Lottie Moon World Mission Weekend at FBC Jackson, MS

 

This past weekend we were a part of a weekend missions conference for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering hosted by the First Baptist Jackson Women's Missionary Union.  It was a wonderful event, and we felt very honored to get to be a part of it.  There were several missionaries who participated alongside us, and we enjoyed getting to meet each one of them. We spoke multiple times over the weekend and each time was special and fun.   

 

On Friday night we had a share and prayer time hosted by one of their Women on Mission groups.  We met in a beautiful home and had a wonderful fellowship time with each one there.

 

Philip is over the port ministry in New Orleans.  He runs Global Maritime Ministries.  He was partnered with us over the weekend, and we shared together.  We loved hearing about his ministry and hope to get down to New Orleans one day and see it in person.  If you'd like to learn more about what he does, visit www.portministry.com.

 

me with a few of the sweet ladies at the prayer and share time on Friday night

 

 

Our friends, the Browns, were also there.  They attend FBC Jackson. 

 

our Friday night home group 

 

On Saturday our missionary group had a luncheon together that was hosted by a lovely couple from the church.  We met in another beautiful home and enjoyed a delicious meal together.

 

 

On Saturday night we all gathered at a private retreat center in Ridgeland for a meal and worship time.  This is a beautiful chapel that was on the retreat property.  

 

inside views of the chapel 

 

 

beautiful stained glass windows 

 

 We had a very entertaining blue grass band there to lead us.   It was such a fun night! 

 

 

Sunday morning began with breakfast at the church. 

 

 

Sara Madalin and the boys

The Acteens served breakfast to our group. 

 

 

The boys enjoyed getting to see another MK that they met earlier this year. 

 

 

David and Cindy giving final instructions for the day ahead. 

 

We shared briefly with an Acteens group.  Acteens is a missions program for middle and high school girls. 

 

us with some of the Acteens 

 

We shared in the college Sunday school class on Sunday morning.

 

 

Sunday morning worship service at FBC Jackson.  

 

To kick off the service there was a parade of flags done by the Boy Scouts in their church.  My friend Reagan recorded this video for us of the Guatemalan flag being marched in.

 

 

Each of the missionaries participating in the weekend event introduced themselves during the Sunday morning worship service. 

 

 

 

 

After the service we had a luncheon and a missions program where we all shared again.  Here we are with the Browns after lunch. 

  

us with Reagan and Malinda

 

 

They gave out these ornaments to everyone that morning. 

Lastly, me with Cindy Townsend.  She is the Minister to Women at FBC Jackson and the heart of this event.  I am so thankful our paths crossed earlier this year.  Everyone needs a Cindy Townsend cheering them on!! Her passion for women's ministry and her leadership gifting is something I greatly admire.  So much hard work and planning goes into this yearly event, and it just shows her love and dedication to missions.  

 

This is just one of many churches who support the IMB through giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and we are truly thankful and appreciative for each and every one of them!  We couldn't do it without our Southern Baptist churches sending, praying, and giving.  Thank you for the part you play in that!

 

 

If you'd like to support mission efforts taking place all around the world, you can give online today at:  Lottie Moon Christmas Offering

100% of every gift directly supports overseas missionaries.

November 2015 Newsletter

Greetings from Guatemala!  I failed to send out an update last month and it was only the third time in nine years that I have done so.  I felt bad but the truth is I was just too busy to stop and do it.  David was away on a nine day work trip to Mexico and I was home alone with the boys.  At times it was a little more than I could handle.  He had a great trip and I am glad he had the opportunity to go.  So this month I will be updating for September and October.

We are continuing to do our weekly Bible studies in the villages of Nearar and Muyurco.  Those are the only two we are currently doing on a regular weekly basis and they are both going great.  There has recently been two baptismal services in that area.  Several have accepted Christ and nine have been baptized.  We are praising the Lord for these new believers and look forward to helping disciple them in the weeks and months ahead.  One of the ones baptized was our helper and friend from the village of Chanco.  It was a big step for him to follow through with baptism and we have seen a lot of growth in his life recently.  We are excited to see how the Lord is going to use him to help us reach the lost in this area.  Our leader from the village of Nearar did one of the services.  It was his first time to baptize someone and he did a great job.  We are also excited about the growth that is taking place in his life and how God is raising him up to lead.

Thanks to our partner churches we were able to do a food distribution project in the village of Chanco back in mid-September.  We did it village-wide for each family in the village.  Each family received a 100 pound bag of corn, a bag of beans, a bag of rice, and some cooking oil.  The people were very appreciative.  Hunger needs in this part of the country are great because of the lack of rain to grow their crops.  I am thankful that we were able to meet a physical need while also getting to share the gospel with a whole village at the same time.  Our partner from that village led out in the distribution and for the first time he shared the gospel in a public setting.  He did an excellent job and it blessed our hearts to see him be so bold for Christ in his own village.  God is working!  We are excited about the little glimpses of light we are seeing all over our work area. 

We recently hosted a team from one of our partner churches First Baptist Church Mt. Pleasant, SC.  We were targeting the villages of Chanco and Corral de Piedras.  The team made door to door visits, prayed, encouraged, and shared the gospel in homes during the day.  Two of the evenings we showed the film "The Hope" in the villages.  We had good turnouts both nights.  They also joined us for our weekly Bible study in Muyurco.  It was a great week of partnering together and working alongside each other to make disciples for Christ.  Our next team arrives on the 16th of November.  This team will be from our other partner church LifePark in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  We plan to spend that week doing encouragement/ evangelism visits in all of the villages we are currently targeting.  We are looking forward to another great week together with them!

