I love missions!
I retired as a businessman with a desire to do more for the Lord with my
extra time. My incredible wife of over 30 years Susan and I both enjoy
missions trips and helping our church family discover the enjoyment of
serving others.
We have a very active Missions operation here at GVCC. We believe the most
effective way to reach out to "all the world" as the bible instructs us, is
to partner with successful indigenous Christian works. We look for
individuals or organizations that we have a relationship with, who have
displayed a record of effective work for our Lord. We then ask them for the
opportunity to come along side of them to try and help them expand on what
they have been doing.
In El Salvador we partner with an organization called Enlase. This is an
organization started by a long time partner or ours, Jerry Smith. Enlase
focuses on teaching individuals and churches to join together and help
themselves and their communities through God teaching. Enlase does this in
a number of very special ways. One is to make community micro loans to
Christians that just need a few dollars to get started. One story that
touched us involved a local Pastor who went to visit a young parishioner of
his because her little girl had stopped going to school. It seems the
"Maria" had to keep her 11 year old daughter home to watch her baby brother
while Maria went to the factory to work all day for lass than $5.00.
Because of this Pastors relationship with Enlase Maria was able to get a $65
loan to buy a sewing machine so that she could make baby outfits at home and
then she could take her baby with her to the market to sell her creations.
Maria now makes over $20 a day and has paid back her $60 loan (plus $2 of
interest) and her daughter has been back in school and getting an education.
Enlase recently asked us to help three rural Salvadorian communities to
build a 10,000 gallon water tank. We sent 16 people to do that last year
and now almost 12,000 people have clean drinking water and much better
health too.
In Mexico we helped start an Orphanage almost 40 years ago. Today we make
two or more trips each year to continue to help this orphanage teach their
children and we also help to help develop the facilities to be able to serve
more children. This is our annual "family" missions trip and helping those
in Mexico who are working for Him has served our church family grow closer
to the Lord and to help teach our children that "it is not about us". The
children in this orphanage have been taught "to love the Lord their God with
all their heart and all their soul and all their minds and all their
strength" paraphrase of Mark 12:30. God is moving through these people.
In Eastern Europe we have a long standing group of Christian friends that
are doing incredible work in Christ's name. One of those friends, Pastor
John Bogdan has helped plant and grow more than 120 churches since the fall
of communism. In fact there are now almost 6 churches in Romania for each
Pastor. We have also assisted the Eastern European Bible College there with
teachers and workers that have helped EEBC training up new leaders. God is
working through these people.
In the Czech Republic where there is an almost Godless society, we have had
a relationship with the Teen Challenge in Prague from their beginning days.
They now have more than 100 beds being used for people that want to come to
know the Lord in a new and personal way and to overcome addictions. During
our visit their this year we helped them develop a building they will use to
expand their already successful pallet making company that will eventually
support the entire operation and even allow for additional expansion. God
is moving through these people.
Sue and I also serve as leaders in the Green Valley Marriage Mentoring
program. We serve through marriage classes and Marriage retreats as well as
one on one teaching and training. The central focus in everything we teach
comes right from the bible. Our church also has a pre marriage training
class that all couple must graduate from prior to being married. The class
is a wonderful tool for training couples to grow their marriages in a
healthy and enriching way.
There is so much more that we can say about marriage but we would rather say
it to you in person. Please feel free to contact us for a confidential
discussion how we can help you grow your marriage.
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