One of my cherished childhood memories was riding in the back seat of our family’s black, ’53 Chevy sedan with Eric B. Hare riding up front. All the way to the Honolulu airport his bushy eyebrows and theatrical cadence kept me enthralled with miracle stories from the land of a thousand pagodas—Burma (now called Myanmar).
Do you remember Josephine Cunnington Edwards telling Africa stories at camp meeting? Church and school events often featured real-life missionaries describing God at work in distant lands. In that era, the sheer volume of returned missionaries helped build a collective and individual awareness of foreign missions.
But those days are a distant memory. The transition to indigenous workers in mission fields, with many advantages to be sure, reduced the demand for missionaries from North America. Our collective attention cooled, and priorities shifted.
Enter Gospel Outreach, an organization that uses volunteer-driven, state-side administration to support indigenous Bible workers who already know language and cultural subtleties. This combination has created a mission movement with incredible efficiency and effectiveness. A laser focus on unentered and difficult areas of the world (the 10/40 Window), anointed by Holy Spirit power, now produces countless miracle mission stories just waiting to be told.
Adventures in Missions, both in print and on your TV screen, are important vehicles to tell those stories. Better yet, face-to-face interaction and firsthand reports in local churches and in regional mission rallies are today inspiring hearts and rekindling the mission fire in Adventism.
Thank you for your interest and support of Gospel Outreach. Share this newsletter with family and friends. Enlist others to join this grassroots movement that is changing the world. Spread the flame!