One “ordinary” miracle!

 

Let me tell you a story about the awesome God I serve.  There is a couple named Don and Lucy.  They are serving the Lord in Argentina.  I am in America.  These missionaries  have been serving the Lord and the people of  Argentina  for about 45 years.   Here in America, I am a somewhat ailing 47-year-old mom, in whom God parked a specific set of characteristics, values, and a handful of abilities for His own use.  My physical impairments have ruled out some things I was once able to do, but I can pray and write.  God made me fairly articulate, and gave me a heart that has a very difficult time turning a blind eye to the pain of another person if there is anything humanly possible that I can do about it.

Yesterday morning I opened the monthly letter  which this missionary couple sends to all of their supporting churches.  And I cried because I felt pain in the heart of another human being, 5000 miles on the other side of the globe, through words on a page. I prayed for them, and asked the Lord to give me words for an e-mail which would give them comfort, and to see to it they received the e-mail.  I wrote down the words God laid on my heart, and I sent it.  But this story is not about me, and it’s not about the Nevels, but about  the God we both serve, and the work God has for every born-again believer to do.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The Word is our Bible, and Jesus is that Word, but did  we ever stop to think of the awesome potential of our words, written or spoken, to convey Jesus, and all the hope that comes with Him, to another human being?   That is the very reason for which Don and Lucy Nevels have given their lives in service to the people of Mendoza.  Because they understand the power of The Word, and the common need of all mankind, for a Savior.

Their letter conveyed a very honest disheartened moment, a tiny slice of their over-all experience there, I am sure, though I imagine that the disheartened moments are much more often than we ever hear about here at home.  The missionary’s letter highlights the hard truth of missionary life, which is the fact that sometimes the harvest is very slow in coming.    I speculate that Don and Lucy were hesitant to send that letter, and indeed did so with a disclaimer.  But I am so very grateful for their honesty, and the courage it took to leave it just as it was and mail it.  Because it drives clean home, the crucial role that we at home have to play, in the work of the missionary, the investment that is needed and sadly is greatly lacking:   that of diligent intercessory prayers.

I have committed to pray for our missionaries,  and correspond with them and have asked the Lord to encourage them through me in any small way that I can be used to do so.  You see, they need support, yes financial, definitely, but prayer, by all means!  They don’t just need a vague mention in the weekly prayer meeting.  They need for us to know what their needs are, to remember them and to pray for them that effectual fervent prayer that availeth much.  And they do need for us to follow through on our promised support of both prayer and giving.  There have been similar indications of such desperate need of prayer from some of the other missionaries that I have heard from.  And I sense that it hurts them a little to have to admit how badly prayer support may seem lacking.  Is it possible some  feel a little abandoned and forgotten?  If so, shame on us!

This is addressed to every born-again believer who has ever made a Faith Promise or a promise to pray for a missionary, as well of those who haven’t but ought to have.  I believe there are some who will read this, and God will deal with your heart, just as He has been with my own.

In Exodus 17, we read of the Israelites doing battle with the Amalekites.   As long as Moses held up his arms, Israel prevailed under Joshua’s leadership, and when Moses’ arms got tired and started to sink low, the Amalekites prevailed.  So Moses’ companions Aaron and Hur, sat him upon a rock, and stood on either side of him, and held his arms up for him so that ”his hands were steady until the going down of the sun”. By doing so, Israel was victorious.

Maybe you have never witnessed to another human being in your life.  Perhaps you feel that God neither called nor equipped you to do that.  But the Great Commission is there in black and white in the Bible and can’t be ignored.  Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel.  I personally believe we will answer for it if we have made no effort at all to give the gospel to others.  That is like the unprofitable servant in the Bible who buried his talents.  Now, I agree, not everyone is a goer.  Many are called, and few are chosen.  So, clearly some of us are stay-ers.  But the stay-ers ought to at least be either ”pray-ers” or payers, if not both!  It does not have to be much. Give of what you have.  Consider the loaves and the fishes.  Little is much if God is in it.  If you can’t give financially, you can pray and encourage, at the very least.

