Doing Business With Mission

This past week has been real exciting for me regarding an area that I am quite passionate about; "Doing Business with Mission".

First, I was extremely encouraged by some potential opportunities for people to either move to Bulgaria to work or even start a company or do an internship. Some of the business people there who are followers of Jesus are really desiring to see people come over and work in the marketplace. If you are interested email me at larry@theupstreamcollective.org

Take a look at a video we shot in Bulgaria. Click Here!

Second, we have had several new members for our Skybridge Community. We typically have people who are either looking for a job in Europe, already working in Europe or with a church who is interesting in sending this type of worker to the field. Our community is growing!

Third, two of our people who have been seeking jobs in Europe found places of employment. I think I mentioned this before but hopefully my repetition will simply emphasize my enthusiasm for them.

New Article Out
I wrote an article for Paul Cox who works with OMS International this week. He will be posting it on his blog over the next several days. Take a look. The article is for people who are going on short term trips and is about "Items that you need to be sure to pack on your trip".

The Week

About Sofia, Bulgaria
What a city of opportunity. I hope some people will read this and begin to pray about getting involved here. I think something great is going to happen here spiritually. Here are three things that you can do:

1. If you would like to connect with a missionary in Sofia please let me know by sending me an email. We have several teams that we are working with both with the imb and Greater Europe Mission They need prayer support. They need some strong partnerships to help them plant churches and they need churches that will send business people to come there and work.

2. We talked with several people who think that finding business internships in Sofia would be a possible way to connect here. We talked with one business guy who thinks they can bring a new person on. If you want to live and work in Europe, on purpose then check out www.skybridgecommunity.net and drop me a note.

3. I have been working with John and the Business as Mission group at Greater Europe Mission. They have an event coming up called GO MARKET GATHERING on May 29 and 30th to help people discover more about this idea of business as mission. I will be doing a Skype interview from Germany as a part of the conference. If you can get to the Colorado Springs area I think it would be worth checking out. Click here for the link.

The Upstream Collective Vision Trip
I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ed Stetzer. Okay maybe that was an overstatement (smile) but we are excited about him being a part of this trip next week. I really appreciate his passion to see the nations come to Christ. We read much about his conversations of missions and church planting in North America but he also has quite a heart for the world. Thanks Ed!

Our trip will begin in Rome and end up in Marseille. Our guides who will be leading us through these cities are quite awesome and have some great venues in store for us. We will be doing Jet Set blog updates so be sure to follow.

If you are interested in coming on one in the future check out our site at www.theupstreamcollective.org .

Confused - Let your "Yes" be "No" and Your "No" be "Yes"

I told you yesterday that I am in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is my first visit here. I really like being here. Very interesting culture. I like the people here. The coffee is also good!. On the plane from Germany to Bulgaria I sat next to a guy who lives in Minnesota. He is from Bulgaria. He has lived in the States for almost 8 years. He has lived in Atlanta, New Jersey, New York City and Orlando. He now lives in Minnesota. He likes the opportunity to work in the states though he misses home and family. He did not know one word of English before he arrived 8 years ago (I know how he feels). He was coming back to his home for the first time in 2 years.

We were able to talk about many things. I was reading the book "Re-Jesus" by Alan Hirsch so we had a really good spiritual conversation. He comes from a Bulgarian Orthodox background but is not connected to a church now. He wrote down a few words for me in Bulgarian and I still cannot pronounce them. I am not really a linguistic expert. smile. He also gave me an interesting tid-bit. He said that to shake you head like we Americans shake when we say "no" means "yes" and if you shake your head like you are shaking "yes" it can be "no." I needed to try this out. You have many opportunities to shake your head when travelling. So I did not have to be real intentional about it. When you are asked something you usually go with a natural response.

Yes, I want a coffee.
No, I do not want to buy that. etc..
I also found that you rather naturally shake your head or use non-verbal gestures.

We had some Gypsies who were asking for money near our hotel. We see them each time we go out the door. They were following us all the way down the street. Then it occurred to me as I was shaking my head "no" that they may be thinking I was saying "yes". So I found out that I needed to watch that and reverse my thinking and my gestures. It works much better this way. Understanding your culture is important. I have much to learn here.

Changing topics

Skybridge - You know one of the initiative that I am involved in with The Upstream Collective is something called The Skybridge Community. It is where we want to see people come to Europe and work in the marketplace and live out their lives missionally here in these cities. We have people who are part of this community who are already working here. We also have some who are trying to get jobs or opportunities to be here in business, internships or Study Abroad programs. What has been really cool this week is that two of the people who have been looking for work here in Europe found jobs this week. Yea God!!

In my next post I will talk about some opportunities here in Sofia. They could really use some churches to sense a calling to work here. I also sense that this could be a good city to work in as a business professional and also make a huge impact as a follower of Jesus. Let me know at larry@theupstreamcollective.org if you want more information.