On the 24th of October we celebrated our 9 year anniversary with the IMB.  It is hard to believe that it has been that long since we left our home country!  Many of you have been our prayer partners from the start and many of you we have picked up along the way.  Some of you have been down to work with us and others of you will possibly do that in the future.  Our time on the field would not have been near as successful without you all back home giving and praying.  You are the most vital part of all we do.  We have never taken lightly the power of prayer and your role in our ministry and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the many times you have stopped to pray for us over the years.  We may never know until we get to heaven the dangers your prayers have kept us from and the doors that your prayers have opened. THANK YOU!  As we begin to approach the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering season we would like to share with you the promotional video for this year's offering.  If you look closely you will notice a few familiar faces.  May our family be a face to your giving this year.  Know that your giving is what is helping us be here to evangelize and make disciples for Christ.  Again, we say thanks!

Monday Missions Moment

If you are a follower of Jesus, you are part of the task to fulfill the Great Commission. Paul says, “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Jesus has commissioned us to be His heart, His hands, His voice. Through praying, giving and going, Southern Baptists have fulfilled this legacy for more than 160 years.

Yet, billions remain lost and time may be running out for them. We must pray more intentionally and give more sacrificially than ever before. Our churches must take direct responsibility for helping reach the nearly 3,800 unengaged, unreached people groups that missionaries may never be able to get to.

And, since most unreached people groups likely are represented in the world’s urban centers, we have unique challenges and opportunities to reach the world through the cities.

What can you do? If you are a pastor or missions leader, you can lead your church to own the Great Commission as never before, to be an extension of His heart, hands and voice through praying, serving and unprecedented giving to engage the remaining people groups without access to the Gospel.

Individually and together, we are Southern Baptist missions!
(copied from the IMB website- http://www.imb.org/)
   


If you are not called to go, will you GIVE so that others may?

Monday Missions Moment

Today I am beginning a month long series of posts called "Monday Missions Moments" to promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is what funds our being on the mission field.  Throughout the month I will be sharing more about what the offering is, how it supports us and many others around the world, and how you can be involved.  This years theme is:  His Heart, His Hands, His Voice.  Below is the 2011 theme video- check it out.



To learn more visit http://www.imb.org/.

Monday Missions Moment

To learn more click HERE.

Monday Missions Moment

As the Christmas season comes to an end, so does the emphasis on the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.    This will be our last Monday Missions Moment post for the year.  Regular giving through the Cooperative Program along with your annual gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is what supports over 5,000 Southern Baptist missionaries worldwide. 

In this post we wanted to include a personal video that highlights some of what we did over the past year.  Your gifts helped support us and allowed us to go and serve.   Thank you for giving, we are honored to go!!!

Monday Missions Moment

Who's Missing?
Even after 2,000 years of Christian influence, more than 1.5 billion people are still missing out on the opportunity to hear the Gospel. They are hidden behind cultural, physical, political and language barriers to a Gospel witness.

Many of the world's people missing from God's family live in concentrated pockets of lostness. The pockets we are focusing on in 2009 comprise:

About 40 nations and 700 languages
34 percent Muslim
32 percent Hindu
13.5 percent Animist
6 percent Buddhist
6 percent unknown religion
4 percent nonreligious/other

Although there is a small percentage of Christian, the rest are a mix of ancestor worshipper, shamanist, Jewish, Taoist and Sikhist. About 80 unreached people groups still have no contact with the outside world.

Whose Mission?
The Bible says the lost are living in darkness, alienated from God and without hope in the world. But our obedience will give them hope. God calls every church and every believer to be on mission with Him to break down the barriers. Learn the ways you and your church can be on mission to help bring a lost people into God's family.
 

Monday Missions Moment

Recently during our visit to New Zion Baptist Church in Covington, LA we were able to witness for the first time a "Walk to the Manger".  They were kicking off their Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and did so by having people march forward and place their offerings in a manger at the front of the church.  We loved being able to see this take place knowing that although this money was not going to us personally, it would be used to send us and many others to the missoin field and keep those already serving there.  They took up over half of their annual goal that first Sunday morning!!!

Your giving matters!

Think your gift to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering won’t make a difference? Every penny given to Lottie Moon is used to help support nearly 5,600 Southern Baptist missionaries serving worldwide. Last year, those missionaries reported almost 27,000 new churches and 566,000 baptisms. The lost are believing because you give!



For ways you can give click THIS LINK.

Monday Missions Moment

Who is Lottie Moon?

Born into privilege on a Virginia plantation, Charlotte Digges Moon was a smart, forceful woman who could have achieved most any goal. But God’s call focused Lottie’s life on sharing Christ’s love with China’s lost masses. For 37 years she endured hardship and danger in a land oppressed by famine, disease and war. In the end, she loved the Chinese people more than life itself, giving her own food to starving neighbors – eventually dying of starvation herself.

Why is Southern Baptists’ international missions offering named for this early missionary? Throughout her career, Lottie wrote numerous letters home urging Southern Baptists to greater missions involvement and support. One of those letters, excerpted below, triggered Southern Baptists’ first offering for international missions in 1888 – enough to send three more missionaries to China.

“How many there are … who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God.”
--Lottie Moon, Tengchow, China, Sept. 15, 1887.

Check out this video to learn more-



Please give so others can go!

Monday Missions Moment

For the next few weeks we'll be posting videos promoting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  As many of you know, we just returned from serving a three year missionary term to Guatemala with the International Mission Board.  Your gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering are what helped pay the way for us to be able to go and serve.  We are thankful to all who have given in the past and ask that you prayerfully consider what you will give this year.  Funds are currently low, which means that many are wanting to go but are being delayed because of financial reasons.  Please give this year so that many can go and tell the good news all around the world!



For more information on where your money goes click on this link.