Attention all: iGo has a new headquarters! Make sure to note that our address AND phone number have both changed. Please be patient with us as we get everything switched over!
iGo Global
206 Industrial Court
Wylie, TX 75098
972-442-7578
Staff Meeting Video
We decided to record one of our staff meetings for the three people that read our blog and who might wonder what a day in the iGo office is like. None of this is planned, staged, scripted or any other synonym you can think of. We tried to filter through the boring stuff. Hope you enjoy the ridiculousness that is our staff:
The day Allison edited this video was the SAME day we found our new office! Praise the Lord! Be praying for us as we transition to the new location in Wylie.
The Cost of Forgiveness
I’ve been reading a lot of Tim Keller lately. So, admittedly, most of these thoughts are his, not mine. He made some amazing observations about the story of Namaan (2 Kings 5:1-14).
Namaan is a commander of the army of Syria (an enemy of Israel). He is portrayed as a man of honor and power, but he also had leprosy. He hears of a great prophet in Samaria (Elisha). So he goes to this other country (Israel) and brings a great treasure to offer in exchange for his healing.
When Elisha tells Namaan to go wash in the Jordan river, he is enraged. He brought a small fortune and came prepared to do “some great thing” in order to purchase the healing of his leprosy, but was told to “just wash” and it was too simple. He walked away from Elisha with bitterness and anger.
Like Naaman, we understand that there is usually some cost associated with healing. And the greater the disease (typically) the greater the cost of healing. Now think about that in terms of our sin. We profess to believe in justification by faith alone. We all know that we cannot buy our healing and forgiveness from God. We know that our only hope is that God has “caused us to be born again” (1 Pet. 1:3).
But I think deep down, like Namaan, we have a hard time really embracing this. The command he received, “just wash”, seemed to be too simple. Our command to “just believe” seems too easy as well. We hesitate to approach God in prayer after we have fallen into sin. Rather than embracing, enjoying, and loving God for His forgiveness, we often spend our time making resolution to do things “For Christ” in hopes to make it up to Him or pay Him back.
Naaman’s healing was free. It cost him nothing. However, it did cost somebody something. We learn in the beginning of chapter 5 that Namaan and his army raided a city in Israel, and that he carried off a “little girl” as a slave. It is likely that this raid resulted in the death of the little girl’s parents.
We would expect this servant girl to harbor hatred and bitterness toward Namaan. We would expect her to react to his leprosy by saying in her heart: “You’re dang right you have leprosy. You deserve nothing less for warring against God’s chosen people and dragging me off as your slave.” But she doesn’t. In fact, she is the reason he makes the trip to Israel and finds Elisha. We see her in verse 3 wishing and hoping that he will be healed. She longs for healing for the one who plundered her hometown and drug her away as a slave. That’s crazy!
Namaan’s healing didn’t cost him everything. But it costs this servant everything. Her suffering and willingness to forgive him led to his healing. Sound familiar? The innocent one suffers, and the guilty party is healed and forgiven. The innocent absorbs a high cost and the guilty one is cleansed (at no cost to himself).
It’s easy to read that story and overlook the servant girl’s suffering. Naaman DID NOT have to do “some great thing” in order to be healed. But the servant girl DID have to do “some great thing” and suffered some great costs in order for Namaan to be saved from his decaying flesh.
Likewise, the reason we often find it difficult to accept forgiveness that is made available to us, is that we forget that it was not completely free. We can truly embrace and accept forgiveness that costs us nothing only when we gaze upon the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 who paid the full ransom price for our sins.
We have to remind ourselves and preach to ourselves that “when Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” Keeping this truth in front of our eyes will keep us from falling into what John Piper calls the “debtors ethic” where we try to “make up” for our sins by working for Christ, as if the cross were insufficient.
Staff Quirks
My name is Elizabeth Junell and I’m the Business Manager at iGo Global. I feel the need to introduce myself because many of you don’t know me and probably have never even seen me.
