Pastor's Corner
August 2005
"And a vision appeared to Paul in the night:
a certain man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying,
‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’
And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia,
concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them."
Acts 16:9-10
For many, many months now our Missions Committee has been praying and actively seeking for places in the world where the Lord might lead us to partner together with other Christians to affect that place for Christ. We have done so while we have continued to support our current missionary families, the Hunters (Campus Crusade for Christ - Central Washington University), the Kukas (Philippines) and the Jacobssons (Uganda and Democratic Republic of The Congo). In addition we have had continued involvement in supporting Christian workers in Albania and we have supported several short-term mission trips of those in our church family. Plus we have been excited to support one of our own, Josh Beaudin, as he has committed to missionary training and schooling. However, we have still felt that there is more that God would want us to do! So we have kept praying and seeking for a place where we could truly partner with other believers in order to have an on-going ministry beyond just sending money! We desire that people could get connected to that place so that our ministry gifts could be used to help those Christians in whatever needs they might have from building to medical assistance to discipleship to children’s work to teaching the Word etc. In short, we have been asking the Lord for something of a “Macedonian Call” that Paul received in Acts 16!
Well, recently we feel that we have something similar in a contact that was given us by one of our church members of a Pastor in the country of Belize. The pastor’s name is Ashley Rocke and he pastors Lake Independence Baptist Church in Belize City, Belize. The church of 150 people as founded by Southern Baptists in 1896. However the support by that denomination ended in 1995 leaving a church with a vital outreach and ministry struggling. So we made contact with Pastor Rocke and his immediate reply was “Come over to Belize and help us!”
Specifically he mentioned needs in training in administration, assistance in evangelizing, assistance in developing and maintaining youth work plus help in church building repairs and help in getting a van for outreach in the area.
With this “call” the Missions Committee decided that this could be the place we have been praying for but before we can partner together, we need to send a team to see if this is a viable option for our church. Thus a team consisting of myself and my wife Jeanelle, Judy Ziemer and possibly Jim and Carol Barrett, will be traveling to Belize from Sept. 1st -7th. Our goals are to:
Explore—To see first-hand the work being done in this church as well as the other Baptist (and evangelical churches) in the area. Pastor Rocke is the chair- man of the Baptist Association of Belize which would give us contacts with other churches to work with in the outlying areas.
Evaluate—To prayerfully and carefully examine if the gifts, talents and resources of our church family could be used in an ongo- ing ministry with these fellow believers including sending short-term mission teams.
Encourage—To come along-side the brethren in Belize to let them know in their part of the kingdom work, they are not alone!
This last goal is critical given that Belize (located just south of Mexico and bordered by Guatemala on the West and South and the Caribbean Sea on the East in Central America) is a very poor nation of some 279,000 people. While the people have had a Christian witness for many years, there is still much despair and fear due to economics but also animism and just plain “worldliness”.
So, I would ask you to pray with us that if this “call” is going to lead to further work for our church in being “World Christians”, that our team would see that and be able to report back to the church that “God has called us to come over and help!” As someone once said, “We cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good that we can do.” We want to do what God wants, where He wants and how He wants—wherever it is, we want to answer the “Macedonian Call” - to come over and help!
Serving with you,
