Kelly and Connie’s Place

…that’s Holland, Michigan!

Palm Sunday weekend Kelly and I were in Holland, MI and Fort Wayne, IN. On Friday/Saturday, we were helping one of our ACMC team members with his Great Lakes Regional Missions Conference. The weather cooperated with low 50’s during the day and sunny skies, helping us have a good turn out.

· Attendance: 280+ mission minded people from over 100 churches

· Book Sales: just a little over $7,000.00 mission books, DVD’s and resources

· Exhibitors: 20+ Mission agencies & organizations with display booths & materials

· Plenary Sessions: Great worship time and captivating speakers

· Workshops: Whole variety of topics i.e. New Trends In Missions/How to Get Your Church Excited about Missions and etc.

Kelly and I helped with the book tables, running the cash register and answering questions.

Workshop on Short-Term Mission Trips

Booktables are almost empty!

Kelly running credit cards sales for books.

On Sunday we visited a church in Fort Wayne that has supported us on a monthly basis for over 20 years: Life Bridge Church. We got to see their new facilities and have a good talk with the pastor and his wife. (www.lifebridge.cc)

Pastor Bill and Sherri Campbell with Kelly

on Palm Sunday in Fort Wayne, IN

We finished our time in Ft Wayne by enjoying a great evening of fellowship with some very good friends, Carol and Dennis Kutzner. A pretty accurate review of our time together can be seen by clicking on the ‘Comments’ (by Dennis himself)! We missed seeing the Goodman’s but hope to catch them the next time.

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This is a photo from last week of Jr. and his mom, the female American Bald
Eagle, perched on top of a high voltage power pole by our office (the male eagle [not shown] is half again as big as the female). Jr.’s definitely getting big! We’ve been watching Jr. “flap his wings,” preparing for the big moment when he takes flight.

This week, he flew the coup! We haven’t seen him actually flying, but the nest is now mostly empty. I thought all three might have vacated the nest, but yesterday, Jr. was back sitting in the nest. I hope to see him fly and see him when his head feathers become white.

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We’ve had a great 2 weeks with Kelly’s mom visiting from Indiana. She’s been quite the busy lady going to lunch and visiting with her friends. We even left her on her own over the weekend while Kelly and I went to an ACMC Mission Conference in Holland, Michigan. No grass grows under her feet.

On her almost last night, her grandson and our nephew, Kreig, drove down from Jacksonville, Florida and we took Grandma to Chili’s. Tomorrow she heads back to Indiana, a little more rested and a lot more full of that good ‘ole Florida vitamin D Sunshine!

And here is Jean in her Cadillac as we see her off at the Orlando airport. She is busy reorganizing everything after going through the security line.

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WHAT WAS KELLY UP TO?

Last week Kelly attended a great missions leadership institute held here in Orlando. This leadership training is called LeaderLink and is put on by The Mission Exchange* (previously called EFMA) and CrossGlobal Link* (previously called IFMA). The institute attracts missions leaders worldwide and is held in several different countries through out the year.

*Note: These are two well known associations of mission agencies and churches whose purpose is to establish standards of accountability and integrity for their members.

Kelly was quite impressed with both the instructors and the content. The sessions emphasized spiritual formation, the development of godly character, ministry skills, strategic formation and how to discover & implement biblical patterns for leader development. He found it a very timely training event as he steps into this new phase of our ministry with PIONEERS.

CONNIE WAS BUSY TOO…

While Kelly was attending LeaderLink, I attended (on behalf of Kelly & I), COMHINA’s annual board review of Nexus, the newly formed North American Latino mission agency. NEXUS is the result of a alliance/partnership formed between COMHINA and PIONEERS. Kelly and I serve as the liaison between these two agencies to help see this vision come to fruition. It has truly been a God thing to see this unfold, in spite of all our limitations and business.

COMHINA has the mission task to mobilize the N. American Hispanic Churches to have a heart & vision for taking the Gospel to the least reached of the world. NEXUS will be the sending agency that will take that vision to the next step. The mission of NEXUS: to send out and support workers from those Hispanic Churches for the task of redeeming people from every city, tribe, nation and tongue.

Also attending the meeting was PIONEERS President, Steve Richardson (right end, front row), and VP of Operations for PIONEERS, Art Arreguin (right end, 2^nd row next to Connie).

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PIONEERS has an awesome new email or web resource to help you keep up with missions news and information. Please drop by and take a look. Bottom Line Update click here to see a sample!

You can subscribe and see past articles at the Move Further website! There you can see some video samples of the products our teams in Denver produce.

Please pray with us for the success of our upcoming Church Partner Forum, 25-27 March 2008. Wish you were here!

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Announcing that

KELLY McCLELLAND has been made

a Vice President with Pioneers.

The announcement was made by Steve Richardson, President of Pioneers at our staff meeting last week. They have also added another ministry team that will now report to Kelly.

Kelly and I are excited to be a part of this fast growing agency. These are our numbers as of 2006 (2007 figures will come out next month):

· 1532 international members serve in

· 72 countries among

· 98 people groups on

· 176 teams and minister in

· 65 languages

Now, for those of you who think that means he gets a raise, I would remind you that we are a faith based ministry. What does that mean you ask?

It means we raise our own support. We often jokingly say, “You want a raise? Great, just go out and raise more support!”

So now, Kelly’s official title is: Vice President of Church Resources. (The good news is, I got a promotion too…I am now the ASSISTANT to the Vice President of Church Resources.)

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She’s here! Kelly’s mom, Jean McClelland, has escaped the grasp of Old Man Winter in freezing Indiana for some sub tropical warm breezes and sunshine in Orlando. We gladly accommodated her with clear skies and 75 degree weather. She arrived Friday evening and wasted no time Saturday morning drinking in some of those warm breezes.This is Jean, sitting out in front of our condo, (in the shade) talking on her new cell phone and bragging to family back home (where it was mostly cloudy & 40 degrees) about the great weather she was enjoying. Coming up,…79 degrees on Sunday and 81 on Monday. Life is great! Jean is smiling.

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