I’m the one that processes your application when they come to our office. I’m the one that enters your application once you’ve been accepted, and most importantly, I’m the one who processes your payments. I may not ever get to meet you or get to travel with you overseas but I feel I know each and every one of you because I have seen your pictures and I deal with your files on a daily basis.
To fill you in, I’ve been with iGo for 4 years this summer. Before working at iGo, I taught for 9 years. I’ve coached volleyball, basketball, track, and even was a cheerleading coach for 6 years. My husband Clint and I have one son, Brock. He will be two in March and he is the source of a lot of fun and plenty of entertainment. I love to sew and read. Right now I spend a lot of time playing trains with Brock. Clint and I love to ski and would love to live in Colorado some day.
Working at iGo has never felt like a job. Other than the 45-minute drive, I always look forward to going to work. We all like each other, we enjoy working together and we get to be part of God’s awesome plan of sending students to the nations. I am so grateful that God has given me this incredible group of people to work with.
Because I’m around these guys on a regular basis, I feel I know them very well. They all have some quirky tendencies and I thought you might find them interesting:
Ky is almost always chewing on a straw. You may have noticed this and thought it was gum. Nope. If he recently drank with a straw, chances are it is now folded up very small and he’s chewing on it.
Brad NEVER EVER EVER puts the toilet seat down. I feel this will change pretty soon as he and his wonderful wife add a second daughter to their family. The girls will out number the boys 3 to 2. I often wonder if he just does this to annoy me.
Lance has an unhealthy obsession with the Republic of Texas. Ask him one day how he feels about his oldest son Austin being born in the state of Indiana.
Kent loves to drink tea. This isn’t a surprise to anyone. What I find weird is that he reuses his Styrofoam cups over and over and over and as you can image, this distorts the natural color of the Styrofoam. Until I started working with Kent, I didn’t know Styrofoam could be the color of cooked hamburger meat.
Chassidy or as Brock likes to call her “Chassy” is uncharacteristically strong and she has some unknown issues with mail. Chassy is gracious enough to open the mail for me most days and to speed things up she uses my letter opener. Since May, she has broken 4 letter openers. The letter openers are pretty tough so obviously Chassy uses too much muscle and must be mad that she’s opening the mail so she takes it out on the envelopes.
Crystal loves to bake and she is very good at it. She is very talented and she makes some of the most creative flavors of cupcakes I have ever seen. Here’s the quirky fact—she doesn’t eat them. She spends all the time and effort to make them look absolutely beautiful and taste amazing and she won’t even eat them. Something else that’s kind of crazy about Crystal—she can’t tell time unless it’s on a digital clock!
Jami Lee hates onions. When we go out to eat she always asks the waiter if anything has onions in it and if it does, she wants that on the side. When she eats salsa, her bowl will be completely empty except for a pile of onions. She also loves ketchup and she always uses a copious amount.
Allison is very quiet and I haven’t been around her enough to find out all her quirks. What I do know though is that she is quick to defend everyone. Anytime someone is being made fun of in the office she is quick to come to their defense. If you know our office, you know someone is always being picked on.
Aaron can walk and talk, exactly like the alien from Men In Black. For the most part I consider Aaron to be pretty reserved, but give him some music and a camera and he comes to life.
Emily might just be quirk-free. She did, however, marry Ky so I guess she’s a little quirky.
James’s nickname is Rowdy but as long as I’ve known him I’ve NEVER EVER seen him be rowdy.
Jonathan is quirky defined.
Sarah is the only person I know who goes to the Ellen show around Christmas and wins about 25 prizes worth over $2,000 and gives them ALL away.
I haven’t listed any of my quirks but after reading this blog I’m sure my fellow co-workers will draw up a list of their own.
Jimmy!!!
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at iGo? Are you interested in getting to know our staff on a deeper level and experiencing missions mobilization first hand? If so, then you should be a Jimmy! Every summer we have 6-8 interns that serve alongside our staff who are collectively known as “Jimmy.”
