Happy Chinese New Year from Beijing!
We are rejoicing in God’s blessings upon our life
and ministry. This new season has brought new opportunities for ministry. We
join with the millions of Chinese Christians who are praying this New Year of
“the sheep” will be a year of great advance for the “Lamb of God.” Thanks so
much for faithfully supporting and praying for us.
Family Blessings
While our granddaughter Maylee was celebrating her
11th birthday in Kazakhstan, our first grandson was born in
Portland, Oregon. Here are Nathan and Heather with their son Kekoapomaika’i
Frederick Lee Blair. Because of the time
differences, Kekoa’s birthday is January 24 and Maylee’s is the 25th. Our new grandson’s name means ‘blessed
warrior’ and our prayer is that he will be all that for Jesus Christ our
King!
ZGC Bible Week
Spring Planting
Since 90% of our members are linked to the over 80
Universities around us, we must reach out afresh at the beginning of each
semester! 100,000 International students, many who have never heard the Good
News of Jesus Christ, are our neighbors here – a million Chinese students! We
are blessed to have a gifted team of young leaders who serve faithfully in many
areas of ministry. There are many great International student ministries, but
many are not integrally linked to a local church. And even fewer have the
students themselves serving in all areas of church leadership and ministry. Our
goal of “Gathering, Growing, and Going” is being lived out as the Lord gives us
several years to disciple young leaders and then bless them as they return to
their homelands around the world.
Tuesday Training
We have just begun a series of weekly ministry
training courses. Many of our members who are pursuing degrees in various
disciplines want to also receive biblical and theological knowledge for years
of ministry ahead of them. So, we are gathering a team of good teachers to
offer courses this spring on Biblical Counseling, Hermeneutics, Doctrine of
Salvation, and the Gospel of John. We
had 51 students turn up for our first class!
Global Diaspora Forum
This month we will be going to the Philippines. Our
primary purpose will be to participate in the Lausanne Global Diaspora Forum: http://www.globaldiaspora.net/gdf/ The focus is to consider how to share Jesus
Christ with 253 million people in our world who are away from their homelands.
Millions have been ripped away from home by war and terror. Millions have
chosen to leave for work and study. We have been invited to attend GDF because
of our unique church-based ministry with International students the Lord has
raised up in Beijing.
Following GDF we will go to Tacloban and lead a
pastor’s conference in the area hit by Supertyphoon HAIYAN (Yolanda) in late 2013
- the strongest in recorded history.
Thousands of people died, tens of thousands were displaced, and over 100
churches were greatly damaged or destroyed. BICF has been helping to rebuild
churches materially and spiritually, this will be our second leader’s
conference there. We are expecting 150-200 leaders to come. We will be there
the first part of Holy Week (the biggest holiday in the Philippines!) and it
will be a privilege to share with pastors about preaching the Cross and
Resurrection.
Dayna has helped launch a new Women’s ministry in
our church. “Sisters to Sisters” is a monthly Sunday afternoon meeting that is
a catalyst to lots of smaller fellowships and mentoring among women. With so
many young 20 something women in our fellowship, all far from their mom’s and
auntie’s back home, they have really appreciated the prayers, encouragement,
and advice of their “older sisters.”
One More Grandparents Brag…
Please indulge us one more boast! Maylee, our
granddaughter, is the 4th fastest skier in her age bracket (11 to
13) in Kazakhstan – she is 11. We are thankful for her other grandpa’s kind and
enthusiastic support to help her with the costs and training for this sport she
has been enjoying since age 8. Almaty is vying to hold the Winter Olympics in
2020 and you can thus connect the dots of their – and our – enthusiasm. We could never have scripted this life of
adventure and blessing the Lord has given us in His service!
We are very thankful for your prayers and support
these many years. We praise the Lord for bringing us to a place of great
fruitfulness in this season of serving Him. We plan to visit California this
summer. Please let us know what might be some good times to visit with you.
In the Name of our Crucified and Risen Lord, Mark
and Dayna Blair
Our Mission
Pioneers - 10123 William Carey Drive -
Orlando, FL 32832 – USA www.pioneers.org
(Checks should be made out to ‘Pioneers’
– with a separate note attached saying: ‘Mark and Dayna Blair, Beijing.’
Electronic transfers can be sent to: http://www.pioneers.org/Give/AutomatedGiving.aspx )
Skype blairstan
Our Ministry
Mark preached recently at Haidian Christian Church
and his sermon is on video: http://english.hdchurch.org/html/news/2015/0301/516.html
