Philippines Photos

We led a Titus outreach to the Philippines last year... and I've finally got around to posting some pictures.  We'll let THEM tell a bit of the story:

(By the way, we were a bit nervous about taking our whole family on outreach -- but the kids loved it, and would go again any time!)

Update Page

Since we haven't sent out an update/newsletter for awhile, I'm posting our "Stevens' Update Page" below.  Every 4 years we have a Rietema Reunion/Rendezvous/Roundup -- and each family does a scrapbook style page to put in a booklet for each family (and we are a large family! :-))  So, here is what we put together for our 2010 Rietema Roundup this past summer.

Stevens Update Page

Crazy times in Titus!

What's going on in Titus around the world?!  It's exciting, it's crazy, some of it sounds like spiritual warfare, and we would all love your prayers!!

Cambodia: Pioneering their first Titus Project -- starting June 28!  Amy will fly out for a week (June 21-29) to help as they get things off the ground.

Europe: The first Titus Project to run in Europe (Sweden) starts July 3!  The leaders just had a baby and the wife/mom/Titus co-leader has just come down with Lyme's disease after being bitten by a tick (imagine a 2-yr-old, a new baby, a new Titus at a new base, moving your family to a new country [headed to Ukraine long term after this], and now being wiped out from Lyme's disease!)  We think of you often Ang!

India: The next Titus starts July 12, and they are expecting 20+ participants, which includes 6 coming from Nepal.  Nepal is planning to get Titus up and running there this next year.  The leader is a teaching machine right now, has been studiously learning Hindi this past year, and will help us pioneer a new Titus in B* early next year. :-)

Montana:  The Titus Montana leader and another Titus staff person are one their way to Cambodia right now as we speak (i.e. type), and will go on from there to India to help with both Tituses.  Getting there has been, well, a bit stressful, yet a testimony to the faithfulness of God!  They sent in their passports in to get India visas and were denied.  They applied again, but when the process took too long, asked for their passports to be sent back.  Their passports still hadn't arrived when they were scheduled to fly out, so a local post office opened up for them at 3:30 a.m. and went through the mail bag to see if they had come in on the last truck.  Nothing.  They decided to go ahead to the airport to see what talking to the agents in person would do (in terms of needing to change tickets, etc.) and on the way, got a call from the Post Office saying their passports were in a town an hour south.  Explaining the situation at the airport, the agents graciously re-routed them, having them fly out of a town 2 hours south -- but, the flight was in 2 hours!  They sped south, stopping at the Post Office where their passports were purported to be, roused the postal workers to open the door for them and found their passports (at about 5:00 am), sped on to the next airport, and just made the flight (no time to check their bags, just get on the plane).  The India consulate kept their $330, but no visa.  Pray for favor when they apply at the Embassy in Thailand/Cambodia (not sure which one?)!

South Africa:  The leaders are expecting their first child, adopting a child at the same time, going back to the States this next week before Titus starts to finalize U.S citizenship, and their next Titus starts June 28!

Taiwan:  (That's us! :-))  We already have 12+ applications in the works, with rumors of many people planning to apply.  In anticipation of 40+ applicants, we are planning to run Titus twice early in the year (Jan & Feb, back-to-back -- start the second while the first are on outreach), and then again in Sept.  Pray for us as we need to recruit several more staff!

If you count the above locations, that's right!  We have 6 Tituses going (or nearly going) right now!  Next year, there should be 3-4 more additional (new) locations!  Stay tuned for more exciting and crazy things/times to come! :-)

An Interview with Amy

Why do we do what we do?  We thought some of you would be interested in hearing the story behind Titus Project and how it all got started.  This interview takes us back to 1996, when Amy was in her 2nd year of SBS staff and tells how the vision for Titus Project came about:



Little did I know back then where we would be today!  God is so amazing and continues to give us so much vision!  Currently, Titus is operating in 4 locations, with 2-3 more coming this next year.  We have trained over 300 new Bible teachers, and have sent out 110 teams to 42 different countries.  We give God all the glory and feel humbled & privileged to serve Him by equipping and sending more Bible teachers to the nations!