Jimmy plays a huge role in recruiting students for the coming year, assisting with the logistics of mobilization, talking with students on the phone, organizing and running base camp, and much more! Imagine yourself at Base Camp with food AND your suitcase!
A lot of time will be spent in the office preparing for Base Camp and completing various administrative tasks. Jimmy is not, however, just an office job. It is an internship – both in the office and outside the office. One of the most important aspects of Jimmy is the spiritual growth and development you will experience through intentional discipleship and Biblical community.
Are you teachable, loyal, servant-hearted and a hard-worker? Do you like to laugh and have fun? Then come Jimmy with us this summer! Click HERE to visit our website for more info and the application. Hurry! The deadline is approaching fast!
New for 2010!!! James “Rowdy” Rodgers is joining the iGo Global staff this year. Rowdy has been working with media for years running the media presentations at Super Summers and Hot Hearts conferences. We are looking for 1-2 students this summer who have media and techy type skills. Rowdy is a great teacher and you will have a great opportunity to enhance your skills in video editing, medial production, etc. as you help mobilize students.
Who Said What??
Life in the iGo office can sometimes be a little crazy…to give you a taste, here are a few quotes from our staff. See if you can guess who said what (Post your answers for us in the comments)! We’ll post the correct answers on Friday.
Note - Staff members include: Shu, Brad, Kent, Ky, AC, J, Elizabeth, Crystal, Jami, Chassidy, Allison, Emily, Sarah & Rowdy
1. “You put power in their hands and they’re going to want more.” (Brad)
2. “85% of your body heat escapes right out the top of your head. Mine is 95%.” (Shu)
3. “You still have time, you’re still a young buck.” (Crystal)
4. “When I woke up this morning I had no idea it would be this exciting!” (Kent)
5. “Maybe you’re allergic to your vitamins.” (Chassidy)
6a. “Hey dude, you’re the most creative person I know.” (AC) 6b. “You don’t know very many people do you?” (Ky)
7. “Ky, do you feel more Asian some days than others?” (Crystal)
Missional??
What does it mean to be missional? Is there a difference between mission-minded, missional, and missiological. I’ve heard varied definitions of all three, but have no more clarity on what it means to be on mission. When we talk to iGosians about being on mission at home, how does that relate to doing missions overseas? Is one greater or more necessary than the other? These are all questions people are asking, and unfortunately as the word “missional” has become a buzz word, it has been attached to things that are actually not missional or missions.
Ed Stetzer has some good insight into this issue of what it means to really live on mission and do missions. Check out his blog by clicking the link below and comment here with your thoughts about being missional and doing missions.
Leslie’s Story
Leslie is an iGo Alum who has led teams for us and volunteered at Base Camp. She is currently attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. Through her interaction with international students there, she befriended Ami, an exchange student from Japan. Through conversation and friendship, Leslie got the chance to share the Gospel with Ami, give her an English and Japanese Bible, and start a weekly Bible study with her. Below is an email Leslie sent about her Bible Study with Ami:
Thursday Ami and I had coffee-mochas, but we didn’t drink them until we left the coffee shop because we were drinking in the living water - and that water was so refreshing, satisfying, quenching, delicious, and life-giving. The first question Ami asked me was the difference between the Father and the Son. After answering her question we started reading in John. Before we could do that though, she needed to know who John was. Then, as we started reading she needed to know that the John we were reading about in the first chapter was not the same John writing. We went verse by verse from the first chapter through the middle of chapter 3. Sometimes there were questions of English, other times questions of the Book, and many times both. It was one of the best hours of my life. You should’ve seen the look on her face when we read that Jesus turned the water to wine! I thought to myself, “WE’RE ONLY ON CHAPTER 2! WAIT’LL SHE READS THE REST!!!” Oh and when we read how much He loves us in 3:16, I wish you could’ve seen the tears fill her eyes! When we read it she pointed to the word, “whoever.” She didn’t know what it meant. She knows now. Anyone. Any person. Everyone. Every person who believes…
Only the Father knows the condition of her heart and He is the only one causing the seed in her heart to grow. Whether or not she believes yet, I do not know…but I do know it won’t be long! Pray for Ami, we will read again this next week. Pray that He would draw her to His Book before then, that waiting until the start of the semester would be too long - that she would be thirsty now. Pray against the lies the enemy will try to throw her way to choke that seed. And pray for her to know Him. And thank Him for His deep love for us - that He will bring a girl all the way from Japan to podunk Stillwater, OK for this purpose!!! Oh He Is So MIGHTY To Save!
