| The 3w Logo |
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Our logo has three worlds with Europe and the Middle East visible. The three colors represent the three worlds of Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Middle East. They also represent how we divide our three areas of ministry. Most importantly, they represent the three worlds of Christianity: Traditional, Post-Christendom, and Non-Western. Visit our website www.three-worlds.com to learn more about "the Three Worlds of Christianity."
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Support
Patrick & Jamie Nachtigall
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send checks to:
Church of God Ministries Inc.
P.O. Box 2420
Anderson, IN 46018
Memo: 42.10068
Support
NextGen Fund
Here
Memo: 42.30401
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Mar/Apr 2017
volume 17 issue 2
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Many people wonder how we balance traveling through the Europe-Middle East area for our work and having family time. Since both Jamie and I are missionary kids, and our parents and grandparents were missionaries, we know how easy it is for ministry to intrude on family time.
Since having Marco in 2003, our family has always been on the road a lot. Like most missionary kids, Marco grew up familiar with world airports, packing his own suitcase, and how to handle security checks. None of us have ever known a life without travel, which makes us a different kind of family. Furthermore, we are all three "global nomads" and home has always been a relative concept: Is "home" the country where you were born? The country that you most preferred living in? The countries where you have official residency and citizenship? Or is it the country where you are currently serving? We are not sure either. The truth is that home is the three of us. We are each other's home.
Yes, this job does keep us on the road quite a bit. In Hong Kong we developed a system of tag-teaming so that we shared the travel responsibilities and always made it a priority to travel as a family when possible. By rotating who traveled, it was easier to ensure that both parents shared parenting at home. This has worked really well and prevented it from being a situation where the father is always on the road. What also helps is that our office is in our home, so we are able to be together as a family a lot more than if we had to go to separate office jobs.
The first years of Three Worlds were like a start-up operation and that meant circulating around the region (16 countries where the Church of God has a presence) quite a bit. Sometimes we are able to go as a family, and sometimes Jamie went solo, but mainly Patrick had the majority of the travel duties. This often meant three trips a month - some a couple of days, others a week long. The more trained and experienced the team has become, the more we have been able to delegate major regional projects to our talented team of missionaries. This has meant less time on the road, and our teammates do a fantastic job - often much better than we do. They are awesome and we are grateful for them.
Patrick is on the
road
less which we feel is especially important as Marco enters the teen years. We have always been a very close family and the teen years aren't changing that. Marco loves time with his parents.
In recent years, we have striven to spend the summer months together, even if it means traveling together to do work. Since moving to Europe, we do a much better job of taking family vacations. In years past, it was not uncommon for us to go two or three years without a proper time away. We have come to realize how vital it is to take time out for renewal and concentrated family time. The photo above is from our spring break vacation in southern Italy. (The photo above is of the village of Pietrapertosa, in Basilicata, Italy, which we visited in April along with the town where The Passion of the Christ was filmed.)
We are grateful for how everyone has supported our little family since we were commissioned 17 years ago. Our family has been molded and shaped by the
missionary life, and now it is passed on again to another generation through Marco. Thank you for lifting up our family in your prayers. There have been many times we feel we would not have made it without those prayers.
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Mentoring: The Heart of 3W
This March and April were about checking up on young leaders in Hungary, Berlin, the U.K., and Italy.
In Budapest, Patrick visited with the young pastors of the Church of God in Hungary. Both the churches led by Laszlo Debreceni and Peter Kiss are doing well. Peter and his wife Rita are expecting their first child at the end of this summer. Patrick has greatly enjoyed tracking with these two young leaders over the past seven years.
In Berlin, Patrick connected with Kelley and Rhonda Philips, who are doing exceptional work at Pink Door. Pink Door continues to serve women caught up in sex/human-trafficking, and in some cases, for the first time in their whole life they experience real love. Audrey and Josh Weiger are also based in Berlin and are now well into their second year on the mission-field and doing great work. Their two small children, Emma and Dallas, are doing great growing up in an urban environment. The Berlin team is unified, and Pink Door is being praised around Germany for its professionalism. Josh Weiger has taken on special assignments in Bulgaria, France, and other places, connecting with the region's young leaders.
Jamie enjoyed her time traveling to Northern Ireland with Audrey Langford and Keli Oldham as they made preparations for our annual staff meeting this summer. Zach did great with daddy duty, watching over Lola while mom was away.
In Paris, we were pleased to see that the new ministry to immigrants continues to grow, with more churches in the Paris area signing on and taking direction from our young CHOG leader there, Samir Salibi. We also visited the Church of God in Rome on our way to southern Italy for spring break and got to spend time with Pastor Daniele as well lay-leaders after attending the quarterly advisory board meeting.
In all of these places, we love being able to invest in young leaders and see the Church of God in Europe support and produce a new generation of interconnected, supported, and accountable leaders. We love helping our team of missionaries and are so proud of all of them for being mentors and role-models for the young people in ministry throughout Europe and the Middle East. Making mentoring the next generation the central focus of 3W has paid off in spades, and we are so happy to see leaders and new missionaries who are eager to pour into others and pass the baton.
In the next newsletter, our focus will be on our 3W Leadership Network, which puts a face and a structure to the mentoring that our team has been doing over the past seven years. We are excited!!
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NEXT UP: Spain
We continue to seek funding for Carmen and Alejandro De Francisco as they are set to become the newest 3W missionaries as soon as they complete their fundraising. The De Franciscos will be restarting the Church of God in Spain. The first church plant will be in Madrid, with a goal of expanding to Zaragoza and Barcelona in the coming years.
As native Spanish-speakers who have both U.S. citizenship and E.U. citizenship, the De Franciscos will have many advantages most missionaries don't have. Like the Apostle Paul, their unique citizenry will mean that they have much easier access into countries in the Islamic World and Eastern Europe than we do.
T
he De Franciscos also have spent decades living on faith, waiting upon God, as they planted churches in Florida with few resources. Hardship is not new to these people who grew up in Communist Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua.
With their degrees from the Soviet Union, they will be able to connect and communicate in Russian with our churches in Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Russia.
Lastly, their experience and wisdom will be a great addition to our 3W team.
The De Franciscos are on the road now and available for speaking engagements. Currently they are past the 50% mark, so we are half-way toward restarting the Church of God in Spain. Join us if you can.
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MARCO'S WORLD
Marco continues to flourish in his 2nd year at Black Forest Academy. We are so grateful to God for bringing us here to this wonderful school that understands and is filled with missionary kids.
We are seeing Marco step out of his comfort zone more and more. For the first time, he joined a sports team: basketball. Suddenly he was going to school early for practices and staying late. Our little baby has his own life now. He greatly enjoyed the camaraderie of the team. As a result, he took the risk of joining track and field. The 8th graders get to train with the high schoolers and compete in track meets around Switzerland and Germany. Marco and his friends seem to not worry too much about winning, but he was happy to win 3rd place and 2nd place at recent track meets in the 100 meters and 200 meters.
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e also enjoy a lot more time together as a family since returning from home assignment in July 2015. The 3W team does an excellent job of managing large projects and traveling to places that would have fallen into our lap previously. They are all high performers and wonderful aunties and uncles to Marco. They are his family.
(Photo above: Marco competing at Ramstein Air Force Base)
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