Rainbows of Hope

So after a handful of bus connections and a night in DC, I spent about 48 hours with Tom, the lone Rainbows of Hope staff member holding down their South Carolina HQ while I visited. We talked at length about ministry and whether or not Rainbows of Hope would be the right organization for me. Tom is a definite man of God, very at peace, creative and thinking outside the box, but also solid. He had many stories from his time in far Western China that were encouraging and instructive to me. (ex: I may have to either shave my beard or come up with a clever way to respond to questions about the Hajj)

In the end, I think I will go with YWAM as my sending org, because I can do training on the field, in Russian, and because with Rainbows of Hope I would be on a team of WEC church planters, whereas YWAM has specific people already doing orphan ministry in the places I'm hoping to go with whom I've already talked.

WEC and Rainbows of Hope are both very cool organizations. And Phyllis Kilbourn, who founded Rainbows of Hope and now does Crisis Care International in the office next door, compiled two very informative books I've read on street children, and between the two orgs, they have really good training materials on working with kids in crisis. They also don't ask people for money, just God, which I think is really awesome, George Müller being one of my heroes.

One night at Rainbows HQ I sat down with Operation World, which WEC publishes. I read through Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and then much of Western Europe, praying as I learned. Lithuania's two pages were the most impacting. LCC was mentioned twice(!), and I definitely could see how my work, the work of the churches I know, and my parents' ministry was really answering the prayers of anybody reading that book. One stat seemed low, there were only ten Lithuanian missionaries abroad. My friend Gintare, being one, and I, have started praying that God would double the number of Lithuanian missionaries. By now there should be 20, so we should pray for forty, who's with me?