Profiles in Partnership-Ragaee A. Danial

For 20 years ETS has sought partnerships with national church leaders around the world. We would like to introduce you to a new partner Ragaee A. Danial. Ragaee is on the board of SSTI (Sunday School Training Institute) in El Minya, Egypt. He oversees and helps develop materials for the Institute as well as directing training events. His life verse is 2 Timothy 2:2 "And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

In addition to his work with SSTI, he is busy working with poor and needy families, to help them meet their need for food, clothing, shelter and to teach them about the love of Jesus Christ. Earlier this year ETS was able to send Ragaee a projector and 29 Christian children's videos to use his work.

According to Voice of the Martyrs, Egyptian Christians face ongoing persecution in spite that this country has the largest Christian community in the Middle East. The country's constitution gives preference to Muslims. Christians are treated as second-class citizens, denied political representation, and often discriminated against in education and employment. While the constitution allows for freedom of conversion, Muslims converting to Christianity have often been unable to change their religion or name on their identification cards. Without the freedom to make this change, Christian women remain designated as Muslims and are unable to marry Christian men. Children of those designated Muslim (even if the are, in fact, Christian) are educated as Muslims and those with Islamic names are routinely turned away from entering churches by the police.

Larry Williams, Children's Pastor of Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell, Washington has worked with Ragaee in Egypt 5 times and has taught in several of his training programs for teaching adults how to lead children to Jesus. Larry says, "Ragaee goes to villages where there are no churches. He will bring in 380 to 500 kids for an all day program. He transports them in a rented vehicle that is used to transport animals. He packs in about 50 kids standing and transports them to the festival about 40 minutes away from the village. He feeds them, tells them Bible Stories, prays with them and does basic discipleship. He has made a significant impact and wants to ultimately plant churches in these villages. The people he works with are desperately poor and Ragaee offers them help and hope. A vehicle would be a tremendous blessing and a great help to transport the teachers to the villages and to bring the children together."


A typical Children's Evangelism Festival will have as many as 800 kids. They are put in smaller groups of 10, given a teacher a T-shirt and play 10 games that each teach a different message about Jesus. They learn songs about Jesus, hear Bible stories, and will have an opportunity to ask Jesus into their hearts. The teacher will pray for the children about any needs they have and kids are fed 3 sandwiches, juice and chips.


This festival had 74 teachers from 20 different churches and 728 children from 24 villages that are without a church. There was a village of 64 children that were not allowed to attend due to problems between Muslims and Christians.

How can help with this dynamic ministry? We are raising money so that Ragaee can buy a vehicle in Egypt to transport these children and adult leaders. I am sure that you have been reading about Egypt in the news and you know about all the changes happening in their government and society. This is an incredible chance to make a difference in a strategic Muslim nation and possible impact other states in the Middle East as well.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration.

Grace and peace,

The ETS Staff

Reuse, Recycle and Bless Others

What has 10 wheels, drinks diesel fuel, is retired and goes up and down the east coast? If you guessed Bob Lester and his truck then were correct. Bob Lester lives in Kentucky but he will move domestic shipments for the cost of fuel and a small donation.

ETS is a drop off location for Bibles, VBS materials, Sunday School quarterlies, Christian books, Christian videos,and audio tapes. Whenever Bob is in the area, he will call us to see if we have any materials that need to be transported to Edwin L. Hodges Ministries in Decatur, Alabama. The used Bibles, literature and hymnals are shipped to Bible schools, Bible colleges, seminaries, churches, missionaries and individuals worldwide. According to Hodges' ministry one used Bible will have an impact on at least 20 people.

Charlie and Earl loaded 10,500 pounds of literature and materials on Bob's truck during his last visit. We strongly urge you to check with your church and see what happens to your Sunday School materials, VBS supplies, and other literature. Rather than throw it out, why not bless other Christians you may never meet this side of heaven?

Thank you for supporting us to we can support other ministries to proclaim the "Good News" world wide.

The ETS Staff

Volunteers Swarm ETS

If you came by our building this past month, you would have seen a swarm of activity going on. ETS was blessed by various youth groups that participated in Massanetta Springs Middle School conferences. Each day the camp would send out groups to various ministries and outreach centers. We had youth groups from Blacksburg, Virginia, Rockville, Maryland, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Falls Church, Virginia, Newtown, Pennsylvania and Massanetta, Virginia.

