Month: December 2006

One of my favorite Christmas carols begins, “Joy to the world! The Lord has come! Let earth receive her King!” These words remind me that Christ’s coming was for the whole earth, for every people group on every continent — including places like Brazil.

Several years ago, a Campus Crusade staff member named Kristin took a summer off from her responsibilities with the Campus Ministry to participate in Keynote’s summer music project. The following fall, she transferred to Crusade’s ministry in Brazil , where she began discipling a professional musician named Janiê Sucupira.

At Kristin’s encouragement, Janiê attended Keynote’s 2003 summer project, using her musical skills as part of an evangelistic band. She saw firsthand how God could use music to communicate the truth of Christ and change lives, and her own life was changed in the process. When she returned home to Brazil , she joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, with a God-given dream of starting a Keynote-style music ministry. In 2005 she came to Keynote for six months of training and ministry experience, and then returned home to start turning the dream into reality.

Janiê now directs Brasil Música e Missão (Brazil Music and Mission) for Campus Crusade for Christ. And things have come full circle, because she has started a summer music project for college-age musicians! God has provided student musicians for the project band, but for it to become a reality, Janiê needs help. That’s why I’m going with three other Keynote staff in January (which is summer in Brazil) to help Janiê train her students in music evangelism.

Keynote has a growing number of international partnerships, so I expect to have similar opportunities in the future to train international students and staff members. The classes that I write and edit for Keynote will be used in more and more countries around the world. In light of this, I believe it’s important for me to stay sharp theologically. I’ve just finished my third extension course from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and plan to take further classes to eventually earn a Master of Arts in Christian Studies.

Please pray for me as I prepare to help Janiê equip her students to proclaim the gospel through music, and for future similar opportunities with other internationals. Thanks so much for what you do to support my work with Keynote!  I am so grateful for you! Have a wonderful Christmas!

A Time To Teach…

–New Staff & Interns–

November brings our annual core training session for Keynote’s new staff and interns. We had five great people this year; it was fun to get to know them and a privilege to serve them. I taught several classes in addition to coordinating the training as a whole by arranging the schedule, teachers, and materials.

Before our new staff arrive here for the core training sessions, they do several computerized self-study lessons on a CD-ROM that I put together a few years ago. I was very encouraged by this comment about the CD from one of our new staff:

This CD is awesome.  Thank you Denise, for putting this together. Just tonight I was pouring over it and finding much needed encouragement.  God is blessing me through your work!

–Senior Staff–

The Institute of Biblical Studies (IBS) is Campus Crusade’s theological training for staff.  Since it can be challenging for Keynote touring staff to get to these classes, we decided to hold an intensive one-week Church History course here. I completed IBS a long time ago, so I was the teaching assistant for the professor. Basically, that means I helped him with administrative things like keeping track of the progress students made on their assignments. It was fun to sit in on the class (without having to do the assignments myself!), and rewarding to help develop our senior staff.

Here’s a fun fact: our IBS professor wrote the script for The Scarlet Thread of Redemption, an evangelistic media show for Russia that I worked on in 1993!

…A Time To Learn

I’m almost finished with my latest class at the local extension site for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This Introduction to the Old Testament course has been a lot of work — reading the entire Old Testament plus the four books pictured here, writing a journal on my Bible reading, and three quizzes and a final exam! But it’s been worth it, because I have a much better understanding of the “big picture” of the Old Testament, seeing themes and connections that I didn’t before.

…A Time To Go To Brazil!

Yes, I’ll be taking a  ten-day trip to Brazil in January! Three other Keynote staff and I will help my dear friend Janiê  Sucupira train student musicians.  Janiê directs the new music ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ in Brazil. I’ll save the details for my next letter!  :-)

…And A Time To Celebrate Birthdays!

Keynote is 40 years old! It all started in 1966, when Dr. Bill Bright invited a student band from the University of Minnesota to join the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. Happy Birthday, Keynote!

It doesn’t seem possible, but I just celebrated my 50th birthday. My, my, where does the time fly!!