100 People Network

Story by: Lori Richter
Photography by: Phillip Glickman

 “She’s not my child. I came to the realization that these beautiful daughters I call mine are not. Ashley belongs to God. If he’s ready to take her back to be with him, that’s fine,”  said Theresa Chandler  as she remembered her daughter’s brush with death in May 2011.

Tony, Theresa and their two teenage daughters, Ashley and Jane, are peaceful, hopeful, calm and confident. After talking with the Chandler’s for just a few minutes, it is obvious why they are so nice to be around: God is their source. Their relationship with God, their Father, runs deep and because of what He did for them.

In November 2010, God called the Chandlers to prepare to move tothe Middle East as part of the Austin Stone’s 100 People Network. Fundraising had started, their family was moving into a temporary home, and – after being laid off from his job – Tony began to work toward moving their family to the Middle East.

During Thanksgiving, Theresa and the girls spent the holiday with family while Tony traveled to the Middle East on an exploratory trip. One evening, without warning, Ashley got sick. This healthy, athletic young woman found herself exhausted when she simply walked across the room. God gently spoke to Theresa: Go to the ER. There they learned that Ashley was in heart failure, kidney failure and had fluid in her lungs.

With Tony in the Middle East, the Chandler’s missional community sprang into action. They moved quickly to help Theresa and Ashley in whatever ways they could. They prayed, arranged for Skype calls, brought food, and spent an entire day in the hospital waiting room praying. Meanwhile, Tony’s team on the trip with him also began to pray and arrange for him to catch the next flight home. Remarkably, Theresa and Tony say that they knew God was in this situation with them. They never felt panicked. Theresa said, “I knew God had her.”
 

Tests revealed that Ashley had a rare disease causing inflammation of the arteries, a diagnosis that typically goes undetected until a catastrophic event occurs.It’s plain to see that God was involved in Ashley’s early illness and diagnosis. She was released from the hospital after a month-long stay and was home for Christmas.

Then, in May, Ashley’s blood pressure unexpectedly shot up again. Unable to bring it down, doctors at Dell Children’s Medical Center suggested that Ashley be flown to a nephrologist in Cleveland, Ohio.  Ashley underwent an angioplasty and renal artery bypass surgery. During the surgery, Ashley crashed and doctors administered CPR. Twice. After a grueling 12 hours of surgery, Tony and Theresa were finally told that their daughter was successfully out of surgery.

Again, the Chandler’s missional community sprang into action. People prayed and sent out the message to pray  and the word spread. A few members of their community even traveled to Cleveland to visit with the family while Ashley was hospitalized. They soon realized that Ashley was about to miss her high school graduation ceremony, so the community petitioned the school and creatively made arrangements for Ashley to participate via Skype with balloons, cake and, of course, a cap and gown. As her name was called to walk the stage during the ceremony, Ashley heard the Frank Irwin Center erupt into cheers as the hospital staff simultaneously broke out into applause.

During their stay in Cleveland with Ashley, the lease on the Chandler family’s house expired and they needed to move. Their community packed, moved and unpacked the family in their new house. Their furniture was placed in exactly the same place as their previous home, even down to the smallest detail. When the Chandlers came home, their dishes were in the kitchen cabinets and their clothes were in the closets. Their missional community also helped pay for the family’s return plane tickets and put together a fund to help with Ashley’s medical bills.

Sharing life together in this missional community went to the extreme. As hospital staff, friends and family watched people care for the Chandlers, Theresa and Tony made a point to be intentional about telling them what God was doing in their lives and the support their missional community gave them. They boldly told them, “This is the way Christ’s people act!”

Today, the Chandler’s have a story to tell; a story of God’s faithfulness and how He uses His people to meet the needs of his children. They said, “This is a story to God’s glory. When you’re living for Christ and not the world, you’re going to have trials. It’s going to happen. One way to prepare is to be in a missional community. We couldn’t have endured through this experience without the love and support of our missional communities.”

Tony, Theresa, Ashley and Jane Chandler are planning to leave for the Middle East in the summer of 2012.   

Story by: Brian Lundin
Photo by: Scott Wade

With its current population of over 1.21 billion people, India is on track to become the world’s most populous country by 2025. Greg wants to see a church planting explosion there that would rival what has taken place in China. For someone with such high hopes, washing the feet of the poor in the countryside might seem like too meager of a beginning. But Greg is following the example of humility that Christ displayed for us: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

Greg was raised in church, but by the time he started school at The University of Texas, he realized he was not living in obedience to God. Originally, his goals were to obtain a degree in computer science, find a good job and pursue what this world has to offer. But at the invitation of a good friend, Greg started attending The Austin Stone and going to a campus Bible study. At that point, God made some remarkable changes in his life.

When asked about the change, Greg states, “I started living in response to grace.”

Two years ago, while at a ministry on campus, Greg saw a flyer about a rural foot washing ceremony performed by Christian workers in India for the Dalit–the “untouchables” or those who are “broken to pieces.” On this flyer, Greg saw Christians going to these broken and outcast people at the bottom of the caste system, kneeling before them, and humbly serving them.

According to Hindu teachings on caste, only through good karma and the cycle of reincarnation can one escape poverty and desperation. Greg desired to bring the message of grace into this culture, to bring the good news that Christ has delivered us from death regardless of caste, society and our very own sin. He wanted to show the Indian people that the gospel saves and that their value does not lie in which caste their society places them, but rather in what Christ has accomplished for them. Eager to watch God restore the Dalit and transform the nation of India with the same grace that is transforming him, Greg pursued the opportunity on the flyer and went to India to wash the feet of the poor and broken.

After that trip, Greg’s longing to serve the Indian people, the poor, the broken and the outcast, continued to grow. When The Stone launched the 100 People Network, Greg saw a direct path to pursue his calling. “I think it is biblical to be sent by your home church,” he says. Upon joining the network, Greg found more than support and camaraderie. “It didn't take long for me to understand that God put me in the 100 People Network because he understood that I knew nothing about being a goer, and they were prepared to train people like me,” Greg states. “I learned so much about God, serving him and loving him more. Not just that I'm loving him more, but that I'm inviting people to love him.”

In a few weeks, Greg will be back in India. However, this time, after the foot washing and preaching events have concluded and the teams have moved on, Greg will remain, serving the people of the town and showing them a life lived in response to grace. He will focus on building relationships, making disciples and planting a church—a church that Greg hopes will be one of many.

Greg has the support of his friends and family. Understandably, his parents are worried, but their joy in Greg’s role in God’s mission to the unreached overshadows their fears. Greg’s concerns about moving to India--how much he may miss country music and fishing—do not compare to his desire to follow Christ’s example to take the gospel to the broken. He’s excited to see their response to God’s grace.

Story by Allicia Garza
Photo by Tiffany Palmer

In a few days, Maddie Pearson will leave her life in Austin and move to the Middle East. Despite the fact that she is leaving everything she’s ever known, the hardest part has been giving away her Calphalon pots and pans. “That was a big deal,” she said, “even bigger than selling my car."

Maddie first considered international missions as a high school student, but like many students, she assumed she would first get her college degree and then go. With her plan set, she headed off to Texas State to pursue her studies. But college wasn’t all she thought it would be.

“I never really liked school. I just went because that’s what you do. I loved learning, but hated college, and I think there was a reason for that,” Maddie explained.

After getting involved with The Austin Stone, she was asked to go on a vision trip to a country in the Middle East.

“I had the worst time ever. Everything went wrong. But I knew I wanted to go back because I fell in love with the place.”

The next summer, she had the opportunity to return to that same country, and it was on this trip that God confirmed where Maddie’s mission field would be.

“When I was there, it felt like two magnets finding each other. It just instantly fit. I loved it more than Texas, which was a lot. That was a really weird and new feeling for me,” Maddie recalled.

After returning home to Austin, Maddie felt God calling her to pursue the mission field as soon as possible.

One spring day in 2010, she was too distracted to even read her Bible.

“My disobedience was so convicting. I just set down my Bible right there and said, ‘Okay. Let’s do this.’ I wasn’t super amped about it, but I knew it was obedience.”

The next Sunday, she received confirmation through a sermon at The Austin Stone.

“It was crazy because he was preaching and said verbatim, ‘If God wants you to drop out of school and move to the Middle East, you do it.’ That next week I called and told my parents that’s what I was doing,” Maddie said.

It’s been a little over a year since that day, and Maddie is ready to see what God is going to do while she’s there. Although her team has made a two-year commitment, Maddie is prepared to stay indefinitely. But if she must leave someday, she knows the legacy she wants to leave behind.

“I hope if I leave [the Middle East], I’m just a glimmer of what my friends [there] remember. I hope they remember the way that God worked through me.”

With her departure day approaching quickly, Maddie is learning to rely on God.

“I’ve been learning that while I’m there, [I’ll have to] trust Jesus with my money, my words, my friendships, and the souls of my Middle Eastern friends. I’m realizing that it’s going to be hard knowing that I have to trust Jesus to save their souls, that I can’t do anything.”

Maddie is encouraged daily by the words of Matthew 5:14 and Jesus’ vision for the church: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Maddie is excited to see God fulfill his promises. With a heart full of hope and her bags packed, she is ready to leave her life in Austin and her Calphalon cooking set behind.

“I want the church to see the need for Jesus in the world. This is so much more important than an education, career, friendship or comfort. It’s about being a light in such a dark place. There is just such a big need. We need more workers.”