The camp is going great. Thanks for your prayers this week! Just wanted to let you all know that there is a blog available if you would like daily updates for the camp, pictures, etc. You can find this blog at the following URL:
FamilyEnglishCamp.BlogSpot.com
This evening (literally sitting on the plane as I post this) our Equip2Counsel team will be headed to Poland for our annual Family English Camp. We are excited that the entire team will be traveling (Doreen, Mary, and Mike) and participating all together in this ministry. In addition, our kids, KD Henderson and Josiah Snuffer, will be with us working as leaders and teachers.
Many of you have been faithful partners in this ministry with us for many years. It is wonderful to see how God continues to bless and touch lives through this work. In May, a team came and visited Minneapolis from our sister church in Glogow, Poland. We had the privilege of hearing a solo sung by a young woman from the church in Glogow. Both Ania (the soloist) and Gosia (the pianist) are college student who came to know Jesus at an English Camp. Each weekend they travel 120+ kilometers home from college so that they can lead worship with church family in Glogow. As these young women “performed,” the congregation was so moved not only by their musical skills, but it was clear that Ania and Gosha personally knew the Savior Jesus they were singing about.
Ania and Gosha are great examples of the “why” we keep going back to Poland. We are so thankful to be part of a ministry that is working with the Holy Spirit to move people forward in their relationship with God. Some move from atheism to a hope that God just might exist and He just might be good. Some decide to visit and begin attending Pastor Z’s Church or a Bible Study in Glogow. Others make a decision to entrust their lives to Jesus. Some, like Ania and Gosia, move into active Kingdom service and even positions of spiritual leadership.
We have a wide range of responsibilities at this camp. Mike and Mary are the American camp directors, partnering with Edyta and Pastor Z to lead the camp. Our Equip2Counsel team will also be asked to be available for campers who request personal or marriage counseling. Doreen will be helping as our American worship leader. Josiah and KD will also be leading English classes, Bible Study small groups, team activities, working in Children’s ministries, and building relationships with teens and young adults. Our teens participate as full-fledged team members who carry a heavy load of responsibilities. It is fun to serve with them in ways that stretch our faith together.
Thanks so much for joining us in prayer. The trip dates are Thu, June 28 – Wed, July 11.
Please pray with us for this trip:
Mike, Mary, and Doreen
KD and Josiah
Thank you all for your prayers for us while we were in Poland earlier this month. Just wanted to post a short note to let all of our prayer and support partners know how God worked through our ministry on this trip.
For the first two days (Wednesday and Thursday), Mary and I facilitated a seminar on the topic of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a simple topic to learn and has a huge impact on individuals who give up unforgiveness to Jesus. Since the seminar, attendees have already shared how they have used the tools in their own ministries at least a half-dozen times. We taught a couple of 1½-hour seminars on how the brain works and how to process emotions in healthy ways. Both seminars were well-attended. We introduced a lot of concepts which were new paradigms to the attendees and received very positive feedback from those who joined us during these sessions.
In addition, Mary and I met with several individuals and even a small group, giving training and helping some work through personal issues. God used these times to minister to these men and women.
On the whole, the week was wonderful. We came back jet lagged, exhausted, and both with colds. But it was wonderful to spend time with the International Messengers family. This week was also a clear validation for us that we are still doing ministry that is within God’s will and plan. We did see God’s hand at work throughout this week. About a half-dozen missionaries have asked us for additional training in counseling tools which we will be providing in the next 12 months.
We also wanted to let you know how God answered your prayers. God protected our kids while we were gone. Thank you for praying for them. My (Mike’s) trigeminal neuralgia did bother me during the trip, but I am thankful it did not keep me from teaching or from any of our responsibilities. Teaching with Jennifer Nagy was a great experience. She is a gifted woman and leader, and her wisdom and input really made the seminars a much richer experience for those in attendance.
Prayer Requests:
We cannot thank you enough for continuing to join the Equip2Counsel ministry in prayer and financial support. God is the one who guides us, sustains us, and uses our ministry to bring fruit. We are convinced that any fruit that we see is a result of God answering prayers.