What is Titus Project?  Here is a great 3-minute visual overview! (Dec 16 post) :-)

Counting the Cost

Several nights ago, as I was putting the kids to bed, they wanted to hear a story -- so I told them about winter time growing up: building snow forts, playing outside for so long we'd get frostbite, and Grandpa hooking an inner-tube up behind the 3-wheeler and taking us for rides!  What fun times and fun memories!

The girls were so jealous.  Three of our kids have never experienced snow, Elise was too young to remember.  "No fair!" "Ni hao hao oh!"  "Mom, can we go back in the winter some time so we can play in the snow?"

This evening, as I was looking at our blog, wondering how/what to update, I noticed Seth & Joy had a new video post.  So, I watched it:



It almost made me cry.  These are the kinds of things that when you watch them, it makes you realize the sacrifice of being away from family.  The brother, sisters, nieces, nephews you haven't seen for nearly 4 years.  A niece and two nephews you've never met.  I think of the whole Christmas season and the excitement of hanging out with family, eating food, playing games together, the Christmas grab bag, sardines at Walmart (a game)...  and know we'll miss that ...again.

Being so far away from family and friends in the States & Australia is definitely hard at times.  We do feel the cost of overseas missions.  However, we also feel such a burden and a passion and a calling to be doing what we're doing -- we feel humbled and honored to be in Asia, training up more teachers of God's Word and sending them out to the nations!  What an incredible privilege!

We are really looking forward to our furlough in the States coming up this summer.  We probably won't get to go sledding and inner-tubing behind the 4-wheeler in the snow (unless there's a blizzard in July!), but I'm sure we'll have lots of fun! :-)

Be Inspired!

Here is the Titus Project video that Kerry Neve (leads Titus Montana) put together for us as an overview of Titus Project.  We have watched it several times and I get re-inspired every time.  Michael & I are both filled with so much vision and excitement for Titus.  The journey of leading Titus is often challenging -- stretching our faith, requiring lots of time and hard work, but what a privilege and honor to be training up and sending out more teachers of God's Word!

The video is only 3 minutes and is a good visual of what Titus Project is all about! :-)

Weekly Workout

So, I've been getting a good workout every Tues morning for the past couple of months!  Not a physical workout so much (except that the action songs should probably count for something!), but rather a Chinese workout.  A lady in our church started up a 'learn-an-English-song-and-do-an-activity' play group to reach out to non-believing moms & their kids in our local community.  She asked if I could come help for two hours each Tues as she is expecting and found the action songs to be getting a bit more difficult.

Every Tues morning, 15 moms and their kids show up (there are more who want to come, but we have to cap it at 15) and we sing a song, learn some actions, and do a craft/activity all together.  Afterward, the ladies divide into two groups and we read through and discuss an article (Christian, with a Bible verse) that speaks practically into daily family life.

It's been good.  I've enjoyed meeting more moms from the community and it has helped my Chinese a lot (since we're not taking classes anymore).  I find that I can hardly go down the street anymore without running into someone I know.

This past Christmas season, we practiced, "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Jesus Loves Me" for several weeks and then sang them in front of the whole church.  For many/most of them it was their first time ever to church -- and of course, since they were performing, we had each of them invite the rest of their family & extended family to come see. :-)  Several have ventured to Sunday school with their kids in the past couple of months -- we can all pray that God works in their hearts and draws them to Him!

Philippines: Here we come!

We have been debating, talking about, and praying whether we should try to lead one of the Titus teams for the upcoming January program.  In the past, we haven't really considered it that much -- the Titus teams we send out are usually made up of 2-5 people.  So, with us at 6 -- we are a whole team just by ourselves! :-P  We know we would one day go again, but being in the middle of a season of very young kids and all that that entails, we just didn't feel the time had come again yet.

However, as we've been praying about various locations, and as we are in desperate need for more Titus staff outreach leaders, we thought maybe we should just go for it this time.

Today we found out that the girls have an extra-long winter vacation, as Chinese New Year falls a bit late this year -- and it's perfect timing for when our outreaches go out -- so we've decided to do it!  We will take a team to the Philippines for 4 weeks (Michael may stay an extra week to two weeks while Amy takes the kids back for school), and then the team will finish out on their own the last couple of weeks.

