seeds

I have been a lifelong supporter of Christian foreign missions. When I was very young, one of the guys in our home fellowship went to the Philippines as a missionary with his new wife. I was intrigued with the idea that a person could leave everyone and everything to share Jesus with others.  Fred was many years older than I and was like an big brother to us in many ways...he sure knew how to tease us! I made cards and wrote him letters for all those years that they were overseas and still have all the letters that he wrote back. Treasures.

Fred Williamson died last year. I had lost contact with him many years ago, back in the mid 90s. He had been very sick, due largely to the drug-laced past that God had been saved him from as a young man. I didn't find out about his passing until after he was gone. I ran across his daughter and ex-wife on Facebook and reconnected. So many years later, but I cried like a baby.

I was ten years old when I attended my first Missions Conference at Liberty Church back in 1986. There was just something about all those sessions of hearing missionary after missionary share about their work among the masses of the world that set my little heart on fire for missionary work. I opened my heart up to God's calling to sharing the Gospel. I raised my hand and pledged $10 a month to support my first missionary family, the McManuses in Bangladesh a few years later.

In recent years, I have been supporting children in the SEED program out of Arise & Shine Academy in the Philippines. The Student Evangelization Education and Development was birthed from the out-of-the-box missionary work of Dirk and Elizabeth Wood, grads of Liberty Bible School back when I was a kid. My first student to graduate from ASA and then college was Angela. She is an wonderful girl who loves the Lord, helps to lead worship in her church, and is now employed as a nurse after completing college and passing her exams. She used to send me the more adorable handmade cards and crafts, and continues to stay in touch with her "Tita Mary Beth." She is precious!

I just received notice that my second girl has graduated now. Hannah is the eldest child of a Filipino pastor and seems to be shy. I started supporting her last year, so I have not had a chance to really get to know her yet, but I plan to support her for as long as she is in college so I'll be able to.

I want to complete GLOBE's Perspectives class one of these springs. Several of my former students have completed it and mentioned to me that I would love it. Perspectives is a class that emphasized our "world-sized" role in God's global purpose for His Church. The course is focused around 4 loci or perspective points: Biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic.  I look forward to taking it one day.

What a blessing it has been to sow into Jesus' Kingdom. I will never know, this side of heaven, who has been won to Christ via my efforts and monetary sacrifices. But it is all nothing, considering I have not given up my life as Jesus did or as some of these missionaries have to serve our Lord. All these seeds will grow and spread like fire. What is done in Christ's name and is grounded in the Gospel will last forever!

So what missionary endeavor do you support right now? What ministry has God asked you to sow into for the furtherance of His Kingdom and the Gospel? The eternal rewards are just that, eternal.

I can think of so many missionaries, both novice and veteran, who need support as finances are stretched across the globe. Several of my friends are embarking on their own journeys as English teachers to share the Good News in a difficult field, a sensitive nation in Southeast Asia. They need support right now, as they are in their fund-raising stage of preparation. Open your heart and wallet to support those that Father places in your path. Contact me on Facebook, and I will be happy to connect you with them! www.facebook.com/marybeebzz

revolution of my mind

I am reading K. P. Yohannan's Revolution in World Missions right now. I was dusting some of Mom and Dad's old bookshelves and found it lurking.

I am shaken. Chapter 4 "I Walked in a Daze" speaks about his first impressions of the United States. And I am convicted.

Here are some of the passages:

"Those of us who grow up in Europe and Asia hear stories about the affluence and prosperity of America, but until you see it with with your own eyes, the stories seem like fairy tales. Americans are more than just unaware of their affluence--they almost seem to despise it at times...

A friend in Dallas recently pointed out a new church building costing $74 million.  While this thought was still exploding in my mind, he pointed out another $7 million church building going up less than a minute away. These extravagant buildings are insanity from a Third World perspective. The $74 million spent on one new building here could build nearly fifteen thousand average-sized churches in India. The same $74 million would have been enough to guarantee the evangelization of a whole state--or even some of the smaller countries of Asia...

If the affluence of America has impressed me, the affluence of Christians  impressed me even more. The United States has about 5,000 Christian book and gift stores, carrying varieties of products beyond my ability to imagine--and many secular stores also carry religious books. All this while more than 4,000 of the world's nearly 6,500 languages are still without a single portion of the Bible published in their own language! In his book My Billion Bible Dream, Rochunga Pudaite says, 'Eighty-five percent of all the Bible printed today are for the nine percent of the world who read English. Eighty percent of the world's people have never owned a Bible while Americans have an average of four in every household'...

The saddest observation I can make about most of the religious communication activity of the Western world is this: Little, if any, of this media is designed to reach unbelievers. Almost all is entertainment for the saints."

So my mind goes there. Yes, THERE.

I am a spender, a shopper, a collector. And have been for years. I love beautiful clothing and beautiful things.
I love concerts and shows, movies and books.
I also love God more.

So...
How do I spend my money, my hard-earned salary?
And do my spending habits make my God happy with my priorities?
Do I support evangelistic missions and national Christian workers with my finances in proportion to how much it is in my heart and prayers?
I determine to do better.
I must do better.