The groups labeled 7 pallets of children's chewable vitamins, loaded 550 boxes of winter clothing and shoes into a truck for GAiN (Global Aid Network), boxed and sorted hundreds of pounds of used clothing and shoes, weeded, painted, sorted computer parts, moved older computers from the basement, moved stacking chairs into storage, took apart cribs and palletized them and helped unload our trucks.

ETS appreciates our volunteers and we work hard to give a good experience to each group that comes. We literally worked for days making sure that we had all the supplies we needed, enough clothing sorted to get each group started, and people available to supervise each work group.

Our only casualty was a pair of sneakers that belonged to one of the girls who had been packing boxes of shoes. Most teen-age girls love shoes, and in the mayhem of trying all of them on, her own pair got packed! We let her pick out any pair she wanted and thanked her for her donation (which will probably end up in Central Asia). We would love to have one of our missionary friends send her a thank you note “from the donated shoes” saying, “Having a wonderful time in (whatever country) . Thanks for letting me have this mission experience. Your former sneakers!

“Thank you to all our volunteers. We depend on you!

The ETS Staff

COSIM Conference

COSIM—-the Coalition of Support of Indigenous Ministries—what does that mean and why is it important? (Indigenous ministries are those led by national Christians in their home countries.) Maybe an illustration will help us understand the importance of partnering with these fellow believers .

Think of the task of world evangelization as a mountain we need to climb. Now compare the workers needed for this task to mountain climbers, linked together by strong ropes. One climber is out in front, who drives a steel spike into the side of the mountain. He is linked to that spike by a rope, and to everyone behind him by another rope. If anyone should slip, the one ahead or behind will be able to stop him from falling to his death.

The “spike” is the strong truth of the Gospel, the message we want to share with the world. It anchors us to the slippery slope of our different cultures. The rope is the partnership or partnerships we develop in ministry with our co-workers in service, whether they are Americans or internationals.

When we head the same direction, in mutual dependence on each other and the Lord, then we are able to scale the difficult and dangerous “mountain” of bringing the Gospel to the world together. Will you pray for the upcoming COSIM conference?
I (Keith) will be attending it and I hope to strengthen the ties we have developed over the years with international ministries. I want to learn how ETS can be more effective in networking and providing resources to these organizations. I would like nothing better than to help new partnerships develop between international churches and Stateside ministries.These are great days of open doors for ministry. May the Lord enable us to see and seize the opportunities that are before us. The ETS STAFF

A Personal Note from Keith

The Lord needed a whale (or a great fish ) to get Jonah's attention.

He only needed a chicken for me!

Jan and I arrived home late after ten days away. I ran down to Kroger to get a rotisserie chicken for supper. Jan got sick the next day. A day later that mean bird got me!

Fourteen days later, including eleven in the hospital, I was out and on the road again.

THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR MINISTRY FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS FOR THE CALLS, CARDS,VISITS AND PRAYERS.

Here are a few things I learned while in the hospital.

1. Most television programs are immoral, utterly stupid or could be used in lieu of water boarding to extract information from hardened terrorists.
2. The medical profession has a profound fascination with patient "outputs".
3. A cracker, cup of broth, green jello and red "ices" are a gourmet feast after six days without food or drink.
4. A cell phone and laptop make a fully functional remote office possible. I even got to listen to classical music while I worker.
5. "Room Service" (nursing personnel) is especially attentive at midnight, 2 A.M., 4 A.M., etc.
6. Medicare has its problems but is a great blessing to those of us of a certain age.

The best lessons of all:

1. God is good..all the time.
2. The ETS Staff and volunteers did a great job in my absence.
3. I enjoyed a good time for reading, reflection, evaluation and planning for the future.

Thanks again for your partnership with us.

Keith Jones

Not an Easter Egg Hunt

This may look like an Easter Egg Hunt but its
really a group of volunteers from Weyers Cave New Covenant Community Church (NC3) helping find and pick up glass shards from our parking area. We have been replacing windows and several glass panes were broken and shattered due to high winds and work crews on our roof. Now that the grass is starting to grow, finding the hidden glass took a lot of effort.

There was no golden egg hidden but we really appreciate their help with this project .

Our Boss is Back

We rejoice at the return of our director and founder Keith Jones after a 10 day stay in the hospital for a bowel obstruction. Now a little thinner after a time of reflection and mandatory rest he is back at the office.

Please keep him in your prayers as he regains his strength. Please pray for wisdom for him that he does not overdo but will know how to pace himself.

We thank you for your prayers and many calls.

The ETS Staff