Saturday, February 28, 2015

Train Up Your Children...


Micah helping Emil check the recordings

Abbi putting her skills to work!

Little Tony helping to give out the 1300 Vietnamese CDs

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6


The Bible says we are to train up our children in the ways of the Lord.  Every parent knows that it is impossible to have a lasting impact simply through words; actions much follow each lesson.  What an encouragement to have parents come out to serve with Global Recordings Network at the Vietnamese Tet Festival and bring their children to serve alongside them.  These kiddos helped the team prepare and give out over 1300 CDs of the gospel message (1200 of them were in Vietnamese and the other hundred or so were in 28 different languages).  We can’t be of the mindset that the Lord has a plan for our children when they “grow up”.  The Lord has a plan for them NOW, and they have the abilities to serve now.  This is a challenge to all of us parents.  Are you modeling how to serve the Lord?  Do you give your child opportunities to serve now, even before they have grown?  If you wait, it may be too late.  Pray now about where to start.


 

Monday, February 23, 2015

The Encouragement I Needed


Serving the Lord through the ministry of GRN is a privilege.  It is something that I, Stacy, feel the Lord has called me to do.  But my primary function at GRN is to distribute recordings, mostly by CD, to people in their heart languages.  I am often asked what happens after the CDs are handed out and I typically reply, “Many times we will not know until we get to heaven.”  There are many stories of people, and sometimes whole villages coming to Christ from the recordings, but none that I know I have been directly involved in.  I feel like the Lord has called me to do my part and remember that the growth is His.  So, when I got a nugget of encouragement while serving in the Culiacan Project I was overjoyed.  Juan, a Spanish pastor in the Los Angeles area, shared a testimony with our team one morning.  He told us of how he had gone to three churches in California to share about the Culiacan ministry.  He showed many pictures of the Project to the congregation.  Highlighted in the pictures were people from the Culiacan Project teams serving in the camps.  One of those people was a tall white man named Kent Wistrand.  Kent or Quentin as they called him, was easy to remember as he looked quite differently from the others.  People shared how they came from working the fields of Culiacan and Quentin and those teams shared the gospel in their camps.  Now, as a result, they were plugged into Christian churches right in California.  The encouragement here was to keep doing what you are called to do.  You may not see the fruit now, but it will be a beautiful celebration when you do!

Quentin (Kent) and Elizabeth