evangelize people but rather follow through and make disciples. Many stop at evangelism and do not follow through. We see crusades, outreaches, and all kind of events then we wait to see if people show up. Well, as I said we should create a strategy with the end goal being discipleship and not just evangelism.

I have been asked by our Board of Directors to pioneer a new effort to connect groups of churches in North America with groups of churches in other countries that are focus on seeing their town, villages, and neighborhoods filled with worshiping, disciple-making churches.

We already have several started whose focus in on Vietnam and Cuba. We have several in the process of being formed like Senegal and Thailand. And I have several that I want to start whose focus will be Northern Europe and possibly the Democratic Republic of Congo.

So please pray for me – I will be talking with 35 new church planters in May who want to connect to the world.

Training New Missionaries

I had the privilege to participate in some training for several new missionaries in April who are headed for Belgium, Kazakhstan and India. This is so exciting as I see God calling people into a world which is lost and needs Jesus.

Right now I am working with nearly 55 new missionaries helping them get their support together and get out to the nations so please pray for them and me.

I am also developing two more new missionary orientations this year. So far God has brought us 16 new missionaries in the first two orientations. I want God to give us 50 in all for 2007. PLEASE PRAY!

Email us: Mark & Cathy

Travel Schedule

Thank you for praying for Cathy and I.

Since January I have been in Thailand, France, Belgium, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark as well as traveling to 6 locations in the US.

In Asia I had the opportunitity to encourage our Asian Teams at our annual UWM conference. I led a new team to Belgium (all in their 20's) to meet with some national leaders working with next generation ministry opportunities. In France I was able to meet a UWM couple which had to be evacuated for medical reasons, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark permitted me to work on building relationships which is culminating in a partnership to see more churches planted in these Northern European countries.

The US location trips were centered around finding and building new missionary teams.

So you are advancing the church in all these nations - BIG THANKS TO YOU!