Mike and Mary
This next Monday, April 2, Mary and I will be traveling to Poland to attend the International Messengers European Missions Conference. This is an annual conference for IM (International Messengers) missionaries, providing fellowship, Biblical teaching, and staff care for the men, women, and families serving God overseas. It is such a treasured time for the missionaries. This year about 250+ are expected to attend.
Mary and I will not only be attending the conference, but also have several responsibilities hosting some elective classes and seminars for conference attendees. On Thursday and Friday we will be facilitating a two-day course about forgiveness. This course discusses Biblical forgiveness in depth, and give the attendees a way how to practice forgiveness. This is a powerful tool not only for those who attend, but also is designed to be shared with those the missionaries minister to.
We will also be co-teaching / facilitating two 1-hour seminars during the conference. These seminars are designed to help believers understand how our brains process information and how we can be in control of our thoughts and emotions.
We are grateful to be co-teaching with Jennifer Nagy. Jennifer is an IM missionary working on-staff at an international church in Warsaw. She is an extremely gifted counselor who has been trained in the Equip2Counsel tools and using these for several years. It is exciting to see these tools being used by someone we have trained, and to work with her passing these tools on to another group of ministers.
Thank you for praying for us, our ministry, and all who are at the conference. Mary and I will have an extremely packed weekend. Here is an overview of our schedule:
Monday (April 2): Flying out from MSP airport.
Tuesday: Arriving in Krakow, Poland. We will spend a night in Krakow which will give us an opportunity to rest and begin to adjust to the time zone changes.
Wednesday: Driving to conference. Begin teaching two-day class on forgiveness.
Thursday: Day 2 of two-day class on forgiveness.
Friday: Full conference officially begins. We will be teaching a 1-hour seminar on taking thoughts captive. We will also likely meet with individuals throughout the day.
Saturday: Fellowship and meeting with individuals throughout the day.
Sunday: Last day of conference. Teaching a 1-hour seminar about being in charge of our emotions.
Monday: Drive back to Krakow, then fly home.
Here are a few additional prayer requests:
Thanks so much for continuing to join the Equip2Counsel ministry in prayer and financial support. We are so grateful to have a prayer team partnering with us as we take these trips.
Back from a wonderful trip to Lebanon, and wanted to share with you some of the outcomes. Jennifer Nagy and I spent 5 days training 8 young men and women about the power of Forgiveness and the dangers of a shame-based culture. These believers were so open to hearing these ideas and putting them into practice. It was so encouraging to make this investment and then watch as God worked in the hearts and minds of these students.
I use the word “students” only to describe the roles of these believers in this school. Among them were pastors and music ministers and missionaries to the Arab world. These young men and women are fearless in their ministry and stand ready to serve God regardless of the cost. One young man said to me, “We have seen so much blood shed in this country for all the wrong reasons. We are ready to shed our blood for Jesus if this is what God asks us to do.” It is so humbling to be among such followers of Jesus and learn with them.
Thank you for your prayers. God answered in the following ways:
These men and women are leaders in a struggling little church community, but have a vision to reach Arabs in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East. One of the pastors in this group recently traveled to war-torn Syria, visiting Muslims house to house and praying with each family. He told me that right now in Syria there is an unprecedented openness to hear about Jesus’ love.
It is hard for me to describe the joy Jesus gave me serving these people. I am glad to be back home with my family, but I feel like I have left part of my heart in this country. As God puts it on your heart, please be in prayer that God will raise up workers to bring the Gospel to the vast number of lost in the Middle Eastern countries.
Thanks so much for continuing to join the Equip2Counsel ministry in prayer and financial support.
It has been a crazy and difficult year, starting with Mark’s cancer and his passing in March. Mark was such a dear friend and a true brother. My kids called him “second dad,” and we all still miss him dearly. Our Equip2Counsel family are all still coming to grips with what life and ministry looks like without Mark. But it certainly was Mark’s desire that this ministry continue after he went home to be with Jesus.
