Despite a Lack of Parental Encouragement

While chatting with a pastor last week, we heard a true and thrilling story that happened a number of years ago and involved one of our supporting churches.  It seems that two fairly young siblings, a sister and brother, heard about the Sunday School program of this church through friends and were granted permission to attend by their non-religious parents. Throughout their childhood, every Sunday morning found them walking to that church and eventually they also brought along their younger siblings. During that entire time, their parents never once darkened the door of that church, not even when their children were part of special programs. As God’s Word was faithfully proclaimed, all four siblings trusted Christ as Saviour. Today the “sister” is the wife of the pastor we were chatting with! He also shared that in more recent years, at least one of the parents turned to God for salvation.

What an encouragement to continue reaching out to the children, loving them, and leading them to Christ. Although there are so many more distractions these days, let us pray for churches to diligently find effective ways to attract children to activities where they will hear the Gospel and then disciple them to be missionaries to their own families, friends, and beyond.

Here Am I!

One of our aims as we go through Home Service is to be on the lookout for others, especially young people, who are open to or considering cross-cultural missions as God’s call on their lives. This particular Home Service, we have not heard too many express an interest or willingness. So it was a special delight this past weekend to hear a high school person verbalize a desire to pursue the opportunity to invest their life into sharing God’s message of salvation with people in the uttermost parts of the world. This statement was especially meaningful because it was so very obvious that this young person was already actively and whole-heartedly serving the Lord right now in their home church. We passed on some literature for them to prayerfully read and indicated that we would follow them through continued contact via email. Praise God for young people and others who want to pour their lives into building and expanding the Kingdom of God no matter what the culture or language that God directs them toward...and pray the Lord of the Harvest for many more needed laborers.

Unsung Heroes

The evening before leaving Hamilton, ON, we took the opportunity to join the West Highland Prayer Meeting. As anticipated, there were a good number of heroes of mine who have tracked with us for decades, included a precious black lady that has kept in touch with me since the mid 70’s! Just before Prayer Meeting, we shared a meal with the Missions Committee Liaison and her husband and enjoyed a sweet time of catching up and recounting God’s faithfulness through losses and gains…in fact we lost track of the time and were a bit late arriving at Prayer Meeting. But the welcome was warm and so gracious, and almost immediately their discerning questions about the ministry and our plans began to fly! Time went far too fast, but included in those few minutes was a request to purchase a copy of the VOICE Curriculum as well as another person’s willingness to make an audio edition of the VOICE Curriculum on a micro-chip. What a privilege and encouragement to hear these saints pray for specific people, needs, and challenges of the VOICE ministry as well as praise God for His amazing work. Without doubt, what has happened thus far is in answer to prayer and what will happen is also connected to prayer. Who knows how God will use the prayers of these unsung heroes as together we press onward. “God lead us and open the way according to your Sovereign plan.”

Times to Cherish!

A while ago, SEND USA asked if it were possible to stop by (Farmington, MI) at some point before retirement so that they could have a time of celebrating with us the years that we served with SEND. (You may remember that we were hindered from attending the SEND North American Area Conference last July due to the sudden death of Laura’s youngest sister.) As our Ontario planned trip began to take shape, we realized we had an opening to stop by on Tuesday, April 30. SEND then planned a chapel service in our honor during which we shared a brief update of our ministry; Laura and Ernie also added to the celebration. Another heart-warming gesture was connecting via a video call with SEND Canada which made it possible for the SEND Canada Director, “Mags,” to be present via video—we saw and heard him and he saw and heard us during the entire time. Both he and the Personnel Director of SEND US shared humbling and encouraging words with us followed by a time of prayer during both the SEND US and Canadian Directors interceded for us. They unveiled a beautifully decorated cake in our honor with “Salamat sa iyong katapatan,” written on it—Tagalog for “Thank you for your faithfulness.” We left deeply blessed and grateful for the mission God has given us the privilege of working with for the past 32 years.

From there we traveled on for yet another rich blessing from the Lord. A few weeks ago we realized that the timing was perfect to connect our trip to the USA SEND office with an opportunity to see our Ugandan colleagues who are currently in the US, Beth and Dennis, who were staying in Elkhart, Indiana. The hosts were a couple that we met in Uganda through Beth; they were wonderful hosts in every way. What a joy to see all of them again and get caught up somewhat with current happenings in VOICE Africa in Uganda, among the South Sudanese refugees, also in South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Laughter, sighs of wishing we had the answer to some complex situations, expressions of praise over victories, and prayer times were plentiful. The hours went by too quickly but we’ll cherish both of these special times for a long time to come.