We're all pretty excited, and this will be our first outreach since we were pregnant with Elise! 

Video from Titus South Africa!

De Wet & Marysol Blomerus lead our Titus Project in South Africa.  Our vision in Titus is "...to train up School of Biblical Studies graduates in teaching & preaching and mobilize them into areas where Bible training is greatly needed..." (from our mission statement).  They definitely mobilize their students into areas where Bible training is greatly needed: this particular Titus went to Swaziland, Tanzania, and the local townships in Cape Town, South Africa.

Here is a video from some of the local pastors they worked with, speaking about the need for solid Bible teaching & training.


Bible Teaching Need in South Africa: Local Pastors Speak from De Wet & Marysol on Vimeo.

Video credit: De Wet & Marysol Blomerus
Music credit: West African Soukous by All Star Drum Ensemble


De Wet & Marysol have a great web site -- you will be inspired if you take a minute to check it out. :-)  Recent posts from their site we have really enjoyed:
5 photos: a peek into ministry
Who gets saved from Leviticus?
Titus Project South Africa Begins!

Hot Off The Press!

Here is the latest Titus Times from Taiwan!  Enjoy! :)
A big thanks to Rachel for putting this together!

Titus Times Taiwan July 2009

Feeling the Pressure

I'm sitting at the computer, trying to get a few e-mails out, and am mentally composing a list in my mind of everything we need to do the next few weeks ... and it's a bit overwhelming! In addition to all things that are "mom" things... I get to: prepare a Psalms lecture for SBS, get a new Titus website up and functioning (and I have no clue what I'm doing!), prepare for Germany (leading 2 days-worth of Titus International meetings, and presenting Titus Project at the SBS world-wide consultation). At the same time, Michael is trying to stay caught up on grading, plus get his 1st Corinthians as prepared as possible before I go..., so I want to be able to protect his time as well for that... Any prayers any of you want to lift up on our behalf for grace & strength are much appreciated! :-)

Grounded, Growing, Giving

SBS International recently featured an article about SBS Taiwan on their site. We thought you might enjoy reading it. :-)

(written by Scott Contival)

In YWAM we often talk about how or where we want to serve after our school is done. But maybe we should ask this question: does God really want us to live such compartmentalized lives? Is “Missionary” a jacket you can just take off for nine months while you’re doing a school? Shouldn’t we be missional and full-time Bible students at the same time?

SBS Taiwan has a three-pronged vision statement: Grounded in truth, Growing in relationship, Giving out what we’re receiving.

Grounded – With the incredible deluge of information and opinion out today, it’s more necessary than ever to know what you believe. Asia has such an incredible need for teachers grounded in God’s truth. We’re privileged to be one of the only bi-lingual Chinese/English bible schools in Asia. We want to see students leave our school with the tools necessary for a lifetime of teaching and applying God’s Word.

Growing – We believe that if you leave our school with a lot of knowledge – but haven’t made an impact on the lives of those around you – and haven’t let yourself be impacted by the lives of those around you – then you’ve missed out on one of God’s major goals for this time. An incredible score on Bible Trivia doesn’t necessarily mean you know the Bible. God’s heart is for relationship and we’ll do what we can to see your relationship with God and others develop throughout the school.

Giving – We want to see a lost world reached for Jesus – that’s the passion and heart of our base. Therefore, we don’t all live together – all of our staff and students live in houses all located within a short walk of our central location – a coffee bar that YWAM runs to evangelize and reach our community. Therefore, every day you’ll get a chance to be in contact with the wonderful people of Taiwan who desperately need to see and hear of His amazing love for them. If we can’t be missional while being full-time Bible students, then what message are we sending to the church?

Pray about coming. If you’re not sure where God may be calling you next, then come and do SBS with us here – and while you’re sharing the gospel, experiencing cross-cultural living and studying God’s Word, living in the midst of a nation that is 96% non-Christian, we feel pretty confident God will give you direction!

Welcome SBS 2009!

SBS 2009 is officially underway as of today! There are 14 nations represented in the classroom! We are looking forward to a great year with this new bunch :).

