The Live Dead Core Value of Team recently impacted Joe, a visitor to the Silk Road. Joe took part in a short term intensive with a group from his church. Below he shares his reflections about Team, and other impacting moments from his time here. We are also including a video overview of the core value.

Impressive LDSR team, all share a zeal for God, love for the local people, and obedience to Jesus’ command to take the gospel to all the nations … seasoned on-the-filed leadership, unity of spirit and love for one another — truly inspiring to us visitors.

During our “sowing” time yesterday, we met a Kurdish gentleman who operates a produce and grocery stall in an open-air market.  He estimates there are 5 million Kurds here in this city among peoples from all the surrounding Central Eurasian countries (the “stans” – Afghanistan, Tukmenistan, Kazakhstan, etc., along with Iran, Azerbaijan, etc, etc)

On Wednesday evenings, the local team hosts house churches in several locations to model fellowship and discipleship without the trappings of the western church building-and pews model.  The weekly “services” are roughly 1/3 praise and worship, 1/3/ Bible study, and 1/3 prayer and accountability.  The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, geared to helping new believers grow in their faith.

Our “home team” is a fun group… all definitely serious about seeing this wonderful local people coming to faith in Christ and, at the same time, enjoying jokes, laughter, and being together all day every day.  (Shout-out here for our awesome leaders who have done a great job preparing us for this trip, emphasizing Jesus’s commands to love one another and get along well in close quarters!)  All the while we’ve needed to watch our “volume” so we’re not doing the “noisy Americans” thing!

Most fascinating was the varying levels of Muslim practice and understanding among the people we spoke with during “sowing” times.  Some were devout, some has a limited knowledge of the Koran, the Torah, and the Bible; others were highly educated and skilled debaters.  The thrilling thing is being able to pray for and visit with these wonderful people… many have already been prepared by the Holy Ghost to receive the Good news with gladness!

God willing, this will not be my only visit to this beautiful country and part of the world.  It is already exciting to see what God is doing, bringing believers to faith in Christ from every people group in Central Eurasia!