OC Ministry Partners Update May 2021

2021 Is Off To A Good Start

It has been a busy quarter for us at the OC office and your missionaries are working hard from home.  I wish I had a log of all the hours we have spent on virtual calls and meetings, it has become an effective way for us to keep up with each other in our team.  We are also grateful for your prayers, encouragement and financial support.  With your help, God is already doing some great things this year.

I have a lot to share today so I will try to be succinct and put it in bullet points.

• Our financial administrator, Jody Leite has retired after serving us well for the past five years.  We have hired and trained Anna Olson to take over on May 1.  Anna is well qualified, and we are grateful to have her as part of our team.
• My son, Jon Kraft,  has joined OC as a part time administrator for our Corporate Chaplains team.
• We are in the process of adding five new staff members to the MORE Network to help serve Missionary Families and Kids in our missionary member care ministry.  We will be doing debriefing, Reboot, and other family services virtually this summer and the team is getting ready.
• We had our annual Audit in March and the external auditors gave us a great review and positive report for our board meeting on May 1.  Our Annual Report should be out by the end of May.
• Our Jesus Cares Canada campaign is seeing great results.  As of this morning we have had almost 12,000 visits to the website, 163 chats, and 344 people have committed their lives to Jesus.  We are hosting an information session on Friday, May 7.  RSVP at tiffanyo@groundwire.net with "Canada Update Call" in the subjet line.

• Gord Carkner hosted a Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous Communities webinar with Dr Ray Aldred which has had 257 views on YouTube.
• Don Klaassen is leading a national research project on church engagement and ministry among Punjabis in Canada.
• Simply Mobilizing has launched a new course called Interface.  Interface focuses on the development of Missional Churches – it seeks to answer the question of what does a ‘church on mission with God look like?’
• We are ready to send an OC missionary to East Asia, she is just waiting for the travel restrictions to be lifted.
• Murray Moerman has released a new book, published by William Carey Publishing.  Mobilizing Movements looks at the record-breaking growth of the church around the world through Disciple Making Movements and national Church Planting strategies.  It is a one-of-a-kind contribution to global missiology from a global expert.
• We just received the annual report for our OC Global Alliance.  Even with the impact of COVID-19 around the world, our Alliance demonstrated growth.
  • Resident workers in 41 nations and impact ministry in an additional 58.
  • 19,560 Churches established in 2020 (many virtual and house church models)
  • 1,202 Missionary personnel, up from 1,162 in 2019.
  • 186% growth in the number of leaders coached or mentored.  With virtual tools we were able to mentor 15,401 leaders in 2020!

There is so much more that we could share with you.  God is opening new doors for ministry and we are exploring the opportunity to see a disciple making movement as the fruit of the Jesus Cares campaign.  We would like to see virtual discovery Bible studies developed where every new believer can develop relationships and grow in their faith and following of Christ.

Thank you for partnering with Outreach Canada.  We are here to serve the church in Canada but we would also like to serve you.  Please let us know if we can be of service to you or your church.

In His grip,

Dr. Craig Kraft
Executive Director