To all my Dear Friends and Family,

Just wanted to share this with you :~)

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
~The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe  by C.S. Lewis

My brother and I have just returned from our annual Winter Conference (or Ski Camp) that GEM hosts specifically for the teens… a.k.a. A week of snow boarding/skiing and just general “hanging out” in the French Alps with other dear and loved GEM-K’s (Greater Europe Mission Kids).  I love the actual conference part of the camp.  Our speakers always have messages that wrangle and draw our minds into traveling through ideas and concepts most people would consider “best left alone.”  This year we discussed the imagination and how it might become captive to culture, media and the worldly messages that are preached through them.  And how, if our minds become ensnared with these messages, we lose the capability to tell an alternate story- a story of truth, of unfathomable love,  that rocks the imagination of the world’s close-minded foundation.
We also discussed how the church might have become captive too, and fall into the trap of the idea that Jesus is someone to worship not follow, someone tame enough to be held by sanctuary walls, stain-glass windows and a steeple.  When in reality, we were not saved by a normal, tame man who passively gave up his life.  Rather a wild one.  A saviour who purposely set up his ministry on the shores of a possessed man’s haunt,  the home of a wild and positively insane scoundrel who was both a joke and a real danger to the community he had been cast out of.  A man possessed by not one, but a legion of demons.  And it was Jesus, who was not only brave and enough of a wild man himself to cast out the Legion, but crazy enough to have mercy on the demons themselves, and cast them into the pigs near-by as they asked.  It was Jesus who was wild enough to ravage a market,  set up in the temple no less, screaming for the people to “Get out!” at the top of his royal lungs, as he over turned tables and stands, all because that market was making a profit in a place and time that was not honoring God.  A mad-man who surrendered his life to his enemies, to save them.  WHO does that?!
These stories leads us to ask, well, if Jesus is wild, is he safe? And if I choose to follow him, can I do it without being wild myself? “’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”  Not safe.  But good.  And when I choose to accept his gift of mercy, at all cost to him, (that mad-man…) I’m no longer safe.  Not safe to stay at home, or mind my own business when I go out, but tossed out to experience life and living in a better more astounding, more good way than ever would have been possible had I been
kept safe.
This year, I awaited in anticipation when the mission trips would be announced.  I applied for the three, whose ambitions and goals tugged at my heart the most.  I trusted God to place me in the group where I would serve best, and this spring break my Wild Saviour is leading me on a mission to fill a need in to Skopje, Macedonia, where His team of 12 students and 2 adults will be involved with the “Roma” or Gypsy children and youth through sports activities, perhaps in a carnival type setting with games, face painting, etc. Or just planning other engaging activities for children.  There will be an ESL (English as a Second Language) time – where we will have teen to teen contact, a time to wrangle and draw their minds around this possibility of a Wild Saviour with a story of truth, a story of unfathomable love, penned out in His personal handwriting specifically for them.  This trip will cost 800
Euros, or 1,200 dollars.
Challenge: I would like to ask you to sincerely and prayerfully consider if our Wild Saviour might be asking you to commit to praying for this team up until and during the week of March 25- April 2, 2010 and/or offer to be one of the financial supporters that we need.  Will you be one of six $100, or eight $75 givers?

~Love,
Brittany

After:

Hey Friends and Family,

Just wanted to let you know, I’m home.  The week I spent in Macedonia
was incredible, amazing, crazy, unexpected, an emotional roller coaster, exhausting and… a blessing.  Our group visited two Roma/ Gypsy neighborhoods.  The neighborhoods looked more like slums.  It was gut-wrenching.  The Gypsy people, who call themselves the Roma are a totally different race and hold to a culture and language than the natives of the country they live in.  Thus there is a severe
amount of  discrimination.  The first day in our first neighborhood we spent just playing with the gypsy kids and teens that came to the playground… it was insane.  This culture was SO physical!  it was completely natural for the kids to attack each other, for example just because one wanted to jump rope and the other was in the way.  Like, full out attack, punching kicking screaming.  But on the
flip-side they were very snugly.  They were just normal kids, with a larger “lovin’s” capacity.  They would latch on and give hugs and kisses galore.  Also, they were very, very, very, very dirty.  Most of them didn’t have proper clothes or shoes.  The kids we were playing with were from families with an average of six to eight children.  In Roma culture, it’s unusual if a person over 21 is unmarried and not a parent of four or more.  The second neighborhood was rougher, scarier, dirtier and the kids were meaner, more hopeless.  The “playground” looked more like a cage.  It made me just want to sit down on the filthy, glass strewn pavement and cry.  We cleaned up their “playground” and loved on them with all the energy we had left.  In between our playground dates,  we hosted ESL/coffee/ share the gospel times for older teens in the neighborhoods.  During this time we exchanged cultural experiences, thoughts, ideas and beliefs.  When our group encountered the vast need of this people, physical and spiritual, it was very hard not to wonder “What difference are we going to make?  Their need is so big, there are so many of them.  And we are so small, so foreign, so few, and only here for a short time.  How could we possibly reach them?” Which is funny because at the very beginning of our trip God gave us a verse: Zecariah 4: 10, “Who despises the day of the small things?  Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”  Now I don’t know what’s going on with the second part of that verse, but I do know the verse was in reference to a temple being built.  And I also know, you can’t build a temple without leveling the ground before you could even lay a foundation.  I figure that’s what God called us to do in Macedonia, level the ground, or part of it anyway.  Because the salvation of these people is gonna take more than a group of thirteen teenagers and a few leaders on a week long visit.  I want to thank you for your support, both financial and prayerful, this trip meant a lot to me and to those we served.

Much. much. much. love,

~Brittany

I got off the plane sick and exhausted, but extremely pleased with myself. A mental image comes to mind: A brilliant sun-set fades into the hills outlining the figures of two people in reds and oranges too rich to be replicated. The secret agent on the left turns to the one on the right and with a satisfied smile reports, “mission accomplished.”

Mission accomplished. Those words send a shiver through me. I’m home again and I feel like I shouldn’t be, it all went too fast. I feel like we still had work to do, by the day we had to leave we had just begun to be able understand English through the heavy Romanian accents without asking for a repetition more than once. We had just begun to feel that these people were really our friends and not just momentary acquaintances. We had just gotten used to the insane and unpredictable schedules. But I guess this feeling of incompleteness is further proof that God, not man, is at work. Here, let me explain:

We arrived in Suceva with no idea of how or what we were expected to do for the week, only that God had got us here and He had the master plan. Throughout the whole week we were living for the minute, plans changed in the blink of an eye. Most of the time we were in the classrooms, practicing English with the kids, other times we were working on a project studying the types of good and evil that exist in the heart of man with one of the 12th grade classes. But at any moment classes we thought we were supposed to visit changed and we were instead sent off to different classes, or to practice English with a different group of randomly selected kids.

In the evenings, we were found loving on the dorm students, playing games with them, telling them stories, making music, or dancing with them. This doesn’t sound like your typical missions trip, even to those of us who went. But our God isn’t the kind you can put in a box. He will use whoever, whenever and however in just the most perfectly crafted way to get His work done.   The entire time we never knew exactly what was going on, schedule-wise or heart-wise, but we knew God did.  God was at work, and it was while we were still wondering what “thank you” in Romanian was, that God was working through us to share his love with the needy students.

Even though we feel like we didn’t have enough time, we do know we accomplished what God sent us to do. We gave our time and our love to a group of people who God knew needed it very much. And just like planting a seed, you don’t always get to see it grow, or the results of that planting. But God knew just how everything was going to play out. He knew which kids were most lonely, who needed to be loved on. God, through us, got everything done the way it needed to happen. I am rejoicing in this truth, even though I wish we could have had more time with the kids. Thank you so much for your support, without you there would have been no “mission accomplished.”

