Cook Weekly - 30 juin 2008

Dear friends and family:
We've arrived safely in OH. We packed up both Elysia's and our cars to the brim and headed west last Wed. to OH after saying many teary good-byes to our friends in Nyack.

Andy had left the week before in order to attend camp at Beulah Beach. He had a great time and I've attached a picture of him backpacking in PA, which is where the camp took them for the majority of the week.

We had a great week getting settled in Mansfield and celebrating both Matt's and Elysia's birthdays. Yesterday, Elysia's birthday, we attended Mansfield's Bicentennial Parade and a concert in the early evening by the Ohio State Alumni Marching Band. Afterwards we had a bonfire at the Cook farm with some family members. Another picture is there for your pleasure.

Thanks for your prayers as we start our 6 mos. of transition back to Africa.

Alliance Financial Realities

From the Office of the President of the Christian and Missionary Alliance

June 27, 2008

Dear Friends,

In recent weeks you may have heard me communicate several "chilling realities" facing the Alliance. One of these "realities" is our financial challenge. We are confronted—like so many other groups—with an ailing economy. In my interactions with leaders of other denominations, it is evident that we are not alone in this challenge. Additionally, the devaluation of the dollar has had a devastating effect on the cost of doing missions. You've also heard that our legacy giving has been far under expectations this past year. Because of that, we have changed the way we budget so that we will not be held hostage by this uncertain source of income.

At the end of May, revenues were at only 81.2 percent of budget, which has resulted in a shortfall of nearly $700,000 from what is necessary. Although the response to the Great Commission Sunday offering has been good, it was far short of the amount necessary to offset the deficit. Regrettably, we do not anticipate that the trend will change in the near future.

We have sought God's guidance and wisdom in making decisions necessary to guide our denomination through these troubled times. While we remain hopeful of a financial turnaround, the realities of what we currently are facing have forced the Board of Directors to closely examine the situation. As a result, the Board, at its meeting on June 26, 2008, took the following actions to control expenses:

1. All salary and cost-of-living increases for National Office employees and district superintendents scheduled for July 1, 2008, will be deferred until our financial position improves.
2. Our budget for fiscal year 2009 included a 3 percent allowance increase for missionaries on home assignment. Regrettably, this increase also must be deferred.
3. Unless our financial position takes a dramatic upward turn in the next two months, we will be forced to implement a 10 percent salary and allowance reduction for all personnel paid out of the Great Commission Fund. This will happen September 1, 2008.
4. Only mission-critical travel will be allowed.

You also should know that other cuts already have been made or are in the process of being made. More than 30 National Office and missionary positions have been cut or will not be filled—20 in International Ministries, 6 in Church Ministries, and 4.5 in support areas. These are primarily the result of retirements, attrition, and combining positions. Additionally, Church Ministries has cut more than $900,000 from its budget. International Ministries reduced its budget by nearly $1.1 million, cutting overseas field operating budgets by 30–40 percent. Another $477,000 was cut from ministry support offices.

While the weight of this financial burden threatens to hold us back, I am confident of God's mighty power as our limitless Provider. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in our history. I recently read a portion of the C&MA Annual Report from 1933, where H. M. Shuman reflects back on his first eight years as the C&MA's fourth president:

From the human standpoint, the outlook for the future is not encouraging. Threatening clouds are hanging low over the horizon today . . . The foundations of society are being shaken . . . We must remember that the early Christian church worked in the midst of world conditions equally distressing, though different . . . Their inspiration and encouragement came not from their surroundings, but from the presence of the living One.

Our situation today seems strikingly similar. Yet, look what God has done in our midst since these words were penned: He has grown us to an international body of more than 20,000 churches in 81 nations, with an inclusive membership of nearly 5 million believers!

We are at a critical time in The Alliance, and our dependence upon God and His direction is as essential as ever. In our country and around the world, the opportunity for reaching people for Christ remains wide open. The Alliance is blessed with skilled and dedicated servants (both official workers and laypeople) who stand poised to reach the last unevangelized corners of our neighborhoods and the nations.

Because of the situation we now find ourselves in, I respectfully ask for the following help:

1. Join me in regular prayer and fasting for the next two months. My specific requests are for God's mighty supply, wisdom for National Office administration in making the needed financial adjustments and for the all the people impacted by the current financial situation.
2. Join me in telling our Alliance friends of this situation and assuring them that administration is diligently working to match expenses to revenues. By positive communication, you will help me in being "part of the solution."
3. Join me in assuring our Alliance people that we are repositioning ourselves to prepare the ground for improved health and fruitful ministry in the United States and the world.

Thank you for your faithful service, and for enduring the hardships we face together as servants of our Master. "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance" (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

Living the Call Together,

Gary M. Benedict
President

cook weekly - 16 juin 2008

Travel and Speaking Schedule

If you're in Ohio, and if we haven't yet connected with you this year come to one of the following events. If you can't, then gather some friends at your house on a weekday, give us a call and we'll show up to talk about our life and work in Africa. Here is our current schedule for this summer and major points of transition once we leave the states.

June 25 - travel to Ohio (Leaving Nyack)
June 29 - Heartland Alliance Church - Run/Walk/Bike for Senegal, Lexington, Ohio
July 1-6 - In California with Family
July 9 - Picnic with Bucyrus Alliance Church, Ohio
July 13 - Sunday Morning: First Alliance Church, Mansfield, Ohio
July 18 - Central District of the CMA Banquet
July 26 - Stow Alliance Church, 10a.m., Ohio
July 26 - Rolling Acres Alliance Church, 5:30p.m., Ohio
July 27 - New Life Fellowship Picnic, 6p.m. Fredricktown, Ohio
August 11 - Depart from the U.S.A.


Keep praying for us...
August 11 - Cindy, Holly, Andy to Dakar to get the kids established in boarding school
August 11 - Matt to Oxford, England for a conference on Contextual Evangelical theology
August 16 - Matt & Cindy meet in Poitiers, France to fill in for a pastor for 2 weeks
August 28 - We move to Massy, France to review French for almost 2 months.
October 22 - to Bangkok, Thailand to participate in the World Evangelical Alliance General Assembly
November 6 - to Dakar, Senegal (to finish out Cindy's return ticket and visit the kids and get our personal belongings shipped to Abidjan)
November 15ish - move to Abidjan (finally)

(November 30 - presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire - Pray for no rioting!)

Cancer Links

Flip-flops linked to skin cancer

By Urmee Khan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2117048/Flip-flops-linked-to-skin-cancer.html

If it isn't Red Dye, it's flip-flops.

Cook weekly - 09 juin 08

Dear friends and family:

Thank you for your prayers for Cindy and Holly: Holly's headaches are a bit less, but there's not much change, but Cindy has come through her operation nicely. Still has some pain, but making progress daily.

This week we start the process of tearing apart our apartment in order to prepare for our return to Africa. Pray for the right decisions in dividing our stuff between four destinations (leaving for the next MIR, storing in Ohio, take with us immediately, have sent to Africa in January, go with kids to Dakar, etc). Pray for internal calm in spite of external 'chaos'. God today provided a place for us to store things here in Nyack (at our church) until the work team from ATS can bring them to us next January.