It seems hard to believe that it has only been about one year ago that our Intl team of MCNet coaches met together in Wittenberg Germany. Initially, we were going to meet in 2020, but decided on a date in 2019. Little did any of us know at that time what was to become of 2020.

As all of you, we are adapting and adjusting as a ministry to this new reality. International travel has become exceedingly challenging, from airline schedules, differing country restrictions, lack of travel insurance to name a few. We are sure each of you have your own obstacles in these challenging times.

While we continue to be in contact with our team via Zoom meetings as well as the standard Skype, email, WhatApp etc., we realize that nothing is a sufficient substitute for the personal contact that comes from the fellowship through in person meeting. As soon as possible we hope to resume our in-persons training and coaching activities.

Until then, our Canadian team has been using this year to complete some larger writing projects that will benefit the whole Intl. Network in the years to come. These new training materials (Coaching thru Intentional Relationships) will take nearly two years to complete and to date we have nearly completely the first half. For all the leaders in ournetwork, the first year will provide a MCNet “Certificate in Christian Leadership” and the second year a MCNet “Advanced Certificate in Christian Ministry”. In addition, we have now finished translating our Ministry Guide and Coaching Guide into Swahili for East Africa (particularly for our work in Tanzania). In addition we have various other translation projects into Spanish and French.

Each of the coaches in the MC Network continues to serve leaders and the church in their country/region in the face of the challenges of these global “new realities.” In this edition, Narina and Valera share what has been happening in their new ministry in St. Petersburg and Alexei and Tatiana report on a training trip Alexei had just before things were being locked down in Russia. As you can see from the map, the training he did in the two cities (Yakutsk and Khabarovsk) are close to Japan. . . a long way from his home in Moscow.

This Update also includes excerpts from an article that Raydel passed on to our MCNet team. As you may recall, Raydel was first exposed to our training in Cuba (where he was a practicing medical surgeon). He has more recently joined Carlos as they train leaders and serve the Church in the Dominican Republic. Plans were to respond this year to requests from other Latin American/Caribbean countries wanting leadership training, however we will have to postpone visiting these other countries until 2021.

Thank you for your continued partnership with ICM during these challenging times. We realize that each of you are also being impacted in many ways during this global pandemic. Your support enables us to carry on with the important writing and development of materials and providing teleconferences and coaching as each of the coaches continue to train leaders in these times when leadership is so vital.