]]> http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2009/04/13/mission-accomplished/feed/ 1 http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2009/03/25/everything-and-agent-cox-is-on-a-mission/ http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2009/03/25/everything-and-agent-cox-is-on-a-mission/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:55:51 +0000 Ted http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/?p=371 Our March newsletter is out.  It contains a special assignment briefing from Agent Brittany Cox sure to be fun for the entire family, and also a story about one of the ways God is working in our lives, and hopefully the lives of others here in Germany.  Here’s a quick preview…

EVERYTHING

What if God gave us freewill solely so that we can freely decide to give it back?

One of the harder moments in our long run up to the field involved a change in ministry. For a long time, I believed I was going to train European believers in video production. This was a really exciting idea to me, because I believe media is such a crucial battlefield. That’s no longer a part of the our ministry vision and that loss was very difficult for me. I fought against the change, because in my heart I firmly believed that was a critical part of God’s plan for me. It’s been several years, and God has done a lot to teach me about trusting Him, serving where He places me, and accepting the authorities He places over me. All hard, but important lessons for the work ahead.

Recently, I had an incredible opportunity. Many of you may be familiar with Erwin McManus and the Mosiac Church in Los Angeles. In a nutshell, Mosiac has decided to throw off their traditional structures and ideas, while holding fast to scripture, and truly focus on the salvation of the lost. At the invitation of our German church, a team from Mosaic came out to share what they’re learning from this process. The result was a conference called Origins.

I found the conference to be tremendously challenging. They challenged my assumptions about all sorts of issues from discipleship to what church should look like. I was particularly struck by one story: One of the speakers, Eric Bryant, was talking about his conversation with a lesbian woman who attends their church. She asked him, “[if I accept Jesus,] do I need to give up my lifestyle?” At this point I was riveted. There are few questions more bitterly defining the struggle of the church in the 21st Century.

Read the rest.

AGENT COX HAS A MISSION

During Spring break March 28- April 4, 2009, small groups of scheming and calculating BFA (Black Forest Academy) students will be dispersed to various and strategic places all over the world- each group has a top priority mission to carry to completion. Each mission is tailored to that particular group’s highly unique and most valuable capabilities. Brittany Cox is an agent assigned to one of these posses, the one destined for Suceava, Romania. The Mission: to spread word that her Employer, the Boss, the one with the power, power big enough to knock people dead with his pinky finger, is now at large. Yeah, that guy, his name is rumored to be “Jesus,” but he’s got other ones. It’ll be this group’s mission to warn the kids at Filadelphia Christian School (FCS), this guy is presently on the lose and… loving people? Wait, what?

Read the rest.

UPDATE: I have to apologize.  Someone just let me know the “Read the rest” links on both articles was broken.  It should be fixed now.

It`s everything that I desire
Can I be the one You use?

I wanna feed the hungry children
And reach across the farthest land
And tell the broken there is healing
And mercy in the Father`s hands

My hands my feet
My everything
My life, my love
Lord, use me

I wanna set the world on fire

I’m gonna set the world on fire.

Brittany

Note!:  When giving please fill out the attached “Donor Response Form,” and make checks payable to Janz Team Ministries.

]]> http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2009/01/02/setting-the-world-on-fire/feed/ 0 http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2008/12/24/merry-christmas-2/ http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/2008/12/24/merry-christmas-2/#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:24:24 +0000 Ted http://blog.coxesquarterly.com/?p=334

None of it had any staying power, but we saw several attempts at snow this weekend.  The last lingering bits are covering the farm fields around our village.  So in a gross violation of all the “rules,” we spent the weekend listening and singing along with Christmas music, enjoying the magic of the snow while it was here.

We’re at the part of our life here in Germany where culture shock should really be rearing it’s ugly head in the form of us really disliking Germany.  The good news is that we’re really happy here!  That doesn’t mean we’re not experiencing culture shock, though.  We know that a certain amount of the extreme stress we often feel even doing relatively simple activities springs directly out of culture shock.  We hope you’ll be in prayer for us as we continue to find our way in a foreign place, even one we love.

