Honduras
I have made annual trips to visit Tierra Nueva workers Honduras since we left our six-year stay in 1989. The focus of my trips is to encourage Tierra Nueva’s workers through personal visits and seminars and prayer. There are currently 15 half-time Honduran peasant trainers working with Tierra Nueva. These men and women teach sustainable farming, preventative health and promote conservation of soil and water. Women “promotoras” teach preventative health, sewing and herbal medicine. Reading and discussing the Bible has always been an emphasis, though many of the promoters need strengthening as facilitators due to religious divisions in communities. Tierra Nueva focuses on reaching out to people in extreme poverty. Currently the ministry is organizing and training small coffee growers to meet the demands of the organic specialty coffee market. Tierra Nueva also helps communities put in gravity-flow water projects. During the past visits I have been teaching on physical and inner healing, contemplative or “soaking” prayer and empowerment by the Holy Spirit. People are hungry for more of God’s love. We have seen lots of healing, especially on a recent visit. >>Read More<<

France
Gracie and I lived in Montpellier, France from 1988-1991, completing our Masters of Theology at the Institut Protestant de Theologie in Montpellier. I have continued to return nearly every year, first to complete my Doctoral dissertation and then to participate in annual retreats with the Fraternité Espirituelle Les Veilleurs and in the ecumenical spiritual renewal conferences Embrase Nos Coeurs. I have a growing relationship with the Eglise Reformée de Belleville in Paris through my friendship with Pastor Serje Jacquemus and missionary Randy Greer.>>Read More<<

Eglise Reformée de Belleville, Paris
Embrase Nos Coeurs
Atelier par Bob Ekblad 2006

Information in French click here
More Info in French

Mozambique
Gracie and I were first exposed to Heidi and Rolland Baker’s ministry in Mozambique when Gracie first attended a Catch the Fire conference in Toronto in October 2003. The Baker’s life-long calling to see the Kingdom of God come amongst the poorest of the poor caught our attention. Heidi’s dramatic story of personal renewal at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and the subsequent growth of their ministry among orphans and villagers is truly hope inspiring.
>>Read More About Mozambique<<

I have been feeling financially pinched these days, both personally and in our ministry here at New Earth-Tierra Nueva. Rising gas prices, growing children with ever-changing clothes and shoe sizes, credit card payments… Many people coming to the Family Support Center with needs for help to meet real and urgent needs. It is easy to find reasons to not give. We need to pay our own bills first, don’t we? Our staff at TN need their salaries to support our families. You can’t help everyone, or can you? I have been challenged lately to not let the economic pressures of this world dictate but to step into the freedom and abundance of God’s economy. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount penetrates. >>Read More About Mozambique<<

South Africa
Since the mid 90’s two South African friends, Jonathan Draper and Gerald West from the University KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg have had a significant impact on me personally and on Tierra Nueva and The People’s Seminary. Both were actively engaged in the struggle against apartheid and are committed to scholarship, community organizations and the church. Both are socially-engaged Bible scholars committed to empowering theology students and ordinary people to read Scripture and minister effectively in their communities.>> Read More About South Africa <<

Spain
In March of 2005 my son Isaac and I traveled to Barcelona Spain to visit Betel, a high-impact Christian ministry to people struggling with addictions in over 50 cities throughout Spain. The Barcelona Betel community invited us to live in one of their recovery homes for a few days. I preached in their Sunday morning service, led a morning Bible study and prayer time in one of their homes. Isaac and I visited all of their self-sustaining antique and second-hand stores and had lots of conversation with their leaders and community members. In this way we learned enough about a model that is being implemented successfully by Betel in many other countries to desire to establish a similar ministry here in Washington State.>>Read More About Spain<<

Venezuela
Dear friend, I’m writing you a more detailed than normal report of my recent 8 day ministry trip to Caracas, Venezuela, because of the amazing series of events enlivened by God’s beautiful Presence. I lead a series of courses on the ministry of Jesus and Kingdom of God for a group of North Americans and Venezuelans living among and ministering to the urban poor in impoverished urban barrios. In the days before leaving National Public Radio labeled Caracas the most violent city in the world due to the high number of robberies and murders in the lawless, drug-infested barrios carved into the mountainsides surrounding the city where over half the city’s five million people reside. On my way to the airport a friend prays for me over the cell phone. He tells me a sees a picture of a rusty lock that looks like it could never open. Then he sees a rusty key inserted and the apparently impossible happens—the padlock opens.>>Read More About Venezuela<<