I can’t wait to read with Ami again. It is all so new to her and it is all miraculous and awesome and exciting and wonderful and mind-blowing and earth-shattering! Reading with her convicts me as I see the excitement in her eyes! How often I just read over those miracles without thinking about them! Father, forgive me! I am so thrilled to read with her again because I see it coming alive for her, which causes it to come alive for me once again as well. I will say that it is exhausting reading with Ami, but it is joyful exhaustion. It’s like football, (I’ve never really played football but I imagine it’s like football, haha.) During the game the players are having a blast pouring out all of their energy to win. But afterwards those boys need a shower, nap, and carbs. Reading with her propelled me into the Book myself. I had to be filled again. Are you allowing Him to fill you? If not I challenge you to let Him fill you. And if you are, are you turning that cup upside down, pouring yourself out? If so, I challenge you also to let Him fill you more, that your life may be a constant overflow - that as quickly as He is filling your cup it is overflowing into those around you.
And pray for all the Amis living in Japan. There are millions. Just as Ami had no knowledge before we met, they too have NO KNOWLEDGE! There are millions of people dying daily around this world - not people that rejected this hope, but people that never knew that this hope exists!
Isaiah 44:19 “No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, ‘I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!’”
I pray that just as Isaiah had a revelation of God (ch.6), and his natural response to the Father’s love was to say, “Send Me!” that this would be our response as well. Ask Him what this means for you and your family and your life. John tells us to “Go and make disciples of all nations…” Maybe giving towards those that are going and lifting up those who are going is what He has for you (I believe He has this for all of us). Maybe He wants you to GO. Ask the Lord of the Harvest to raise up many workers for His field. For the fields are ripe for harvest, it is the workers that are few.
Chassidy Smith (soon to be Rogers)
Chassidy Smith, who many of you know, joined our staff May 13, 2009 and is coordinating the TX Super Summer Global Xtreme trip. This Saturday she will become Mrs. John Rogers! (Check back for highlights from the wedding.) Below is an article she has written on engagement:
I have always tried to imagine what being engaged would feel like: the ring, the butterflies, the expectation, the excitement of it all. Since August 1, 2009, I have not been disappointed. Engagement has been all of those things. Sometimes it all feels so surreal I have to sit down, look at my left hand, and think “Wow. This is actually happening.” It is beautiful. It is everything that I hoped and prayed for as a young girl. And it is more, much, much more. I see traces of Ephesians 4:20-21 when I think about the beauty of engagement and marriage; God is “able to do far more abundantly than we can imagine, according to his power at work within us.” It has been far more than I could ever imagine or pray for. I am constantly grateful at the provision of Father.
Throughout the last five months, however, there has consistently been something that I have not expected. The more I prepare for marriage individually, the more John and I prepare together, and the more God gives me his eyes for the purpose of marriage, the less and less I can run away from this thing. It’s not excitement, or anxiety, or stress. It’s refining. The closer I get to January 9, the hotter the heat gets, “for he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.” (Mal 3:3).
In his newest book, This Momentary Marriage, John Piper says “the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display….it is about showing in real life the glory of the Gospel.” Through scripture, Father is revealing to me the gravity and weight of marriage….and it is huge. In a short time when John and I come together in the covenant of marriage, we are given the incredible responsibility and blessing of showing the world a tangible picture of the Gospel. We are to show to one another, and those around us, grace, mercy, love, sacrifice, selflessness….we are to portray Jesus and his bride, the church.
Needless to say, the last 5 months of preparation, and the rest of my life, have been and will be a deep time of refining. God is bringing to light things about myself that don’t bring glory to Him (and probably make me really hard to be joined together with J). The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12), and God is using His word to challenge, convict, refine, and restore me. I continue to learn Bottom Line as I realize how much marriage is not about myself, or John, or our family. Marriage is solely about the glory of God. It is to glorify him by being an accurate depiction of the Gospel. “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:32)
Though I will continue to learn and be challenged and floored by this truth for the rest of my life, it has already greatly impacted me. Thinking of engagement in Bottom Line terms means I’m not so controlling or nit-picky, it means I don’t hold something over my future spouse’s head, it means that we actively seek the guidance and will of the Father, because He is what it is about. Bottom Line, His glory and the truth and freedom of the Gospel. It is not about my comfort, preference, or feelings; it is about something and someone much greater than myself. Something much greater than us. Though engagement and marriage is beautiful and wonderful, I am learning the depth of its beauty. Not because of a ring, or a ceremony, or even getting to spend the rest of your life with your best friend.
“Marriage is a magnificent thing because it is modeled on something magnificent and points to something magnificent. And the love that binds this man and woman in marriage is a magnificent love because it portrays something magnificent- “as Christ loved the church” and “as the church submits to Christ.” The greatness of marriage is not in itself. The greatness of marriage is that it displays something unspeakably great, namely, Christ and the church.” John Piper, This Momentary Marriage.
Happy iGosian New Year!
As you enter into Twenty Ten, let me give you a quick and simple challenge as you continue on your journey to missional living.
Reflect. Find a quiet place today and remember what He has done in your life in 2009. Get out your journal and allow His faithfulness and His work to encourage you.
Get a plan. Call them resolutions, goals, or commitments. I think it was John Maxwell who said if you fail to plan then you can plan to fail. As you enter the new year, what are your goals? What do you want your life to look like a year from now? How will you get there? Here are some essential elements for your plan:
Read the Word. Do you have a plan for reading the Bible this year? There are all kinds of resources readily available to us. Do some research and pick a plan that works for you. Here are some sites and posts related to planning your devotional life this year:
*The plan Pastor John Piper recommends - http://ow.ly/RbAk
*A post from iGo co-founder JR Vassar (now leading a church in NYC) - http://post.ly/GS3u
*LifeChurch.tv has some great resources - http://youversion.com
*The Life Journal is another good plan - http://lifejournal.cc
Pray, Give, or Go. You need a plan to do your part this year in God’s Global Mission. Some of you are going this year. Some of you have gone in the past. Not everyone can go every year, unless of course you are Rachel B, Allen D, or Leslie C. For the rest of us, we need to plan to stay engaged. Here are two links to help you stay engaged and do your part:
The Joshua Project - The Joshua Project will help you pray for unreached peoples every day. You can even follow them on Twitter.
iSend Project – Maybe you haven’t heard of the iSend Project. What a great way for an iGosian alum to join us in 2010. Join this month and receive a free book.
Eat lots of Cucumbers and Tomatoes (especially for breakfast). Not only is this healthier than your pop tarts, it will remind you of the teaching and training and just plain fun times you had at Base Camp. Seriously, consider this. Eat some cucumbers and tomatoes for breakfast one day a week. Yes, you can have something else with them. On that day, set aside some time to pray for the nations. Pray for the people you met overseas. Pray for the M’s that live and serve there. Pray for the teams going out this summer. Pray for us at iGo Global. And let us know how we can pray for you. Happy New Year!
–The Republic of iGosia