The Schallert´s Stolen Backpack Adventure

Hello Brothers & Sisters. We pray this finds you well and full of the abundant grace of our God. Diane & I have just arrived in Panama City and can´t tell you how excited we are to see what God has in store for us! There are so many amazing opportunities arising and we have only been here 24 hours!! Right now we have a project being developed working along side the US Embassy, who are beginning a campaign against Human Trafficking in Panama. With organizational prostitution being legal in Panama it makes this issue even harder to engage and more hidden, but the statistics of just how many woman and children are being trafficked in Panama are unbelievable. Some of that has to do with another major issue we are getting involved with during our time. We have strong contacts here working with an organization called Hearts Cry that are trying to find homes for the 50,000 neglected orphans in Panama. The system here is so unbelievably broken it would take hours to explain. But these children are basically abandoned and often worse off in the system that on the streets. Abuse is so prevalent and these orphans are one of the simplest target for Human Traffickers. So the two issues really relate to one another, yet we see so much potential for our team to really make a lasting impact over the coming months, leaving something behind that these organizations can build from and use. And last night, just as we arrived, we saw just how much the great darkness wants to stop our work for justice.

Last night as we rolled out of customs and into the greeting area of the airport, one of our backpacks was stolen. Diane had set it on the floor for one second to get my glasses out of it, stood up and said hello to our Panama Contact (David Tracy) and then as quick as that it was missing. We searched around, asked airport security, later called airport security again, but it was never recovered. It was probably stolen right from under our feet. Today we filed a police report (a very interesting cultural experience), but it is probably lost for good. The backpack itself along with all the following was taken:

Our 17" Macbook Pro (with charger, cords, and CS3 software)
Steve´s Cell Phone
Steve´s 60GB i-pod
Diane´s 350GB WD External Hard drive (Thank God we have a backup of our work)
2 pair of Sunglasses
3 Books I was very much enjoying
Diane´s Bible
and the saddest loss is our quote books that Diane & I have kept since we first started dating...

So we REALLY need your prayers. Again, we believe this to be yet another confirmation of just how much the Kingdom can shine here. Just how much the love of Christ is needed in Panama and across the earth. We bring a voice that the darkness wishes to silence, yet we WILL NOT BE SILENCED. Please pray for us at this time.

Also it is very hard for us to really accomplish our task without some basic equipment. Most everything we can live without, but it is terribly difficult to do our work for justice without a laptop...that is really the biggest loss and now one of our most immediate needs as we begin working on project in Panama. If any of you pray and feel lead to help us in our need, I have listed a link bellow to a smaller suitable replacement laptop that would help us tremendously...the replacement laptop will cost us around $1,300...beyond anything however, we are still very much looking for monthly financial supporters to walk with us over the coming year as we head into the world proclaiming good-news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed on every continent...how great is our God!!

Link to computer - http://www.apple.com/macbookpro
13inch Macbook Pro

Because He Lives,
Steve and Diane Schallert
photogenX.net

FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO SUPPORT OUR CONTINUING WORK AROUND THE WORLD
PLEASE CONTACT US VIA EMAIL (projectlove1.0@gmail.com)

And So We Begin...again...

It's really crazy, but I haven't really had a second to process what Diane & I are about to go do. We have been so incredibly busy preparing, organizing, advocating, networking, fundraising and more than anything PRAYING about what we are going to do, and hope God will do through us, and all that we believe can change, and what can give life to those who are marginalized, and yet it's always seemed such a long way off. But today it hit me!!! This Thursday {as in two days from now} the two of us and our team will get on airplanes...and we won't stop for over a year. The world will be out stage and hope will be our script. So pray for us! I have more hope for this world than ever before and feel more prepared than ever to capture the beauty and worth of people all around the world. Again I plead pray for us! Pray for our photography, as it is our tool for cultural and personal transformation. For art in it's very God-granted nature has the possibility to create something out of nothing, to build beauty out of the broken. We hope to give worth and listen...quick story:

