August News

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,

I want to begin this newsletter by, once again, thanking you for your prayers.  More and more each day I realize the absolute necessity of prayer.  Without the prayers of the saints, we are really just spinning our wheels.  So often we get caught up in what we say, what we do, what we give, or what we blog, put on Facebook, Tweet etc. when the real progress is made behind closed doors, in our closet, on our knees.  This is where the real war is fought.  I appeal to you to join me in lifting up the following!

1.  Please pray for our current partners around the world.  You can learn more about them here:  http://www.missionsurge.com/our-partners/

2.  I want to announce the addition of a new partner missionary:  Martin Rizley and his family will be traveling Monday to Spain to serve.  Please pray for them as they travel and as they get situated in a new country and a new culture and environment.  Pray that God would encourage them and use them in their new ministry.  You can learn more about the Rizley’s here:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52ebd35fe4b071e1ddebd284/t/55dd0fdfe4b007afe2bc5d2b/1440550879008/Martin+Rizley+Testimony.pdf (please let me know if this link fails and I will try again!)

3.  I want to also encourage you to pray for the Tiegreen family as they draw near their departure date for Central Asia.  They still lack some of their funding.  They have 75% of their start up costs raised and 70% of their monthly needs pledged.  Please pray that God would move in the hearts of individual people, Sunday school classes, small groups, and churches to support them in this endeavor.  No amount is too small!  If God were to move you, or someone you know, to support them, you can learn how to do so here:  http://www.john1016.com/support/

Above all, please pray that God would meet their needs as they step out in faith to go to a hard region of the world to spread the Gospel.  Hold the rope for them as they go down into the well!

4.  I ask you to please pray for me!  God is working in some amazing ways in the church that we started almost 3 years ago now.  He continues to expand the ministry of Mission Surge both here and around the world.  And He continues to give vision for doing evangelism and personal discipleship here as well as ways to engage the unreached around the globe.  Please pray that God would move the right people to get involved in the trenches!  We will not win the world by witnessing and preaching on Facebook, Twitter, and in the blogosphere.  We must get in the trenches.  Please pray!

Finally, be aware that the address for Mission Surge will be changing in the next week or two.  I will be sending out an email with the new mailing address as soon as possible so that you can make any necessary changes.  The current address will remain active for several months so that there will be plenty of time for everyone to make the transition to the new address.  Since we are 100% volunteer operated, and due to increased work load and increasing numbers of missionaries, we have had to restructure some things to be more efficient.  Please bear with us and please bear us up in prayer.  

Thank you for your faithfulness to give, to share, and to pray.  Please lift these needs before the throne of grace over and over again!  

In Christ,

Kevin

July News

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,

I wanted to send you a brief email asking you to pray concerning a few things.

1.  Please pray for our partner missionaries, especially the Tiegreen’s as they are still striving to raise funds in order to serve as full time missionaries in Central Asia and the Johnson’s who are having trouble getting their Visas so that they can return to their work in Indonesia.  Please lift up Refugee Ministries International as well as we have a team leaving Providence this weekend to go work in the refugee camps.  

You can read about all of our partners here:  http://www.missionsurge.com/our-partners/

Lift them up in prayer and be on the lookout for some new missionary partners in the near future.

2.  Please pray for me as I seek to lead Mission Surge through some needed structural changes.  I need wisdom and insight in the best way to go about this and the best way to make necessary changes.

3.  Please pray for a pastor-friend in the Dominican Republic, Roman Sosa.  He sent me a message this morning asking for prayer for Santo Domingo, because they only have enough water to last the city another 35 days!  Please pray for rain to fall in the right areas of the DR.  

4.  Please consider financially supporting a worthy pastor in the Dominican and/or a worthy pastor in South Asia.  If your Sunday school class, WMU, church, or small group is interested in helping with either of these men’s support, please message me and I will give you more details.  $800 a month would fully support one of them.  $1600 a month would fully support both.  

Finally, if you are not following Mission Surge on Twitter and Facebook, please do so now!  New news and opportunities are on the horizon and, if you are getting your updates from my personal Facebook page, you will not be able to do so much longer.  Please like and follow at the pages below now.  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mission-Surge/145423062144598

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/missionsurge

Thanks for praying and giving to support the work of this ministry! 

In Christ,

Kevin

Missionary Perseverance

If you have not read the first two installments on Adoniram Judson, please do so before reading this post!  You can read part 1 here.  You can read part 2 here. 

Originally intending to work in India, the Judson’s were turned away by the East India trading company.  Their boat sailed, (providentially) onto the shores of Burma (now Myanmar) at a port called Rangoon.  

He wrote:  The prospect of Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening.  I went on shore, just a night, to take a view of the place, and the mission house; but so dark, and cheerless, and unpromising did all things appear that the evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have marked as the most gloomy and distressing that we ever passed.  Instead of rejoicing, as we ought to have done, in having found a heathen land from which we were not immediately driven away, such were our weaknesses that we felt we had no portion left here below, and found consolation only in looking beyond our pilgrimage, which we tried to flatter ourselves would be short, to that peaceful region where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.  But, if ever we commended ourselves sincerely, and without reserve, to the disposal of our heavenly Father, it was on this evening.  

Judson believed God providentially placed them in Burma and not all the representations of his friends could induce him to turn from his work to relieve the spiritual wants of Englishmen, or preach before an English congregation.  It was this determined perseverance that made Judson the missionary he was.  His work in Burma was like a Christian marriage.  Divorce was not an option.

Though the soil was hard, the work was difficult, and the costs were more than anyone should have to bear (he lost his infant son, his wife, and his 2 year old little girl in Burma) he pressed on.  Here are some of his quotes:

“God grant that we may live and die among the Burmans, though we should never do any thing more than smooth they way for others.”

“I know not that I shall live to see a single convert; but, not withstanding, I feel that I would not leave my present situation to be made a king.”

“Is it a suitable time to leave a people when the Holy Spirit is operating on their minds, and creating in them ardent desires to know the way which leads to eternal life?  True, the number of our inquirers is small; but if there is only one, his soul is worth more than the wealth of the world, nor should it perish for want of Christian instruction.”

At 27 years old, Adoniram wrote, “Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort, but what they find in one another and their work.  However, if a ship was lying in the river, ready to convey me to any part of the world I should choose, and that, too, with the entire approbation of all my Christian friends, I would prefer dying to embarking.  This is an immense field, and, since the Serampore missionaries have left it, it is wholly thrown on the hands of the American Baptists.  If we desert it, the blood of the Burmans will be required of us.”

It was a longing to see God worshipped and glorified that kept Judson in Burma.  However, this longing for God’s glory was not without a definite passion and love for the people.  He wrote, “When we feel a disposition to sigh for the enjoyments of our native country, we turn our eyes on the miserable objects around.”  May we all turn our eyes to the miserable objects around us, wherever we are, and with love for men and love for God’s glory commit ourselves to work while it is day, for the night is rapidly coming when no man may work.