Love Me some Lottie!

Its officially my last week in Africa. By Thursday night, I'll be sleeping in my own bed after 20 months.
I thought I would do a post about how Lottie Moon Christmas Offering helps me....

A liter of gas is about $1.20- which is over 4.00 per gallon. Transportation is used to go to campus and hang out with students off campus as well. Much of my job with students is to build relationships. The African culture is very embedded in deep meaningful relationships where they are in your home or you are in theirs.

Another aspect of what we aim to do is to encourage students to "reach" their own. Providing funds to go to places where people have never heard the gospel, can change a students life. A prime example of this is when my friend Emily and I took a trip to the Rendille. With the help of Lottie Moon, we were able to make the trip and encourage students who were spending 6 months there. We were also able to provide for a student to go with us. The student team also takes frequent trips to the coast reaching the Diego and other unreached/unengaged peoples.

Lottie Moon also takes care of us physically. Over the last 2 years I have battled amebas, discovering my acid reflux is not as under control as we though, and gallbladder issues. My medical bills, meds, and tests have all be taken care of thru your giving.

These are just SOME of the ways Lottie Moon provides for those on the field. Not to mention the countless others (i.e. Language, training, education). So THANK YOU. Without Lottie thousands of people will never hear the truth.

Lottie Moon Week of Prayer: Day 5

Day 4 : Beijing, China

Thank God for Steve and Lisa and other workers like them who obediently go despite illness, delays and discouragement.

Pray for divine appointments, good health and acquisition of the Mandarin language for Steve and Lisa.

Day 5 : North Africa

IMB workers Nik and Ruth Ripken* have served in some of the toughest Muslim areas of Africa. They’ve known believers who have been martyred for Christ. They’ve interviewed hundreds of other persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries.

After all that, they’ve learned something about persecution: “The most persecuted person is a lost person who has no access to Jesus,” Nik says. “Satan wants to keep people from hearing about Jesus. If he can’t do that, he wants to shut you up, to silence your witness.”

Everywhere the Ripkens go in the world, they meet Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others hungry to know about God. “Every time we send a missionary through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, we’re saying, ‘We will not stop until every man, woman, boy and girl on earth has access to Jesus,’” Nik says. “Being His heart, His hands and His voice means we’re representing Jesus among all the nations.”

Pray for boldness for believers in persecution as they proclaim Christ.

Pray that the worst persecution — no access to Christ — will end in our generation as missionaries take the Gospel to all peoples.

Your Dollars in NAME

In persecuted areas where relationships are key to sharing the Gospel, just $20 gives most missionaries the money they need to take a group of non-believers out to eat or provide a meal for them in their home. Sharing their resources often leads to open doors to share truth. How many open doors will you provide?

Lottie Moon Week of Prayer : Day 3

Before he found Christ, Bishwa Karmacharya was destined to become the temple priest, making sacrifices on behalf of others. Instead, the Nepalese church planter grew up to tell others about Jesus’ sacrifice.

Karmacharya is Brahmin, the priestly and highest caste in Hinduism, the religion followed by most Nepalese. It’s typically unthinkable for Brahmins and high-caste Hindus to associate with lower-caste Hindus.

But Christ has no caste, says Karmacharya, who was trained in church planting by IMB worker Carl Russell.* Russell watched God develop in Karmacharya a gift for sharing the Gospel and church planting. Now he and his wife, Ramila, plant churches among all castes and people groups in Nepal.

His radical obedience has permeated a growing generation of Nepalese pastors who, like Karmacharya, have chosen the road less taken, braving threats and bombs to see Christ’s name glorified in the Himalayas.

“We don’t pray for one more church,” Karmacharya says. “We pray for one more healthy church.” This means having local, indigenous leadership. That’s why the Karmacharyas regularly pile into their car and drive down roads that hug the hips of mountains to train these leaders.

Many Nepalese would call Karmacharya a radical because he’s chosen obedience to Christ over caste, culture, family and Hinduism. He sees himself as only obedient.

Pray for healthy churches and other godly leaders to be raised up in the Himalayas; pray for safety for the Karmacharyas.

Pray that the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal will be met so more obedient workers like Carl Russell can disciple and train national leaders.

Many of the people the Bratchers work with are illiterate. LMCO giving allows them to purchase materials for oral learners. An example of these materials are picture flip books that tell Bible stories from creation to Christ. These picture books cost $8.

The Bratchers say they use many audio-based materials like the Papyrus Solar Audio Player. This audio player is solar powered so it can be used in areas without electricity. These solar players cost $50.

They also use “The Hope,” a DVD Gospel presentation that has been contextualized for the Tibetan Buddhist world. Copies of the video cost $10.

Lottie Moon Week of Prayer: Day 2

Grace* shakes her head. Feathered earrings dance, framing her face with motion and color. She is a member of one of the indigenous tribes of South America and is talking about the future of her people.

There are outsiders who would keep them in something of a museum — as living history, she says — stuck in a time that has not been a reality for several generations. It’s not what she wants. Yet the identity of her people in the global community is not an easy issue. “A lot of our people don’t even know our [culture],” she says. “They say they do, but they hide behind it.”

She wants her people to move ahead — to “win.” She wants them to take advantage of all that is going on about them while retaining the best of their culture. That means having to change.

Grace and her tribe are among 3,400 unengaged, unreached peoples across the world. Nearly 400 are in South America. Isolated by language, culture, history and — in some cases, geography — they live mostly in small clusters of fewer than 3,000 people. Most will never have a missionary assigned to them. Yet the church is called to take the Gospel to all peoples.

Gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering allow IMB personnel to identify and understand these often forgotten people, offering Southern Baptist churches committed to embracing unengaged, unreached peoples a basis for beginning their work among them.

Pray that Grace’s people truly will “win” and have the opportunity to hear about their Savior.

Pray that your church will be one to embrace an unengaged, unreached people group that might not otherwise hear the Gospel. 

Your Dollars at Work in UPG's: For $100, a worker can purchase a water filtration bottle needed when trekking through the jungles of South America to find the nearly 400 tribes that have never heard the Gospel. They also spend $30 on waterproof bags needed to keep their Bibles and other materials dry.

Lottie Moon Week of Prayer: Day 1

A glimmer of light shines in Egypt. It’s not pretty and it smells worse, but it’s hope. It’s a sign of God at work. In the middle of a city dump, which more than 3,000 people call home, God is raising a church.

Leading the vision to build this garbage city church is a 31-year-old man who moved to the community as a teenager. “I have a strong sense for what it is like here, since I have lived here myself,” says Joseph.* “So God put in my heart to build a church here. That has been my dream.”

Joseph’s church is but one of many in a country with a rich history of Baptist ministry. “Southern Baptists were very influential through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon,” says Ron Robinson,* who served in Egypt for 29 years and witnessed the beginning of Baptist work. “When we first went [to Egypt], the work was evangelism that resulted in churches. That was our statement.” The work has led to a vital impact on Egyptian churches who are answering the call to reach their own people.

Especially with the unrest in the region, Southern Baptists need to stay focused on how God is working in Egypt, says Ron. “He sent His Son to die for these people and we cannot lose the eternal big picture. [We] have to stay on track.”

Pray for Joseph and other leaders who are carrying out the vision to BE His heart, His hands, His voice.

Pray that Southern Baptists will act now with generosity and obedience while the doors of opportunity in Egypt are open.

How Your Dollars Count in Egypt: 

Today Christian workers are continuing the work of building up Egyptian churches. For $70, a worker can hire a driver and get safely to remote locations like the garbage city. That same amount of money can also be used to transport pastors like Joseph to training events and discipleship seminars.