"Last summer Diane & I really caught this truth in Afghanistan. There was a specific moment during our time in Mazar-e-Sharif that I truly realized the potential that photography has to literally restore a light that has gone out. It was a particularly hot afternoon, the sun was up and a dust storm had just blown through. On these ridiculously sizzling days it's not uncommon to see more stray dogs wandering the streets than people. But I was out laughing with street kinds and taking pictures when I met a young kid in his late teens named Ahmed. Ahmed was orphaned by war at age ten. His entire family had been killed in a bombing years ago and he has basically wandered the country alone ever since. As Ahmed told me his story I began to cry...I felt hopeless and knew of nothing else but to ask if I could pray and take his picture. He agreed, I prayed for him (and he for me) and then we parted ways. A few days later I had printed the photo and thought it might please him to have it, I thought perhaps Ahmed had never had a photo of himself, so I went to find him. When I found him a few blocks from our house I handed him the picture and then - like nothing else had ever before - it hit me. Ahmed gazed at the picture of himself...so deeply...as if to say for the first time "I ACTUALLY EXIST"!!! I am real, so I must have worth! I could literally see his entire self become empowered as he stared at himself. He was SOMEONE again! A light had turned on. It was one of the most eye opening moments in my life to see how photography can be a tool to actually breath life into someone..."

And this is what we are about to go do for the next year! Not just in Afghanistan, but all across the entire world starting in Panama, because there are Ahmed's in every single country & city on the planet. Diane & I profess a hope that you all know and hold within you as well. It is found in Christ alone and his message brings good-news to the poor, the broken and the voiceless. It's time we go proclaim it...It's time to yell it from the roof-tops...We have cameras...and I encourage you to ask yourselves...what do I have? Do you have a voice? A job? A field of study? You can bring good news to everyone around you, for in your vary lives exists a kingdom so utterly beautiful it WILL transform. Let it bubble up! The it over flow! Let us let our love shine together and one to another...ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, ANOTHER WORLD AWAITS!!!

- Prayer Points -

- For all our last minute logistics here in Kona before we leave Thursday. {so much paperwork}
- For safe travel of our whole team to Panama City {We fly out @ 5:40pm Thursday}
- For a good transition into the practical {hands and feet} ministry in the field.
{we are moving from conceptual to practical now and will need grace}
- For a strong cultural sensitivity {as Paul says to become a Greek to a Greek}
- For safety as we head to the villages {in about 10 days from now!! We will have to trek far into the jungle to live and work in the indigenous community. They have been so marginalized by their fellow country men, so pray for times of empowerment and that the love of Christ would be birthed in their communities}
- For the conference on July 18th! {We will be launching the Spanish version of the "Voice for the Voiceless" prayer book, so pray it will spark a prayer movement in the Spanish speaking world on behalf of the marginalized in those lands. That this prayer may be the foundation to actually see issues like Human Trafficking end in Panama}
- For our projects and open doors. {We have been invited by the US Embassy in Panama to contribute all the media for their international Anti-Human Trafficking campaign! This is such a huge opportunity to make an impact on sexual slavery in the region!}
- For Unity!!!
- For our marriage, that we can grow in love and closeness. {That we can have some special moments together that empower our marriage and that we can continue to rely on God for our needs}

- Also please pray and consider our financial burden. WE ARE IN NEED. We need to mobilize $2,000 of continuing monthly support starting next month in order to lead this mission across the world. As of now we have about $250 of monthly support, so we are really looking for individuals as well as communities who want to partner with out work. We have so much faith in God's provision so we are stepping out in belief that God will provide. Please consider partnering with us. Every single dollar counts ever month. If you received our most recent missions package you have the information for our YWAM Missions Account, if you did not, we would be happy to fill you in on how to give. Our arms are wide open to you...

We love and appreciate you all so much. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and feel free to send the occasional message. It's always so encouraging to hear from YOU when we are in the jungle or the desert or the slum or the township. You are with us and we LOVE you!

Because He Lives,
Steve & Diane Schallert
projectlove1.0@gmail.com
photogenX.net

Part 2 {Vision - "The Hope That We Profess"}

Proverbs 31: 8-9 “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

-A Quick History-

In 2005, our now dear friends and leaders, Paul & Susi Childers birthed a vision for a missions organization that would bring light to the darkness, hope to the hopeless, and a VOICE for the VOICELESS using art & photography as a catalyst for making actual-measurable change. It was, and has become, a global vision for finding creative ways to address, expose, and redeem the world’s biggest injustice issues. This is PhotogenX.

