Tom Parr Missionaries Information Page

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Comment by Greg Simons on November 22, 2011 at 8:34pm

A Request for Prayer:
November and Year-End
Your prayers are so valuable for what is being done
in India, for a new work I will be undertaking in
2012, and of course, for our family. As a part of our
mission team, please pray for these endeavors:
This week (Oct. 29 – Nov. 5), I will be working with a team of e3 leaders, in three
different cities, in India, to equip and train Indian pastors on working together to
develop a strategy for spreading the gospel, and planting house churches, throughout
the districts where they live. This is very difficult in India due to several reasons:
° They are all tribal people and some of these tribes have long-standing
differences that are barriers to their cooperating with one another
° These are pastors of different denominations that worry about opening up
to one another and revealing anything that might openings for
“competing” churches
° The caste system still influences all of their relationships – who they are
comfortable speaking with and working with in all areas of their lives
Of course, we are new creations in Christ and called to overcome our differences and to
work as one body for God’s glory. But in some cultures, that is easier said than done,
when it comes to practical application. Please pray for:
° God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome all these barriers
° For protection of these new relationships that Satan wants to divide and
destroy
° For discernment as our team teaches, trains and tries to understand how
God would have us lead our brothers in unification and new levels of trust
This is one of the most critical strategies that we have attempted to launch among
native peoples around the world. As these “pastoral coalitions” go, so goes the spread
of the gospel. Where coalitions have worked, the spread of the gospel and the planting
of house churches expands very rapidly. The local pastors work together, share
resources and the spirit of unity helps them overcome great barriers to the expansion of
the church (the Body) in districts and in their country.
We have e3 leaders where this has worked joining us in India to walk with us through
this training process and help us to strategize and pray through these barriers. Your
prayers could make a big difference for us, and for the development of these coalitions
and the effectiveness of God’s ministry in these areas.
November 6-11, I will be traveling and working with Charles in Assam to prepare for our
mission trips in 2012. Please pray for us, for our protection, for the trainings we will be
doing with local leaders and for all the all the logistical details that we need to finalize
for our mission teams next year. We have medical mission to Sonitpur district in
February of 2012, and another team that will go back to north central Assam in July.
This will be our first trip to Sonitpur, but we have planted over 30 churches in north
central Assam and we will be continuing to build on what God has done with the great
partnerships that He has provided.
Thank you for your prayers for our work in India! Now, about our newest project…

Comment by Greg Simons on November 22, 2011 at 8:33pm

Please join us in praying about how you could
support us in spreading the gospel in Afghanistan.
I have been praying about this challenge for over 18
months and, in just the last six months, God has
opened doors and provided some amazing
confirmations that involves us working in both
Afghanistan and India to create new avenues for the
spread of the gospel in Afghanistan (AFG).
° We have developed Afghan Christian church partners in Delhi, India.
They will help us train church planters to reach the over 15,000 Afghans
that live in Delhi.
° I have been a part of developing a new coalition of 4 ministries, with
offices in Colorado Springs and Woodland Park, that have committed to
building a training center for Afghan missionaries in Delhi. Most of these
missionaries will join the church planting mission in Delhi. A select
number will be trained to become evangelists and church planters that
will return back to Afghanistan to spread the gospel amongst their people.
It our prayer, that God would help us to have this training center operational before the
end of 2012. We hope to also develop and put in place telephone evangelists to help
with follow up with seekers that come from tract distribution in the Delhi airport and
questions that come from Christian broadcasts that reach into Afghanistan. I will be
leading small medical mission teams into AFG to learn more about the culture, to work
with an existing NGO/ partner in AFG to develop a support network for the missionaries
returning from the training center in Delhi, and to develop more American mission
partners who will join us and support us in carrying out this strategic mission work.
All of this will require a strong prayer support team, a network of church partners who
are committed to helping us make this training center, and the corresponding outreach
ministries, a reality. We will also need a group of financial supporters who are motivated
to helping us reach these war-torn, oppressed and beaten down people who need the
hope and the truth of the gospel.
I will be meeting with the Afghan Christian church leaders in Delhi on November 10th.
We will be taking our first medical team to Afghanistan in April of 2012. I need financial
supporters for my trips to Afghanistan, as we can only take teams of 6: 2 leaders, 2
doctors or nurses, and 2 participants. Each team member has to pay their own way.
Our trip April 12-22, 2012 will cost each of us $3900. As you consider (if you do) yearend
gifts to God’s work around the world, I would ask you to keep this need in your
prayers, and if you are so led, please support us in this important mission endeavor.
As with all other e3 mission commitments, we see this to be at least a 3-5 year
commitment and we need support partners who will pray with us, encourage us and
support us in the development and fulfillment of this ministry vision. I will be in touch
with you more about this opportunity soon but I ask that you pray about it starting right
now. I need your prayers, the Delhi Afghan Coalition needs your prayers, and our
Afghan brothers and sisters really need your prayers.
Thank you for prayers, encouragement and support. May God bless you all richly!    Tom