Early this summer, we as a team (Doreen, Mike, and Mary) were invited to Beirut, Lebanon, to do some training. After much prayer, we agreed that Mike should take this trip, and God was calling Mary and Doreen to stay home and support in other ways.
It is exciting and intimidating to be sharing some tools with Christian Arab men and women. These believers are active in ministry in countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. They are always under threat. Some have faced severe persecution. It is both humbling and a great honor to be sharing my life with them for a week. I will be meeting up with Jennifer Nagy, who ministers in an international church in Warsaw, Poland. Jennifer has been trained in Equip2Counsel tools, and is extremely gifted. She also has experience ministering in Arab countries and is able to provide direction for our team. The training focus for the week will primarily be two subjects: (1) Shame and (2) Forgiveness. I will be leaving this Thursday, Nov 2 and returning the following Saturday, Nov 11.
Thank you for your faithful prayers and for standing with us financially through these turbulent times. We are so thankful for the prayer as life continues to take a lot of unexpected turns, uncertainties, and setbacks. But God is good continues to be faithful, answering prayers in unexpected ways. And the financial support makes it possible to continue to take these trips and impact the kingdom around the world. It our desire at Equip2Counsel to go where God is leading and do the work he sets before us. We expect nothing less than the impossible as we lean on Him for miracles that heal and change lives.
Please pray specifically for this trip:
Thank you for standing with us in prayer and financial support!
Mike
Another fantastic trip.
We are so thankful for your prayers as we arrive back here in Minnesota and continue to assess what God has accomplished. This year there were many first-time campers. Most of these campers would not consider themselves to be believers or followers of Jesus. We were so thankful for the opportunity to pour our time and God’s love into these lives for a week. God worked in so many ways. As leaders, Mary and I observe how God is working through so many different activities, relationships, and through the biblical teaching.
Every camp is different, and every camp is the same. We have become accustomed to God working in surprising ways. When we arrive, we don’t know who God is going to bring, or how they are going to be touched. We just dig in and get to work, expecting God to do miracles.
I think this is how we develop our faith. We listen to the Holy Spirit and then choose to take the risk God asks us to, trusting that God is going to do something amazing. One of the passages the campers studied was Acts 3:1-13. It is about Peter and John healing the lame man outside the temple gate. I suspect that the Holy Spirit prompted Peter to say, “Get up and walk.” Can you imagine how scary it must have been for Peter to say these words to a lame man? I am sure it was intense, but Peter had spent enough time with Jesus to expect something amazing. He expected this lame man to get up and walk.
I think these are the same faith muscles we all develop during each camp. When we go, we have come to expect God to do the surprising. I suspect many of our partners reading this—when you give financially and pray with us—are also expecting God to do some amazing stuff. Together as a huge team, we all do our part by faith, and expect God to do the surprising at these camps.
I wish I could tell detailed stories about how God works through our counseling ministry at the camps. In addition to teaching and leading the team, Mary and I individually met 13 times with campers. God worked in these meetings through forgiveness, breaking down strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:5), and even freeing one from an addiction. It was so fulfilling to be a part of this ministry as God set some men, women, and teens free this week through our counseling ministry.
Thanks again for standing with us through prayer and your financial support!
Follow-up/answers to prayer requests:
Please continue to pray with us:
As we finalize our preparations for our upcoming trip this week, we realized that this year marks the Snuffer’s 15th English Camp in Poland. 15 years ago, who would have thought…
But here we are. And we are thankful for the opportunity to serve again this year. With 3 kids preparing for college this fall, Mike, Mary, and Josiah will be the Snuffer representatives this summer. God has provided us with a US team of 38 from churches across the mid-west. It is a team that includes a healthy mix of both rookies and veterans of the camp. We are excited to have a family of 9 from Tennessee joining us this year. The family has an evangelistic ministry to churches around the world, sharing the gospel with circus-style skills and other unique artistic abilities. We look forward to seeing how God uses this family to connect with Poles and share the gospel.
In the past few years, God has used our counseling gifts to minister to Poles at the camp. In addition to our normal role, Mary and I expect that we will be counseling every day. It is rewarding but exhausting work. Josiah will work both in the children’s ministry and with teenage kids.
