Dear Family & Friends,
Well, it has been another full season of life. We invite you to join us for a few pics and stories of what has been happening in our lives since mid October.
We made our first ever trip to Spain mid October. We met up with some CMA leaders from Chile, stayed with some CMA US friends in Madrid, and spent some time with leaders from around Europe and the Middle East.
It was great to get to know the CMA Spain president and his wife, Juan Zuñiga. A new partnership was forged between CMA Chile and CMA Spain.
We took a train ride down to Alicante, with Jorge and Felipe from Chile, and spent some time with Ernie & Marilyn Klassen (not pictured), and visited some sites for potential ministry partnership together.
Upon returning to the central part of Spain we joined a regional meeting in the area of Segovia. Pictured are CMA presidents for Spain, Chile, and Ecuador, Chile’s missions director, along with the missions director for Spain and CMA Global (AWF) president Jura Yanagihara.
On our way from Spain we had a short layover in Athens en route to Cairo, Egypt. These are the parliament buildings in Athens.
Our time in Cairo was significant in many ways. For us it was a return home to many sites, smells, and sounds of the place that was our home from 2004-2008. This visit to the cave church with our Chilean friends was memorable.
We stopped in at Maadi Community School for a quick visit. Michelle was on the board of this school and both of our daughters, Mikaela and Mattea, were classmates there for four years.
We also made a quick stop at the old campus of the American University in Cairo (AUC) where Murray is an alumni having studied Arabic there 2004/2005.
We made a stop at the Giza Pyramids and were amazed once again at the amount of history in this ancient country.
Another stop took us to a hospital where these ladies teach nursing. They are brave workers.
On an outing, we stopped at the grave of Oswald Chambers (author of My Utmost for His Highest). His headstone is the one right in the middle. Amazing that a man of 43 had such an impact on the Christian world globally.
It was good to be back in Cairo and to see our Chilean friends catch a vision for this part of the world.
On our way home we spent a day with our dear friends from Cairo, Mark & Felicity Jaffrey, who are staying at All Nations College in the UK. It was so good to catch up, especially having just been in Egypt and rehearsing so many memories. Some friendships last a lifetime.
We got home to a beautiful fall season in the Okanagan.
And within a day other close friends from Cairo visited us in Kelowna – Don & Mary Butler. We are not sure why Cairo has played such a key role in our fall but we are thankful for the memories and for the way that God has used, and continues to use, Cairo as a place to inspire others to a deeper walk with Him and to greater impact.
Within a week we were back on the plane and headed to Venezuela to spend some time with our team there. The Hieberts and Kelly Dyer are special people who have been sticking it out in that country even though this is a very tough season for our Venezuelan friends.
While Murray and Chris met with the national church leaders, Michelle had an opportunity to spend time with the pastor’s wives at a half day retreat. It was great to minister to these ladies whose role has become more and more challenging.
From Venezuela we headed a few miles north into the Caribbean, stopping in Aruba to spend a couple days with our CMA colleagues there. Gabriel & Iris Li pastor the Aruba Alliance Church which is predominantly a Chinese congregation. Here we are having some interesting authentic Chinese food with the leadership team of the church (two of whom are new believers).
Gabriel & Iris Li have spent just over a decade starting a movement among the Chinese in Aruba.
Our next stop was Quito, Ecuador to visit Rich & Lisa Brown. They have the small vision of reaching the 300 million youth of Latin America! And they are well on their way to seeing significant progress through many avenues, including Inca Link.
Part of the visit included a day with the missions committe for CMA Ecuador, which includes their president, David Muthre, their Missions Director, Cecibel, and two key pastors from Ecuador. This is another CMA national church that is becoming highly motivated in reaching the least reached globally.
Finally this month we celebrate the fact that Michelle has finished her certification in Conflict Resolution and Third Party Mediation from the Justice Institute of BC. This has been a three year process. Just this morning she used her knowledge to train the staff at one of the Okanagan Alliance churches.
And now it is time for December. Murray has one more trip to Mexico and Cuba (Dec 9-15) and then we will take some time to rest from a very full fall. We want to take this time to bless each of you with Emmanuel’s amazing presence in your lives during this holiday season when we remember His first coming, and anticipate His next coming.
Murray & Michelle
P.S. Please check out our profile with the CMA to read more about us and to support us in prayer and giving.
The Derksens 
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