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2023 January Newsletter

Greetings from The Keystone Project and All Our Disciples in the Nations!

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust!’ For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your right hand, but it shall not approach you.’” (Psalm 91:1-7)

This psalm has brought much comfort to many people. It is a promise to the righteous, not that they will face no danger or suffering but that the Lord is their refuge and protector in the midst of life’s difficulties. This past year, we were blessed with blankets that had a portion of this psalm printed on them, and we were able to distribute many to homeless and lost people on the streets. This gave us an excellent opportunity to pray with and for them. Their suffering was an open door into their lives. That is the significance of Psalm 91 – suffering, trials, and problems can all be an open door for God’s grace in us and in those around us.

One of my first “experiences” with the true meaning of Psalm 91 happened many years ago in a very rural area of India. It was my first mission trip anywhere, and we traveled to the Poppy Hills of eastern India. I was overcome with all I saw – the idolatry, the poverty, the harshness of the living conditions in the villages we visited, but also the graciousness and hospitality of the people. Two beloved brothers from our church were with me, and on our first morning there, we were awakened fairly early in our simple sleeping quarters by the sound of locals giggling and talking as they watched us sleep. We brought out our Bibles to do our devotions together, and the passage we read was Psalm 91. I jokingly remarked, “I wonder what the ‘arrow’ will be today?”  

By mid-morning, we hiked into our very first village – the first place where we would do our mission work! It was quite isolated and took a bit for us to walk there. As we entered, we noticed there were no men in the village, only women, children, and older people. The men were working in the fields at that time. We were rookie missionaries and didn’t know what we were doing (a condition from which I still suffer even to this day!). Instead of asking permission to speak to the people or waiting for the men to arrive, we started singing to bring everyone together, and when the crowd surrounded us, I began to share the gospel. Suddenly, the men came back from the fields, and they grabbed their various weapons and aimed them at us. I was now looking at a number of very angry men pointing their bows and arrows at me. One of the brothers with me stepped over and whispered in my ear in a lilting voice, “They don’t look happy” – emphasizing the word “happy!” Many thoughts go through your mind at a moment like that, but I did remember our devotions and God’s promise of protection. Before we had left on the trip, a friend of mine from India suggested that I bring along a polaroid camera with me. He told me that many rural Indians had never had a photograph of themselves and that it could be an open door to share Christ with them. I got the camera and took a picture of the men with their arrows strung on their bows. When the photograph came out of the camera, I gave it to them. They were astounded! They had never seen such a thing before. Suddenly, they were my best friends, posing for pictures and laughing and joking at the results. I wish I could say the whole village came to Christ, but truthfully, I cannot remember if they did. I do know that they heard the gospel of the kingdom for the first time, and I learned in a powerful way that God was indeed my shelter and refuge and that no matter what I would face, I could trust in Him, even in circumstances that were of my own doing.

How about you? I know many of you have gone through terrible and difficult times. We at The Keystone Project have recently lost some dear friends and spiritual warriors. We have also witnessed people we love endure suffering from mistakes they or their loved ones have made. Let us not lose heart or become overwhelmed with fear. Let us look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who did not look at His sufferings but at the joy that was set before Him. This is a joy unspeakable and full of glory, a joy that is not based on our circumstances but on God’s faithfulness to us in every situation. That village was my introduction to missionary work. God taught me that even in the midst of my own failures and struggles, He is my refuge and fortress. And so is He for you as well if you will simply trust Him with all your heart. In Jesus’ name!

Prayer 

  • Please continue to pray for our disciples around the world, especially those living and working in dangerous areas of persecution or where they are affected by the pandemic. 
  • Pray for the financial success and growth of The Keystone Project. 
  • Pray for our staff, who work so hard and have sacrificed so much to serve the Lord through the mission God has given to us.
  • Pray also for our upcoming mission trip to the West African nation of Benin. As of this writing, we have about 300 leaders from 13 countries who have confirmed to attend. Please ask the Lord to move in a mighty way to transform their lives and ministry paradigms, so that they will see a revelation of the kingdom of God and the mission of the Great Commission to make disciples who make disciples. Pray for our team to be filled with the Holy Spirit; to have wisdom, protection, and safe travel; and to see much fruit from this mission.
  • From February 20-24, we will be conducting a vision-casting training seminar here in Keystone, SD. The content of this training event will equip those in attendance with the motivation and information they need to launch movements of multiplying disciples. If you would like to attend, you can find the details on our website (www.keystoneproject.org). As always, this training is offered to all at no cost, including hotel and food. I hope to see you here!

We thank the Lord for all of you and pray for His blessings in all that you do for His glory! 

For God’s Glory,

Richard Greene,
President, The Keystone Project, Inc.

No Greater Work

“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help.

Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there.

Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.” William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

There is no greater work than to be about the Master’s work; that is fulfilling God’s redemptive purposes in the nations by going on the mission of the Great Commission. God is a missionary God, and we must answer the cry of the cross by serving Him in a missionary way. 

This is what we in The Keystone Project have given our lives to. We are looking for those who would come alongside us and join us in this great work. The Harvest is plentiful, but I tell you the workers are few. We need laborers who will come alongside us and help us accomplish the work of the Kingdom. 