For the first time in 15 years, through a set of circumstances that we do not totally understand—we were fully supported without sending any letters this year. Of course, this is in part due to our supporter’s gracious gifts. But Josiah was fully supported this year, and no Equip2Counsel dollars are applied to him. We are so thankful to God for this blessing, but still need your prayer support.
Spiritual warfare has been especially intense in the past month or so. Please pray for God’s protection for our entire family as we travel to Poland. Mary and I were exchanging prayer requests with a team member who said, “The enemy is worried. It must be that we are going to have a great camp this year.”
Thanks so much for joining us in prayer. The trip dates are Thu, June 29 – Wed, July 12.
Please pray with us for this trip:
Most of you already know that our ministry partner and dear friend, Mark Henderson, went to be with our Savior this past Wednesday evening. Even as we are mourning the loss, we needed to make some difficult decisions.
The Snuffer family will be staying for Mark’s funeral this Monday. As a result, we have cancelled next week’s trip to Budapest, Hungary.
Mike, Mary, and Adrian will be traveling to Glogow, Poland the following week: April 2-10. This will give us a chance to do some planning for this summer’s English Camp, and we will also have the opportunity to mourn with Mark’s many friends in Poland. It will be an emotional trip, but we are thankful to be able to be with our dear friends in Poland.
We know that you are keeping Doreen, Michael and KD in your prayers. Thank you for praying that God will bring comfort, peace, and his presence to the Hendersons.
Please pray with us for this trip:
Mark’s funeral is scheduled for Monday, March 27, 11:00 am at Wayzata Free Church. Visitation will be at the church one hour before the service.
Once again we have mixed emotions as we plan an Equip2Counsel trip. We feel like we are leaving ministry partners and family members as we head oversees without Doreen and Mark Henderson. God has sustained Mark through some awful, dark days as the Henderson family continues to fight the cancer in Mark’s body. But as a team, all four of us prayerfully decided the ministry must continue to move forward in the face of this opposition. Please continue to keep Mark and Doreen in your prayers. They would love to be traveling and ministering with us! We are hopeful that the four of us will minister together again, and ask you to join us in prayer for God to work and bring about this miracle.
Mary and Mike Snuffer will be traveling to a facility in the small town of Balatonszárszó, Hungary, about 1½ hours southwest of Budapest, Hungary. We will be meeting up with over 200 missionaries from International Messengers for a week-long conference. This weekend is designed to be a time of rest and encouragement for the missionaries who are continually investing their lives into men and women throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.
It will be the 3rd time the Equip2Counsel team has attended this annual conference. It is a great opportunity to have an impact on many missionaries. In the past, we have seen God work by providing counseling tools to missionaries for their ministry. It has also given us the opportunity to invest in the lives of couples and individuals, watching God bring healing and much-needed encouragement.
We will all be traveling Mar 26 through Apr 3. Mary and I will be leading a two-day seminar prior to the conference on Wednesday and Thursday (Mar 29-30). This small-group setting gives us an opportunity to go deep with a few missionaries, providing them with some training in counseling tools for their ministry. The rest of the conference is filled with special speakers and activities, but Mary and I will be making ourselves available to meet individually with missionaries or couples. God has already set up a couple of important appointments for us. Please pray that God will use these meetings to bring healing and encouragement—Mary and I know we are incapable without the Holy Spirit showing up and doing the work!
Mary and I are bringing both Adrian and Josiah along with us to minister to the many teens who will be attending the conference with their parents. Please pray for them to make quick connections and have an eternal impact on the kids they build relationships with in this short time.
Mary and Adrian will be continuing on to Poland for 10 days after this trip, but we will send another post next week with information about this trip.
Prayer Requests:
 | Darsi Beasley on Family English Camp 2018 |
 | Carroll Miller on Family English Camp 2018 |
| Carroll Miller on European Missions Conference |
| Darsi Beasley on European Missions Conference |
 | Mark Wilson on God’s Heart for the Midd… |