PhotogenX has since its genesis functioned under the parenting of YWAM (Youth With A Mission), which is one of the largest and most widespread missions movements across the planet. While we are our own entity (with our own tax exempt 501c3 non-profit status) our partnership with YWAM is a vital part of our identity. YWAM has over 170 locations worldwide and is present in nearly every country on the face of the planet, which gives PhotogenX the networking capability and connections to enter and work in nearly every corner of the globe.

Over the past four years PhotogenX has been in a pioneering stage. Cultivating a long-term vision and learning day by day how to better our impact for those in need, we have only just begun. This is actually one of the major reasons Diane & I feel so privileged to be serving here. Being still very much in its infancy, we {and you} have much to offer and much to contribute to what PhotogenX will become in its adulthood. Paul & Susi are incredible at building community and working out of relationship. They see the end of injustice and the Kingdom of God as the ultimate goal, which leaves any ownership of the mission as secondary. We feel right at home and can’t recommend Paul & Susi to you enough as amazing believers, leaders and followers of Jesus Christ.

-Speaking Up {who we’ve been & who we are}-

There are two primary focuses in the actual ministry of PhotogenX as a mission; they are the mobilization of intercessory Prayer and Christ-like Action on behalf of the Voiceless around the world. Both of these focuses relate deeply to how PhotogenX has begun to function as a community of God-fearing artists. In 2006 Paul & Susi published what would become the first PhotogenX publication, which is the “Voice for the Voiceless: 30 Days of Prayer” booklet. This prayer book has since helped rally nearly 100,000 individuals and communities to pray for “voiceless issues” across the globe. Since its first print it has been translated into six additional languages and as we speak Susi is in Germany launching the German edition in Berlin. For those of you who have read/prayed through it I just want to emphasize that this booklet serves as much as a mission statement as it does a practical tool for awareness and prayer. Prayer is only the start, but action must follow. And it’s to this end that Diane & I have come to our placement within PhotogenX.

The 30 issues in “Voice for the Voiceless” {Child Prostitution, HIV, Human Trafficking, Infanticide, Poverty, just to name a few} are issues we desire to engage and practically work towards eradicating. Over the past year we have seen God move in incredible ways through our community. Last year we launched a campaign & publication called “Sex & Money: A Global Search for Human Worth” which is focused on the endless connections between money and the global sex trade. Currently there are 1.2 million children being trafficked globally EVERY YEAR, a fact which we believe breaks the heart of our Lord. So in response we have been campaigning across the western world to raise this issue to any and all who would hear and act. We have also begun to engage practically by building strong connections with other ministries from Delhi to Cape Town, Amsterdam to LA who care for those being rescued from this brutal industry. Prayer lays the foundation. Action brings redemption. Onward…

-Us & PhotogenX-

As I mentioned in the last post, we have officially joined PhotogenX as full-time staff. Our roles are very much related to the long-term goals of the ministry. Over the past four years this community has made tremendous strides in the area of prayer, which is and has been a needed foundation for engagement. Yet we believe that as a mission we are at a shifting point from continuing prayer into much more intentional action. This is specifically where Diane & I will be leading. Our roles within PhotogenX leadership are to practically move us as a community and ministry into more intentional engagement. We both hold a strong passion for the practical {hands & feet of Jesus} service of the marginalized and we both feel this is such a perfect place for us to use our strengths and creativity.

-Practical-

Our first real push in this direction will be a one-year journey across the globe starting this June in Central America. This journey will be one of purposeful-intentional service and connection. It will be a year of living in the margins of society and on the frontlines of injustice. Our hope is to build connections and birth new opportunities to move our ministry into action. Diane & I will be leading a team of twenty-some photographers around the world making stops in Panama, Cuba, Southern Africa, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, East & Western Europe, India, Nepal, and a good deal of Asia. We’ll be documenting photographically as well as practically serving the “least of these” wherever we go in a hope of building bridges that can turn into long-term projects. Diane & I will also be using this journey to connect with a number of organizations and ministries that are already working to end these voiceless issues at a grass-roots level, seeing how PhotogenX can partner and aid their continued efforts in the future…

So we have a long road ahead of us, but I can’t even begin to explain how excited we are. We truly feel this is exactly where God has been leading us and where our gifting and experience is best suited for the purposes of love. We LOVE you all as we LOVE the world, by the LOVE of our Father. We will need your continued embrace as we walk into and through this transition of the “full time missionary world.” And we also want to extend our arms as Paul & Susi have done for us. Please come and be a part of this. Come and be a part of us.

