God has been so very good to us. Thank you, churches, for your continued prayers. We’ve had several churches take us on recently, with trips to Michigan and Ohio. We are thrilled to be getting closer to our goal, and we’re praying that God would continue to connect us to the right churches. We’re on track to head for the field next year, and my wife and I have had many exciting conversations anticipating exactly that. We are overwhelmed at times by how God has taken care of us through His people and by how much we love the opportunity to serve in missions.
Exciting News
Even more satisfying than new supporting churches, my wife and I are glad to share that we are expecting another member of our family. We are due to have our second child in October of this year. R___ and the baby are healthy and have had no complications so far. This is, of course, what we have been praying for, and we ask that you would pray with us as well. We’ve talked a lot about whether we want our son to have a new brother or sister, but ultimately, we hope it is God’s will to give us a healthy baby. We find out the gender of the baby during the first week of June, as long as he or she cooperates during the ultrasound. We’ll be sure to share the good news in our next prayer letter.
Encouraging Thought
I wanted to share an experience I had out soul winning recently. We were out door knocking with a church a couple of weeks ago, and a young mom, L___, graciously accepted Christ as her Saviour after I shared the Gospel with her. After talking some more, she shared that she had ridden a church bus to this church as a little girl. I walked away from her door considering how ready and willing she was to hear and accept the Gospel and realized that it was because of the influence that church had already made. Both R___ and I each have a parent who was reached by a church’s Bus Ministry, and we may not even exist if it weren’t for those churches. Your church’s efforts to share the Gospel make a difference even when you don’t see the reward. I got to reap the reward of that church’s sowing and watering, and it was a necessary reminder to me about what God has asked of us.
I think God has softened the hearts of Americans through the epidemic. I’ve seen it out soul winning, but as we’ve also seen the hardening of many hearts to the Gospel, it becomes discouraging. We may even feel that soul winning doesn’t work anymore, but let’s not forget that God expects obedience and does not require success. When we share the Gospel, it’s because God tells us we must, and the burden of responsibility for their accepting the truth is not on us, because we’ve obeyed. We should have boldness to share the Gospel regardless of how it is received, but it’s always nice to be on the reaping end of the process. When we don’t share the Gospel because we don’t think it will make a difference, we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder if a teacher was discouraged that L___ didn’t get saved or that she stopped coming to church. The truth is, what you are doing in and through your church makes a huge impact. My wife and I have seen three people saved between us in the last month. People are getting saved, and soul winning does work. Thank you, faithful servants, for sowing, watering, and reaping here so we can do the same in a foreign land.
Here for Him,
Missionary #6013