Comment by Greg Simons on July 26, 2011 at 5:40pm

From Tom,

Yes, I am out the door again.  One and a half weeks after Peru, I am off to lead a team of 15 to NE India.  I will be there 17 days and really need your prayers.  I apologize that I have not sent you the summary letter on Peru, yet, but I hope to do that on the first plane tomorrow morning.  Our team from Texas will be joining me in Delhi on the 28th and we will be on expedition until August 6.  I will be staying another 5 days, through Thursday evening, August 11, returning home the 12th, and really seek your prayers then as well.

Thank you for your prayers and support.  Please remember my family as you pray for our protection - both physically and spiritually.  Thankfully we serve the King of Kings, who knows our needs before we ever ask, and whom has already defeated our greatest adversary.  You are a blessing to us and a great encouragement to me when I am in the field!

Tom Parr

Director, e3 SportReach

tom.parr@e3partners.org

719-686-9400

Comment by Greg Simons on July 8, 2011 at 6:55pm

Patti, Matt and I leave tomorrow for Peru and ask for your prayers (PE11-Prayer_Calender).  We are excited to serve the Lord in the mountains of Peru (10,000 ft.) and to see how God is going to use this trip to grow Patti and Matthew, and the rest of the team.  Please pray that the Holy Spirit will go before us and prepare the hearts of these tribal people to be open to the gospel and to receive Jesus as their Lord.  We desire to plant 6-7 churches here which will become the beginning of a new church movement in this region of Peru.

Josh is with his grandmother in Houston and will be returning home next Wednesday to an empty house.  God has been opening doors at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where Josh has received $25,000 in scholarships.  We continue to seek more support to meet the need for 2011-2012 which will be around $40,000.  The Florida campus is the top rated aeronautical university in the country, followed by MIT and then the Arizona campus, in Prescott, where Josh will be working on his degree in aeronautical engineering.  He has demonstrated such unwavering faith in the face of the loss of his opportunity at USAFA.  Please pray that we are now on the right path to what God has chosen for Josh and the development of all of his gifts - intellectual, spiritual, physical and relational.  

We appreciate all your prayers for God's ministry and for our family.

Tom Parr

Director, e3 SportReach

tom.parr@e3partners.org

719-686-9400

Comment by Greg Simons on July 3, 2011 at 8:08am

Comment by Greg Simons on July 3, 2011 at 8:07am

Comment by Tom Parr on December 10, 2010 at 6:30am

My recent trip to Assam was focused on training pastors and leaders in church planting principles, and preparing them to receive teams of Americans in 2011.  I traveled 11 days, 8 of those days with my Indian counterpart, Charles Golla.  After landing in the capital city, Guwahati, we traveled to three different locations, from one end of the state to the other, by car, by train and by moto-taxis.  The trainings went very well and brothers and sisters we met were kind, humble and loving servants of the Lord.  We also were able to verify that our last trip in July, planted 9 churches in the area around Bongaigaon - praise God.

 

We need your prayers for our trips in 2011.  Recruiting is going very slow for our first trip to India, in May and our trip to China, in June.  We are also looking for teens to go with us on a trip to Cusco, Peru and Machu Picchu, in July.  As we prepare to send our second child off to college, our financial support needs a boost.  As we seek God's provision, we ask you to pray about how He might use you as part of His provision for us, or another missionary family.

 

He is so faithful in meeting all our needs - at home and around the world.  He always know where we are and what we need before we even ask for it.  He is truly worthy of all of our praise and all the glory that we could ever bring to His name.  Thank you for your thoughts, your prayers, your words of encouragement and your support - they are all invaluable to us and to the mission that God has called us to.  May He bless you richly!

Comment by Tom Parr on August 2, 2010 at 2:01pm

I want to thank all of you who have been praying for our mission team in India. God did some amazing things on this trip, not the least of which was having 350 people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Your prayers for us were obviously working: protecting us from illness, holding off the rain during monsoon season until the morning we left, strengthening us during the spiritual warfare that erupted the night before we went out into the villages, bringing us all home safely but changed forever by what God has chosen to do in and through us.
Pray for our brothers in Assam who have to get back to all those new converts and begin the discipling process and to plant the house churches. Pray that God will protect all those who have been touched by the Holy Spirit, who have received Christ and who will be persecuted by their friends and neighbors for the choice they have made. Thank you for joining us in the battle for their souls - and give God glory for all that He has done.
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