What we'll be doing: 2009

After a fairly-crazy 2008, we really wanted to hear God on what He wanted us to be doing in 2009. A good friend of ours (thanks Kerry!) offered to watch our kids so that we could get away to pray. :)

We, of course, had spent much time talking, thinking, praying during the previous months, but it was such a treat to be able to take a whole day together just to seek God.

We felt God speak and give us direction concerning several things -- some of our decisions being that Michael would staff SBS once again and that Amy would devote two mornings a week to working on Titus International stuff.

We are excited for the coming year and pray God will give us His grace and strength so that we may devote ourselves wholeheartedly to Him, to our family, & the ministry to which we feel He has called us! :)

Titus Taiwan 2008

As I reflect back on Titus Taiwan, 2008, it has been a full year. Exciting. Rewarding. Fruitful. A year in which we have much to give thanks for!

We had a team teaching Himalayan pastors that came down from the mountains for 3 months of their winter to study the Bible, a team out in the jungle villages of Borneo, a team fighting the cold wind in Mongolia as they traveled out to teach in the ghers, Mandarin-speaking teams on 'the other side', teams equipping church leaders with tools for inductive Bible Study, teams discipling new believers, etc.

January: Ran first Training Time. Sent teams out to: Indonesia, Nepal, C*, Taiwan.
February: Ran second Training Time. Sent team to Mongolia.
March: (the day after the above school left for outreach) Michael started full-time SBS staff.
April: Welcomed first set of Titus students back from outreach, debriefed, graduated them.
May: Welcomed first set of Titus students back from outreach, debriefed, graduated them.
June: Staff training & preparations for July school.
July: Ran third Training Time. Sent teams to: K*, C* (x2), Mongolia.
Aug/Sept: Office logistics. :)
Sept/Oct: Welcomed July school back from outreach, debriefed.
Nov/Dec: Office logistics & prep for 2009!

"Titus has been the most challenging but also most rewarding 3 months of my life. I was able to conquer my biggest fear of teaching & come out knowing that God was pleased with me. It was awesome to see the people that I taught begin to really understand how to study the Bible inductively." S.N. (July student)

With SBS, Titus, 4 kids, etc., 2008 was definitely a full year for us -- but we feel so privileged to be equipping students with a solid foundation in the Word, then training them up as teachers and sending them out! All the glory goes to God!

Michael's last book for the year: Daniel

SBS has less than a month to go! The students are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (a very GOOD tunnel, being immersed in studying the Bible! But, a very intense time too with lots of long hours and hard work!)

Here is Michael teaching the book of Daniel, his last book for this year. After this, it's catching up on grading, end-of-school stuff, catching up a bit at home :P, and then Titus starts just 2 weeks later!

Michael's Week in Mongolia

(written by Michael)

I was very grateful for the opportunity to spend a week in Mongolia, my first time in that country. The weather in Mongolia was unseasonably warm according to the locals, with the daytime temperatures being slightly above freezing. It actually was a nice change from the long summer in Taiwan.

I spent the week teaching the book of Romans, also a first for me to teach this book. It was a wonderful opportunity to be able to share the message of this book with the SBS students there.

I was also able to try some of the local foods, some horse meat which was very tender and tasted like beef -- I would not have known any different unless they had told me. I also was able to taste the local favourite beverage of choice: fermented mares' milk -- keeps you warm on a cold winter's day!

The best thing about any trip is being able to be with the local believers and seing the growth of the church (the church in Mongolia is only about 18 years old). Many thanks to Amy for holding down the fort at home, no easy task with our busy household.

Can you tell me the whole gospel message?

I love it when people ask questions like, "Why is Jesus the only way?", "Can people find their own path in life?", "What is the complete gospel?" -- it's a wide open door for sharing :-).

I (Amy) have been meeting for awhile with a Taiwanese friend on Friday mornings so that we can practice speaking English & Chinese.

Recently, as I have asked her to help me review lessons in the book I am currently studying, "Christian Vocabulary", these questions have come up.

Please pray with us that we will be able to clearly, simply and yet thoroughly continue to share the Good News, and that J. will come to know the love, peace, and hope we have in Christ! :-)