TraNet 2017

What a great weekend! This past weekend we went to Cyprus for a conference about reaching leaders and influencers for Christ. The group was about 28 people, including 10 professionals, 4 teachers, two businesswomen and a government worker. It was a great time of learning and inspiring our partners to reach their peers for Christ.

One speaker was a bible teacher who took us through the book of Mark, highlighting the disciples’ stories and their leadership journeys. Another speaker was a professional business consultant who focuses on leadership training. Alba in particular got a lot out of that speaker, because she leads a team at her work. The third speaker was the vice president of Leader Impact worldwide, he introduced to us the concept and mission of TraNet. We also had various smaller seminars throughout, on interesting topics such as the Sabbath rest as applies to business, and integrating faith and work from a former communist perspective.

TraNet is the newly formed organization which put on the conference. It was created by Leader Impact (a division of CRU international) in order to bring together ministries and individuals who are impacting leaders in business and government. The name TraNet stands for “Transformers Network”. The idea is to have a network where people who are seeking to reach influencers, or are influencers themselves, can work together and share in order to increase our effectiveness. It’s an exciting vision, and the professionals definitely took away a greater vision for how God is moving worldwide. We got to meet and discuss with people from the Czech republic all the way to Kyrgyzstan about what they are doing to influence leaders.

We also got a chance to get out and explore the city of Girne. It’s a small city with a port and a castle, not a whole lot to do. Apparently though it’s kind of a black market; since it’s away from the Turkish mainland there’s a lot of illegal activity going on there. As we walked we prayed specifically for the sex trade.

At the end of the conference we gathered together as the Albanian group to discuss what we took away from the conference and to pray for eachother for the upcoming events and meetings we will have. A lot of the professionals spoke up about how the conference inspired them to seek to reach their peers for Christ. They realized how much influence they already have and what they are capable of doing in the future. Albert was very excited - he’s even more committed now to do more evangelism and discipleship through Sotmeria. At the end of this time we prayed for eachother and laid on hands for each group and their future meetings.

Now comes the hard part - actually translating this into action. We need to be disciplined and to help our partners to be disciplined, to seek out and take advantage of the opportunities around them. For me personally, I’m trying to improve my discipline by going to the gym 3 days a week, and not hitting the snooze button anymore. I think that improving discipline in one area helps you to improve it in others. I talked this week to my guys’ group about what we are each doing to improve our discipline. It’s going to be a long process.

Please pray for Albert, Enerik, Edison, Redi, Niko, Alba, Mira, Ina, Bona, and Anna to continue to apply and grow through what they’ve learned this weekend.