Dear Friend,

I have some great news! We have been able to arrange to offer our annual Member Care and Counseling Seminar in Turkey this year!

As you know, we have been offering this intensive two-week training program in Thailand for the past ten years. That has been a wonderful location for many Christian workers from that region. It is a lengthy and expensive trip to Thailand, however, for Christians serving in Europe and countries in the broader region known as Eurasia. Turkey is a much more accessible and financially feasible location for them.

It has been challenging to find a location with the facilities we need. Not only do we require a good sized meeting room for our larger daily lectures, but also six to eight small private rooms for individual and small group counseling. And we try to offer the seminar in a peaceful location away from the city, where our participants will not be distracted from the intense work of the program. We also want to hold the seminar in a beautiful location so that participants can relax and unwind between sessions and on the weekend. I just spoke via Skype with friends who visited an out of town resort that will work perfectly for our seminar! It will cost more than our Thai location, but costs in Turkey are substantially higher so we were expecting that.

To effectively provide the individual and small group training and counseling that are at the heart of this program, we must limit registration to no more than 35 individuals. We already have 27 confirmed participants and another 5 in the process of applying. By the time you receive this letter, I imagine we will have closed out our registration for this year.

Listen to what a few of the first applicants are hoping to gain from this seminar. The newly appointed director of member care for a large ministry writes:

“I want to learn how to help people grieve losses, help in the aftermath of child abuse, and resolve conflicts among team members.”

A member care consultant for another organization writes:

“We are seeking to learn more about specific issues facing the 200 adults for whom we provide member care: depression, anxiety, struggles with pornography, kids with learning disabilities, anger issues, relational conflicts, trauma, grief, and suicidal thoughts. We want to know how to help in all of these areas in a sensitive, scriptural way.”

A third member care worker is looking for personal help as well as improved counseling skills and an integrated, Biblical approach to counseling:

“My wife and I would like help making a major decision in our lives. We have a potential new missions responsibility, but are concerned that it will put undue strain on our marriage. When we were first married we had terrible struggles working together so we each developed separate ministries. This new opportunity would involve us ministering together. We know there is great power when couples minister together well, but it can work the other way when couples are not in agreement. Would this new ministry opportunity work out to be a blessing? Or would it become a disaster for our marriage? Or can we improve our marriage so that we can make this work together? Our marriage used to be poor, is now okay, and we hope it can become wonderful.”

Notice the incredible diversity of personal and ministry needs. The missionary member care workers attending this seminar will have responsibilities serving more than 1000 Christian workers in some of the most difficult regions of the world. They are often the first caregivers to whom their workers turn when they are struggling with traumas, losses, family and team conflicts and all sorts of spiritual, emotional and relational difficulties. If they don’t get timely help, many will have to leave their fields of service in failure. Others will have to return to the U.S. or Europe for expensive professional help.

Missionaries and Christian workers around the world face the same conflicts that you and I do here in the United States. But their challenges are multiplied several fold because they are serving in difficult countries, thousands of miles from family and friends, with little or no accessible Christian counseling or medical services available. Satan is doing his best to sabbotage their personal lives and undermine their ministries.

You can help us make this program possible. We charge participants just enough to cover their room and meals and about $200.00 toward NCF’s expenses for putting on the two-week seminar. We must still raise at least $1,000 above this token fee for each missionary to cover the cost of flying our staff to Turkey and other conference expenses. All of our staff members donate their time. Would it be possible for you to provide an entire scholarship of $1,000 to enable one missionary to receive this critically-needed training and personal growth? Or perhaps you could make a larger gift and enable several of God’s servants to attend this life-changing program.

If you can’t do that, we will gratefully combine whatever you are able to contribute with the gifts of others to make this training possible. If you aren’t able to donate financially, I would greatly appreciate your prayers for our staff as we continue making preparations for the seminar and for the participants who will be coming from throughout Europe and Asia for this training. Only God knows the thousands of lives that will eventually be touched by the missionary member care workers you help receive this life and ministry-changing  training.

Serving God’s Servants,
 
Bruce Narramore, PhD.
President

“Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:1).

NOTE: Donations can be sent on our secure website via Credit Card at: https://www.ncfliving.com/donate.php

Phoned in to 1-800-477-5893, or

Mailed to the:
Narramore Christian Foundation
P.O. Box 661900
Arcadia, California 91066-1900
U.S.A.

"Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that
needs not be ashamed" (II Timothy 2:15).

NOTE for U.S.A. residents: Narramore Christian Foundation is registered in the State of California as a non-profit 501 (c) (3) tax deductible organization.