The Story of the Heart & Histoy Event.

It was a cold snowy day in Texas. I mean single digit Russian kind of cold! The Texas power grid had shut down and we were just trying to figure out survival. Seems crazy for people who’d lived in Russia for a decade, experiencing the coldest winter in Russian history since Hitler’s troops were frozen out in the “Great War”. But remember, in Russia our walls were literally two-foot thick, but this is Texas, where we’re lucky if we have insulated pipes in our 4-inch walls.

As we were settling in with our son’s family to an Airbnb he found through a friend, one which still had electricity, my phone rang. It was our CEO, Kurt Nelson, asking if Ann and I could lead a team in 2021 to produce an event for the whole East-West global mission family, to reflect on who we are and what formed our spiritual DNA as a mission.

Perhaps Kurt had caught me at a weak moment, because my rational side was telling me I didn’t have the margin to take on a project of this magnitude in 2021. But, my gut was telling me that even if I wasn’t the best guy to lead the project, I might still be the right guy. No one else was even aware of the amount of archival footage I possessed of our founder, John Maisel. Material I had shot as early as 1995 in Moscow, before I had even considered joining the mission. And, though I could turn the footage over to someone else to peruse, I knew our in-house Communication Team would be swamped during the fall of the year, the time for the project production to culminate.

So, we said yes. God formed a team. And, He did what only He could do!

The team consisted largely of other long-term members of the East-West family. Two couples who had been among the first families deployed by our mission in the early to mid-nineties. Tony and Judy Wood, who lived in Russia in our early years, and Tim and Theresa Simpson, who moved their family to Central Asia during that time.

Tony and Judy appeared in one of the video clips that closed the event (you’ll find that clip on the previous page), as did Matt Monzingo, also on our team, having been in our same orientation class in 1996. The Simpson’s now live in the Middle-East, and lead our communion time for the event via Zoom.

Also on the team were Vicki Mullins, Rich and Becky Milne, Susan Everard, Caleb Read who heads up our in-house Communication Team, Ginny Fowler, our new HR Director, and last but certainly not least, Joe Wall, a de-facto founder, having been around from the very beginning when John and Bud Toole were launching the mission.

And, I can’t omit the most important part of the team God assembled for the event, and that was the prayer warriors. Ann reached out to so many of our faithful friends scattered around the globe, with one of the main requests that God get me out of the way and let His glory shine through this event. He indeed did. For those of you who know me well, you know it’s hard for me to discuss anything dear to my heart without often losing a hold on my emotions. The fact I never completely lost it, though I came close a couple times, was clearly a testiment to the fact God had pulled off this feat and not any of us. Certainly wasn’t me!

If you get a chance to see any of the event (excerpts posted on the previous page), I pray you see the heart of God resonating down through the decades and still today compelling us forward for the sake of His name and His fame among the nations. To God be the glory!