Brandy and I are excited to have returned to language school this week.  Many of you know, we completed a four week course a few months after our arrival, only to have the school cancel our follow-on classes.  In the intervening time, I’ve been doing construction work on our new offices (a barn being converted into an office building).  This is WAY outside my gifting, but it has been a great lesson for me.  If you haven’t already, take a look at our latest newsletter for how God has been at work there.  Brandy has been investing her time getting involved in a local Bible Study, and really working to find a good routine for our family here.

Do you remember Calvin and Hobbes?  Do you remember the one where he had to take school pictures?  Can we say, Isaac is a fan?

When asked the question, “Who’s the prettiest girl in school?”,  Isaac replies “Ahh!  Come On…Brittany….Brittany is at school”  Isaac is the sweetest brother in the world.  And when asked “What do you love about Germany?”, he said “The Currywurst, the Ferraris, the Lamborghinis,  the Fussball, the Schnitzel, the Doners [Doner Kebaps are a type of Turkish sandwhich which can be almost like a lamb burrito.  Sounds weird, but they're really good.]“.  In other words Isaac is your typical 11 year old boy, he is fascinated by fast cars, Sports, and yummy food. 

Brittany says (sung to a vague Yankee Doodle tune (there’s too many syllables)),  “I’m a little bitty social faux pas!” Sometimes that’s what it’s like in a new culture.  Sorta like nothing you can do or say is socially or culturally correct or even the slightest bit acceptable.  But it’s so fun too, lot’s of fun stories are to be made!  Because BFA is located here in Kandern, most of the natives are used to having us around.   We are what keep the local grocery store in business, so they tolerate us; and we aren’t quite the usual, run-of-the-mill, evil teenagers so we try to make that a little easier for them… most of the time.  Some have even dusted off the English they learned back in school, and try to speak to us in English. (Funny thing is, their English is just as terrible as most of our German, but neither party wants to give up the chance to speak a new language, so they speak really bad English and we speak really bad German, and things get accomplished, eventually…)  However, every once in a while, after a long day in school some of us crack and it’s immediately apparent we aren’t German teenagers… we laugh too loudly walking down the street [Germans do not make loud noises in public -Ed], this earns us funny looks and side-glances, that make us laugh even harder, or we stand outside the local clothing store trying on all the hats, or… well, we’re silly third culture kids with imaginations… you get the picture, yes?  Life is good.  Sehr Gut.”

 Brittany

Faith says, “Once upon a time I was born, but when we moved to Connecticut it was much funner.  And I started school a little later and then at the middle of school I saw a bunny.  We stayed in CT for 40 weeks.  So then we went to Boston to the airport, we got on the plane, we waited a while for it to start, and then FINALLY it started.  And then once we got off the ground Mommy celebrated with chocolate, it was a little weird.  We stayed up a long time and then I went to sleep for two hours…I don’t know how though.  And then we got off the plane and we rode on a bus.  And then we waited and waited and walked until we went on the other plane.  And then we took off again and we landed and we got off the plane and the Meyers picked us up.

“Now we’ve been here for almost six months.   In Germany now, it started with the mosquitos.  And then I started looking like I had chicken pox.  And then yesterday and today, Nov 7 &8.  Well, the day before yesterday, I pulled out my 8th tooth.  And then yesterday, I got a new book that’s German and English so I can learn more German because I can already speak a little German.  Since we’re staying home a while and in the afternoon we’re working, what I want to do is play the play station with my mom.  And that makes a happily ever after.  THE END!  Bye, see you tomorrow.”

 Faith

No this isn’t the hotel

Ah, Geeze… that’s really the only thing that can really cover it… actually the only thing that covers it is the name itself, GEM-K conference… Greater Europe Mission Kids (ages 13- when you finish high school) all piled together in a cozy little Hotel in Hungary for five days…

Our scavenger hunt required that we put ourselves into, well, different situations. Yes, we are all piled into a bathtub!