We’ll be in touch soon to explain how we can best partner together for the furthering of Christ’s Kingdom through our work with PhotogenX. I also invite and welcome your correspondence. Please call, e-mail and message us. We would LOVE hear some friendly familiar voices.


Hope & Peace,

Steve & Diane Schallert
s - projectlove1.0@gmail.com
d – diane.schallert@gmail.com
www.photogenx.net
www.photogenx.net/sexandmoney {for info on the Sex & Money Project}
www.avoiceforthevoiceless.co.za {for our work in South Africa}
www.hakani.org {for info on our campaign against infanticide in Brazil}

Part 1 {Community - "Laying Down Roots"}

Over the past couple of years Diane & I have been in a beautiful place of searching, contemplating, dreaming and believing. Together we have seen such huge change and progress in both of our lives, as well as the lives of those around us, that it's really kind of overwhelming to think about. In our short marriage, we have witnessed jointly the most astounding hope along side the most desperate despair. Both of these realities have opened our eyes to just how much the world needs the living Way of Jesus Christ. Soon enough Diane and I will be celebrating our one year anniversary. It blows me away when I realize it's been nearly a year already. How amazing our journey into missions has been. How amazing is our God who loves us...

Our work with PhotogenX as a community and an organization has been "life-altering." Thats really the only way I can describe it. The joining of physical missions {aid work, evangelism, mercy ministry, community development, etc} with mass communication & awareness {photography, publication, advocacy} has become our burning passion. We start by sharing with and mobilizing the Church to pray for the voiceless around the world, yet then immediately collaborate to physically move in a direction of justice. This is our heart, and our vision for the establishment of the Kingdom of God across the globe. These are the gifts God has given us as artists to give a voice to the voiceless. This is the place God has brought us to share the LOVE of Christ with whomever we meet. It is also the reason PhotogenX exists as a project and the reason we have come along side it...

As I said before, the last year has really been more of a "getting our feet wet" stage. We've tested the waters and seen some change, some hope, and a glimpse of the Kingdom. That being said, we have also come to the stark realization that we can only do so much good when we decide to leave doors open. So we can no longer continue to limit our responsibility out of some fear of commitment or the romanticizing of other organizations. Diane and I have learned that the longer we continue to float from project to project, never laying down roots, the longer real lasting change will be waiting. So after a lot of prayer, council, fellowship and an unbelievable open invitation from Paul & Susi Childers {PhotogenX Founders} to come and join their work...we have officially commited to joining PhotogenX as senior staff for the long-haul. Five, ten, twenty years who knows, but we have decided to marry Paul & Susi's vision for missions. We are making vows in a similar fashion to what Diane & I did a year ago, yet this time we simply make them to a vocation of love and to an organization of hope. We are walking into the full-time missions world full of excitement, confidence, belief and a few shaky nerves to balance us out...please pray for us!

This means a lot of things. First and foremost, we are now changing pace from simply being "involved" with missions to "BEING" full-time missionaries as a profession. It's kind of a strange paradigm shift to go through in your brain. It's no longer about this or that specific project or trip, but about devoting our whole life, marriage, time, energy, and resources to the cause of PhotogenX and the sake of the cross. It also means we will not be returning home after our eight month commitment to PhotogenX but will immediately be moving into our rolls for the long-term goals of PhotogenX (there is a chance that we could in theory stop by the mainland for a few weeks in early September to share and be with you all). We will be spending at least the next two years leading a track of photographers straight around the world, building bridges for making actual - measurable change within many of the injustice issues we deal with as a mission. But thats for another time...I will send another e-mail shortly explaining the rolls Diane & I are stepping into, our vision as a mission and a couple, and how you can get involved with us in a long term nature as missionaries...