I got an e-mail back from Don and Lucy within only a few hours, actually, and in that awesome way God has of working in the lives of His children, The Lord did encourage and edify this couple with the words He had inspired me to write, which served to bless and encourage me greatly in the process as well.  And that, to me, is an amazing testimony of God’s very personal love and concern for one missionary couple and one ordinary housewife, 5000  miles across the globe from each other.  That He would orchestrate such seemingly inconsequential events as the timing of 2 e-mails, in order to bless and edify both parties in just the way that each of us needed. We serve a loving and personal God.  Let us never forget, though, that He did it all for the sake of the gospel.

I ask that you would pray for the work and ministry of Don and Lucy,  and other missionaries whom you know of.   They get weary and discouraged, just like we do, and if you are “holding their arms up” in prayer today, you might just be part of a miracle like the one that happened yesterday, whether or not you even know about it this side of heaven.

*This ministry is featured in this post by permission of the missionary.

Praying For Missionaries

When a family goes on the mission field, they leave all things familiar behind them.  It takes a lot of faith.  And I imagine that there are days when they are very discouraged.  I have been spending a lot of time praying for missionaries lately.  I am reading the book “More Than A Dozen” by Georgia Luisa Webb, missionary to Mexico for 50 years.  (Available from Tribune Publishers, Springfield, MO).  And it really hit me one day this past week.  I have always tended to think of missionaries as “Super-Christians”.   It is a held-over concept from when I was a kid.  Back when I actually thought that the way Christianity worked was that you get saved, and the longer you are a Christian, the better person you will be.  Like fine aged cheese or something.

The epiphany really was this: They are just like us.  They get cranky.  They get depressed.  They deal with the flesh.  They have personality conflicts, and breakdowns, and sick days and frustrations.  And they do it all, usually, in places without the amenities and conveniences we have here.  They have to navigate through red tape for their building projects, shop in markets that are unfamiliar, with money that is different from ours, and speaking a language other than English, in most cases.

I found online at one of the missionary board’s websites, a paper written by the late Ernest Pickering, Th. D.  The paper was called “How to Pray for Missionaries”.   It talks about how we often in our churches, will briefly and vaguely ask the Lord to “bless our missionaries”, but Doctor Pickering questions just how informed our prayers are, and proceeds to give pointers on specifics we should pray for, which include:

1) The missionary call:  “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38)

2) The missionary’s spiritual life:  Pray that they are strong and still growing in the Lord, and “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto (the missionary) the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. (Ephesians 1:17).

3) The missionary’s’ family life:  He speaks of the strain mission work can put on a missionary family, and says to pray for the marriages, and most of all for the children to have healthy attitudes toward missions so they won’t become inadvertent casualties.  Wouldn’t that be a tragedy?

4). Victory over the Flesh:  Pray for the missionary to be free from pride, racism, prejudice and preconceived notions.  Wow.  Really important when you are a guest in someone else’s culture!

5.) The missionary’s own health.  Some countries don’t even have clean water that is readily available, even in this day in time.

6.) The missionary’s relationships.  Yeah, sort of hard to share the gospel with your neighbor if you’re not a good neighbor first.  Just like here at home.

7. )  Successful evangelism.  I guess that one goes without saying, but it is about networking there, just as it is here.

8. )  Everyday stress: Getting medical care, shopping that takes hours, getting permits for building, lack of internet connection.

9.)  Perseverance:  This one is big.  Did you know that it can take years for the missionary’s work to bear fruit?  That is a lot of pressure when they go home on furlough to report to their supporting churches.  Wow!

And Dr. Pickering doesn’t include this as a separate category, but speaking of furlough, I’d say that should maybe be number 10 on the list.  Furlough is a roller-coaster.  Missionary kids who have been living in a foreign land pretty much their whole lives, feel culture shock coming “home”.  The missionary spends the whole furlough time traveling.  They must report to supporting churches, and surely while they are home, they hope to see loved ones too.  Sleeping in different beds every other night.  Driving back on the right side of the road again.  I mean, my word!

So the next time a missionary comes to your church.  Don’t just shoot up a dim flare of vague intercession.  These guys are fulfilling the part of the Great Commission that we can’t, in taking the gospel on our behalf, to the uttermost parts of the world.   Really pray for them.

I am grateful to the late Dr. Pickering for this document and for Baptist World  Missions for posting it on their website baptistworldmissions.org.   See it for yourself here: http://baptistworldmission.org/get-involved/pray/998-how-to-pray-for-missionaries.html

Please note the various missionaris and ministries linked in my sidebar, and pray for missionaries all over the world.