Just another jazzy picture of me and my GEM-K friends on our scavenger hunt…

Ah, Geeze. Last time I wrote to you I was talking about how I had to remember how to breathe in the first place, this time I’m struggling to catch my breath. I’ve been throwing myself into this sea-like culture, enjoying the way that the waves batter against every part of me in a delightfully foreign rhythm. Like a sea sponge I’ve been absorbing the pleasures and challenges God has laid out for me here. However, swimming is hard work. (Despite what some Michael Phelps might make it look like…) Conference was my refresher course with my personal Swim-Trainer, Jesus. And after treading in the deep blue sea it was fun to take a splash in the kiddie pool with all the other GEM-Ks at conference. In Hungary and Austria for five days filled with rather strange adventures and exploits I hung out with some of the most awesome people ever! We pulled crazy stunt after stunt, partied where there wasn’t even a party and laughed our way through each day and into the next. We pranked each other, played really weird games, stormed Vienna, dance until dawn (literally) and (in some ways) refreshed each other so that we might each return to our own unique Olympic-sized pool and continue to tread in the deep and often dangerous waters in our respective places that God has placed us. We all embraced in emotional parting. We had all bonded in astonishing ways. I blinked and now I catch myself wondering if it actually happened. Did I really truly learn to swing dance and didn’t even step on anyone’s toes? (More than five times that is.) Did I really run face-first into that wall that appeared out of nowhere in that glass maze? Did I lie awake all hours of the night playing match maker?

Me and my match-making partner in crime!

Did I really get up in front of that group of teens and perform a practically flawless impression of Larry in the VeggieTales favorite “I Love My Lips?” [ed: see the evidence on Facebook]  Did I honestly seek out Burger King for dinner in the middle of Vienna? Did I really play Ultimate Frisbee with a frozen pigs tongue? Did I… never mind. The answer is yes. Yes, I am one of those blessed things called a MK. We get to have so much fun it should be illegal. And it’s all because my God is looking out for me and loving on my soul in ways I can’t even imagine. He knows how much stress, newness, and down right scariness I can handle. He knows how much fun I can handle… maybe that’s why I had to come home so quick…

He wouldn’t shake my hand…

We love our place it is beautiful and very peaceful. Right now we have 10 days til Ted and Britt venture off to Hungary for GEM’s annual conference while Isaac, Faith and I keep the home fire’s burning. Or should we say the home de-humidifiers running. We do miss the dryness of Colorado that’s for sure. The day after they return Ted and I begin our next round of language school at 9am sharp. Britt and Isaac start their first year at BFA on the 25th. Faith gets to begin second grade in her German school the 8th of September.

God is good. He has provided many things for us and we are learning to be content in all circumstances. Because we had to use nearly all of our settling money on filling our oil tank so we could have hot water and some heat come the winter months, we have had to give up some of the things we’d hoped to be able to replace once we got here. Ted and I are living in a bedroom with our bed and one shrunk (we have no closets here in Germany). So we’re in desperate need of some bedroom furniture, among many other things big and small. We are learning how to do things quite differently everyday.

Our monthly budget is very tight, we knew it would be when we left Connecticut and it has been worth it, just to get here. We haven’t been able to go out and enjoy the area near as much as we’d hoped because gas costs so much, but we do have a gorgeous view. So we spend a lot of time just enjoying each other’s company and the things we already have. Which is what God calls us to do anyway. So we are growing in many ways. Some of us up, all of us in a new language and in spiritual contentment.

We need to raise more funds so that we can purchase clothing for all these growing children, pay for school supplies, fix broken media equipment, replace bedroom furniture, etc. So please join us in prayer as we begin to work on ministry partner development from across the pond. God will provide, we know He will, so we praise His name now and when the answers come later.

click here for the entire thing

The two most common comments we receive on our newsletters are “I love the pictures” and “I always mean to read them, but never get around to it.” That said, this month there are a lot less words and a whole lot more pictures. I hope you’ll let us know what you think.