Connecting at New Wineskins

The New Wineskins for Global Missions Conference was held September 15-20 (including pre-conference events) at Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina. Archbishop Steve Wood said it is the largest number of Anglicans gathering as an ACNA event. More people gathering for the sake of global missions than gathering for a business meeting is a healthy sign!

I was able to attend the Anglican Frontier Missions pre-conference, meeting cross cultural workers who came from the hardest to reach places in the world. They are committed to reaching the least reached peoples, which mainly live across the North African, Middle East, and Central Asia belt known as the “10/40 Window.”

Throughout the conference the overarching idea was to be open to the “divine appointments” God would have for us. One of those appointments came out of our time meeting as a Diocese. Over 100 people from our diocese attended the conference through the week. We also had Dawn Batchelor lead a team of children’s workers from several diocesan churches who ministered to the children during the New Wineskins Conference. In our Thursday afternoon gathering we began putting out ideas of what we can do as a diocese for the cause of global missions.

Out of that time came a conversation with Fr. Jon Hall from Incarnation in Tallahassee. He wanted to introduce me to Kenley Cogan from his church who works with an organization called Legacy Refuge. Jon, Kenley, and I had breakfast together and talked about this ministry and how we may get the word out to our diocese. There are other such divine appointments I will share eventually, but I felt it important to introduce you all to Legacy Refuge.

Legacy Refuge is a nonprofit ministry serving orphans worldwide (they have served in Ukraine, Germany, Romania, Ethiopia, the US, Austria, Poland, and more!), while training the next generation of orphan care leaders. Their mission is that every orphan would come to know Christ, heal from trauma, and live a healthy, productive life.

There are several pillar programs to further this mission: Filtered Hope (the job and life-skills training for teens and young adults who are aging out of orphan care systems), Legacy Rising (the leadership development program that equips young adults from sending countries to effectively and wisely serve and love the orphan), and their summer and winter camps for children (that provide these kids with new words and new experiences to build resilience and work toward healing from trauma).

The greatest needs at present are people, funds, and prayer.

Volunteers who are interested in joining for a short- or mid-length mission trip (there are opportunities that range from 2 weeks to 3 months, at present) will receive training and preparation that will allow them to continue serving with Legacy, or loving the orphan and the vulnerable child wherever the Lord may call them.

Learn more about Legacy Refuge: https://legacyrefuge.org/

A testimonial about their skills training through a coffee shop in Romania: