Community Highlights October 2007

These are selected excerpts from the highlights form that was sent to every community. Many thanks to all those who responded.

Cunberland Valley – We held a combined Tres Dias School Saturday, 10-13-07, at a combined men’s and women’s team meeting. We are planning to have a combined secuela with our sister community Susquehanna Valley sometime this spring. We hope to rekindle some strong relationships.

Northern New Jersey - held a mni-retreat for the Secretariat Members. We asked members to see the vision and future of TDNJ. We came away with these goals.

3-Update our present list of reunion groups and contacts so that we can get all pescadores into a small group.

We will be holding a potluck secuela in November in the Capital district area with some pescadores who are attempting to start a new community in that area. We have been meeting with some of them and have had some attend our weekends as observers. We will be sponsoring this community. They plan to sign the emerging community agreement at the secuela.

We do not collect “payment” for our weekends, but use donations to pay for the weekend expenses. We have a stewardship committee who has researched an organization who will help us establish automatic donations from checking or savings accounts for our pescadores. We are excited about this means of giving and expect to institute this by early next year. Small regular donations by pescadores will result in a significant reduction of the weekend costs for both team and candidates.

We have set up a “parish rep” program with 48 churches represented so far. The representatives will be the liaison between our Secretariat and the pescadores in their congregations. They will explain and pass on any information concerning events, policies, etc. They will also notify them of any candidates from the church who will attend a weekend for palanca, attending mananita, etc.

We are also instituting a “speakers bureau” with a meeting on October 18^th for training. Couples (not necessarily husband & wife in all circumstances) will speak to church groups when invited, to explain and debunk any misinformation about Tres Dias. This will be in follow up to John McKinney, Pastor Dan Whitley & Valerie speaking about TD with Rev. tom Zahradnik on the Christian radio station back in July.

We have stopped issuing paper copies of our community newsletter. It will continue to available online. Our only exception will be to print out a plain copy for those who do not have access to email.

We held a training session on January 20, 2007 and will conduct another on October 20, 2007

Moscow Russia – The Moscow and the ST. Petersburg Tres Dias and Voronezh communities will be appreciating the International Secretariat and Pescadores for the financial help to our communities. Thanks to you, we will be able to continue the activities and sharing this wonderful ministry to Russian people.

Moscow weekends will be next March. Please join us to bless the sheep of Russia that need to see loving Christian servant leaders/shepherds in action. We cannot exist without support from America. Russia is trying to remove Christian influence again. Please come now while the opportunity to serve is still available. Come and see Red Square, the Kremlin, experience Russia, while you share God’s love!

Anna Dubrovsky will be in America in late January for a North Georgia Tres Dias weekend. If you have a weekend near that time she might be able to visit your weekend or your community. Help create a bridge between your nation and what God is doing in Russia. Multiply the blessings. Contact Wilson Burton for more information at huntandfish@comcast.net or call 800-706-1493.

Kyiv Ukraine — We were blessed with 60 new Pescadores at our set of weekends in May. In addition to holding TD weekends and sequellas in Kyiv, our community members help at weekends in Rivne and will be helping at Vida Nueva in Vinitsya in November.We would like to hold a TD School in 2007/2008.

Our community elections time is near. We are due for a partial rotation of some of the Secretariat is in early November. We appreciate community prayers for this.

We have praise from our community: Even after Wilson Burton’s efforts to collect money for us, our community was still short of money in May to pay for the weekends. The missing amount, however, miraculously arrived during the weekends. We are grateful for an unexpected private donation from a Birmingham, AL community member. This was a great witness of God’s constant attention and ability to meet our needs.

The Secretariat is encouraging community members by reminding people at sequelas to set aside some amounts of money on a monthly basis to help raise a bigger amount for the weekends in May 2008. Thank you for all your service for us, Ira Ivanova

Kyiv, (Americans still call it Kiev) Report from Wilson Burton: Our ’08 weekends will be in early May. We only hold one set of weekends per year because of funding. We could not hold even one set were it not for the support of the Americans who come and share the blessing of Tres Dias in our country. Please come and join us. We will show you our city, the capital of Ukraine. Come and see the largest nation in Europe and perhaps the most Christian nation in Europe. Ukraine is open to Christian ministries of all kinds. Tres Dias builds leaders who love the people, not like most of the leaders for the last decades. The future is growing, but we need your help, your joy, your sharing of Tres Dias with our people. Contact Wilson Burton for more information at huntandfish@comcast.net or call 800-706-1493.

Rivine Ukraine - We had a wonderful weekend! We had 31 candidates for men’s weekend and 36 candidates for women’s weekend. There were 31 team members for men and 27 members for women. We had most wonderful testimonies from candidates from both weekends and we are very satisfied with the team work for the weekends.

There was no rush as it used to be on previous weekends. There was wide variety from different churches represented on the weekend. We had new participants from new churches now and they are very enthusiastic.

We have several people that are willing and already verbalized their desire to (support)

Rivne VN#1 - We have already planned it on 1-3 May 2008 (boys) and 8-10 May 2008 (girls). We have also planned and booked dates for Rivne TD#6: 17-20 of September 2008(men), 24-27 of September 2008 (women).

All these things became possible, because we have finally found the campground that we will work with on continuing bases. This is the campground you’ve been at on Rivne TD last year.

They have improved facilities last year. They plan more improvement next year, including hot water in dormitory, new toilets and remolding of the hall we use for rollo room.

We are going to do that in the nearest time: November in Moscow and December in S-Petersburg.

St Petersburg Russia - St. Petersburg had a great # 10 set of weekends with about 60 new pescadores experiencing the presence of God, His love, His grace and His forgiveness. Ten Americans (four from the TDI Secretariat) joined in the sharing the blessing. Americans are always welcome in St. Petersburg. Weekends need American support to be able to afford to hold to continue. Thank you to the Americans that continue to make Tres Dias possible in Russia. Russia needs God! Russia needs the blessing of Tres Dias to build Christian servant leaders. Next Tres Dias will be in August of ’08 – please pray about coming and serving. St Pete is a beautiful city created to be the capital of Russia. Come and see!

Southeast Tennessee – Congratulations to David Dawes, he is the new Chairman of S.E. Tenn.

We just completed our #3 weekend and had 42 men’s candidates with a waiting list and 38 women. Paul Ikard has put together some helpful information on starting new communities. Anyone interested in this information can contact him at: pikard@ikardstevenson.com

Tres Dias London & Southeast - Tres Dias London and South East has now been in existence for 10 years and we are about to celebrate just that with 10th Anniversary Celebrations on Sunday 21 October. In that time this community has had 21 weekends. The men's weekend had to be cancelled in 2007 due to lack of pilgrims and so we ask your prayer for the success of the forthcoming men’s 14-17 February 2008.

Susquehanna Valley - We had a combined Secuela/Gathering with the Central Pennsylvania Walk to Emmaus and are currently working out the logistics for a combined Secuela with the Cumberland Valley Tres Dias Community in 2008

Trinity Valley - Established New Community in Lima, Peru and it is growing..

The 2008 weekends are scheduled for March (mens) April (womens) and fall weekends are in October (see tresdias.org). International members are encouraged to come and participate in these upcoming weekends. They will bless you and you will be a blessing to them.