The internship that we put on every summer is missionary training for college students who want to give their lives for something much greater than themselves. We are still looking for interns (ages 18-25) who will participate in the Keystone Project Summer Internship for 2023. Please pray that the Lord would provide us with the interns that He has called and chosen. If you know of anyone that you think would be a good fit or would be interested, please encourage them to apply via The Keystone Project website!

 

Some of our interns (from 2022) and community gathered together to worship Jesus at our Redemptive Service outside.

As you may know, every year there are hundreds of international college-aged students who come to Keystone, SD, to work for the entire summer. This incredible opportunity has allowed us to make disciples of these students with the intention and prayer that they would return to their home countries and multiply out disciple-making movements. Last summer, we were able to minister to dozens of college students from all over the world, and we had the privilege of seeing one of our interns get baptized. 

Please pray for the summer internship this year, that God would do a great work in reaching these international students and that our interns would undergo a powerful, transformational work of the Holy Spirit. 

“When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.” – 1 Corinthians 15:28

Thank you so much for all your prayers, love, and support. 

God bless you!

James Greene,
Internship Coordinator

Covering This Training Season in Prayer

As we enter the New Year, we are eager and expectant to see how God moves and continues His work of mobilizing the Church and equipping His people to finish the Great Commission. Now that the holiday season is over, we are ready to start a new season and continue hosting training events through the rest of the winter and spring months. As always, we are depending on the Lord for every need and trusting that He will bring the right students that He has chosen and prepared for each training, and we are asking you to join us in covering this entire season in prayer.

We are especially excited for our first training event of the year since we will be taking The Keystone Project Training to West Africa! This first training is a five-day Vision-Casting Training in Cotonou, Benin Republic, over January 23-27, 2023. At this time, we already have over 300 students registered for this training, and we’re expecting as many as 500 students by the time the training starts. So far, we have 13 nations represented at this training: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, the DRC, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and France. If you are in a position where you can attend this training as well, please contact us for more details about how to register. Students will be responsible to pay for their own lodging, meals, visa, and transportation; however, the training conference itself is offered free of charge. It will be conducted with French translation as well.

This is a tremendous opportunity to reach many more people than we could host at our headquarters in the US, and many of those students might not be able to travel to the US for a training. Please join us in prayer for this training, all the students who will be attending, and the nations they represent – that God would ignite a passion in their hearts to reach the unreached with the gospel of the kingdom and that their passion would spread like wildfire across the entire continent and beyond. And as they reach the unreached people groups around them, they will bring us closer to fulfilling the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:14, “‘This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come’” (NASB).

Students from our 2022 October training at Crazy Horse landmark!

Please also continue to pray for the training events that we have scheduled for the rest of the year in Keystone, SD, USA:

  • US / Native American Leaders Training, February 20 – 24, 2023 (one week)
  • International Leaders Training (French and Spanish Translation), March 13 – 31, 2023 (three weeks)
  • US / Native American Leaders Training, April 17 – 28, 2023 (two weeks)
  • International Leaders Training (French and Spanish Translation), October 2 – 27, 2023 (four weeks)

All these training events are open to both international and US participants. The shorter one- and two-week trainings are primarily designed and recommended for residents of the US and Canada; it is recommended that international participants come to a three- or four-week International Leaders Training, whenever possible. Our trainings are open to all Christians willing to be radically challenged by the Great Commission – regardless of ministry position. Both church leaders and new believers will benefit from this paradigm-shifting training.

Although the length of each training varies, the overall theme of each training will focus on equipping students to launch movements of disciples who make disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit, especially among unreached people groups. As part of the training, students will participate in missional activities each week, in which they will go out into the streets of nearby cities with an experienced coach and practice what they are learning in the training. As they learn to walk in the Spirit, they’ll have the opportunity to share food, clothing, blankets, or other items with individuals in need; encourage and pray for those who are lost and hurting; and ultimately share the gospel of the kingdom and the love of God with our neighbors in the surrounding communities. During the trainings last year, over 200 people made a decision to follow Jesus, and we’ve been able to follow up with many of them. We are praying that the Lord draws many more of our neighbors to a saving knowledge of His grace during the trainings coming up this year as well. 

As we look forward to everything God has prepared for this year, we invite you to prayerfully consider engaging in this mission with us in any of these three ways:

  1. If you sense that the Lord is leading you to pursue our training and learn to make disciples who make disciples, we would love to have you join us at one of the training events listed above. You can fill out the Training Application Form on our website. You can also enroll in our Online Academy to engage in our training with online coaching support.
  2. If the Lord brings to mind anyone that you think would benefit from our training and put it into practice, we would greatly appreciate your help spreading the word! Please direct any potential students to fill out the application on our website. 
  3. Lastly, we would also deeply appreciate it if you would commit to praying for these training events and the students attending each one – that God would transform and equip them for the work of the Great Commission. Just as Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 9:37-38, “‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” (NASB). Please join us in praying to the Lord of the harvest that He will send out more and more workers from each training into the nations.

Dustin Stuckey,
Training Event Coordinator

ABOUT THE KEYSTONE PROJECT

The Keystone Project is a global missions network of churches and leaders committed to the fulfillment of the Great Commission in this generation.

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