We love you all so much! Let me just state once again that any and all of the hope that is sparked through our work is a direct result of your involvement. We would not be here if it were not for you and your continued prayers, partnership, and financial "sowing" into us as a couple and our continuing ministry. Thank you for literally holding us up and walking with us over the past year...we pray we can walk together for a long time...

Drop Food - Not Bombs

{www.foodnotbombs.net}

Washing Osama's Feet

Brad Cole runs a ministry called Heavenly Sanctuary which puts on Conferences around the country on the Character of God -- and they get it right. This year they hired an artist named Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group to paint the above picture to use on posters advertising their conference. Under this picture they had captions like "Follow the Leader," "God IS Great," and most accurately, "Jesus - Still Too Radical?"

Heavenly Sanctuary had contracts with several malls in the Seattle area to hang these posters advertising their conference, but no sooner had the posters gone up than angry calls began flooding the malls. Many people -- but, it seems, mostly Christians -- were offended at the image of Jesus washing Osama Bin Laden’s feet. There was such an outcry that each of the malls decided to go back on their contract and take the posters down. The Christian College that Heavenly Sanctuary was renting space from to host the Conference also canceled their contract. Brad had to scramble to find a secular venue (which, ironically, had no problems with the poster).

What does this say about how many American Christians envision Jesus? Obviously, the protesters believe that Jesus would not wash Osama Bin Laden’s feet. But Jesus died "not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world" (I Jn 2:2) -- and this obviously includes Osama. So if Jesus died for Osama, how are we to imagine him being unwilling to wash his feet?

What the protest reveals is that many Christians have tragically allowed their patriotism to co-opt their faith. They have allowed their American citizenship to take priority over their Kingdom citizenship -- despite the New Testament's instruction for disciples to consider themselves "foreigners" and "exiles" wherever they happen to live (Heb. 11:13; I Pet 1:17, 2:11) and to consider their real citizenship "in heaven" (Phil 3:20). Many American Christians seem to want a Jesus who will defend their country and hate their national enemies as much as they do. Many want the Jesus of the Middle Ages whom Crusaders called on to help them slaughter -- not serve -- their Islamic enemies. Many seem to want to reduce Jesus to just another version of the tribal gods that have been called on for centuries to bless tribal battles. Most wars throughout history have been fought under the banner of some god or another.

Fortunately, the real Jesus isn't anything like this. Knowing all power had been given to him, John says, he wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the dirty, smelly feet of people he knew would deny and betray him in a couple hours (Jn 13:3-5). Knowing he could call legions of angels to vanquish his foes, the real Jesus rather chose to let them crucify him, because this is what they needed him to do (though they of course didn't know it). Then, with his last breath, the real Jesus prays to his Father to forgive his barbaric torturers -- and all of us (Lk 23:34).

This is the kind of power the omnipotent God of the universe uses against his enemies. And this is the kind of power we're to use against our "enemies." It's the power of Calvary-like love.

We're called to imitate the Jesus who washes the feet of enemies, dies for them, and prays for their forgiveness. We are to "live in love, as Christ loved us and gave his life for us..." (Eph. 5:1-2). When we were enemies, Jesus nevertheless ascribed unsurpassable worth to us by paying an unsurpassable price for us. We who claim we are his disciples are called to do the same. We're to sacrificially ascribe unsurpassable worth TO ALL PEOPLE, including our enemies -- even Osama Bin Laden.

In light of God's servant love toward us, we must be willing to wash Osama's feet -- and pray for his forgiveness.

Jesus says to us:

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt..." (Lk 6:27-29)

And in case we missed the point, he comes back five verses later and says:

"...love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. (How important is this? Read this next sentence carefully). Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Lk 6: 27-29; 35-36).

When we act like our kind Father, we reflect the fact that we are his children.

In Christ, God's been kind to Osama. May we who are his children do the same. May we be encouraged by the above picture rather than offended by it. May we pray, "Father, forgive Osama. He doesn't know what he's doing."

{Thank you to Greg Boyd for basically all of this post - check out gregboyd.org to learn more about his books, writing, and life}

P.S. In case some of the faces on the poster are unfamiliar to you, they are (left to right) German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Tony Blair, England; Kofi A. Annan, UN; Osama bin Laden; George Bush; Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; and Jiang Zemin, former president of China.

{Creation Care}

{stop & listen}