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.  

Adoniram Judson's Legacy: Part 2

Adoniram Judson was the first foreign missionary sent from America overseas in the early 1800's.  If you have not read part one of his legacy, please do so here.  

Adoniram wrote a list of "rules" or resolutions, much like the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.  Judson's rules and resolutions might be a bit easier to digest than Edwards' but they are no less potent!  He had an original list and then added some more rules to it a bit later.  I have meshed the two lists together for our purposes in this post.  I would encourage you to read through these rules, meditate upon them, apply them to your own life, and seek to discipline yourself to live by them!

1.  Rise with the sun.

2.  Be diligent in secret prayer, every morning and evening.

3.  Read a certain portion of Burman every day, Sundays excepted.

4.  Have the Scriptures and some devotional book in constant reading.

5.  Read no book in English that has not a devotional tendency.

6.  Never spend a moment in mere idleness.

7.  Restrain natural appetites within the bounds of temperance and purity.  “Keep thyself pure.”

8.  Suppress every emotion of anger and ill will.

9.  Suppress every unclean thought and look.

10.  Undertake nothing from motives of ambition, or love of fame.

11.  Never do that which, at the moment, appears to be displeasing to God.

12.  Seek opportunities of making some sacrifice for the good of others, especially believers, provided the sacrifice is not inconsistent with some duty.

13.  Endeavor to rejoice in every loss and suffering incurred for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s remembering that though, like death, they are not to be willfully incurred, yet, like death, they are great gain.

More from Adoniram Judson to come!  Stay tuned.

Adoniram Judson's Legacy: Part 1

          Adoniram Judson, was the first foreign missionary sent from the United States of America.  He left in the very early 1800’s a Presbyterian on his way to India, but by the Providence of God, he became a Baptist on the trip over and was rerouted to the Kingdom of Burma, now Myanmar.  He was extremely intelligent and gifted, and despite those who thought he would be more productive to remain in America, his eyes were set on the mission.  He wrote in his journal, “I hardly think that I shall write any more sermons.  Why should I spend my time in attempting the correctnesses and elegances of English literature, who expect to spend my days in talking to savages in vulgar style?”

Adoniram and Ann’s life and sacrifice to reach Burma are inspiring.  Below are some of his most challenging quotes (more to come in the coming months).    

Speaking of our spiritual dryness and dullness he wrote, “We refuse to open the window shutters and complain that it is dark.”  We complain on Facebook, Twitter, talk radio, blogs, and in the pulpits, but we do not actually do anything about the darkness.  That would require real prayer, real labor in the trenches, and real patience.  We refuse to open the window shutters and yet complain about the darkness.

We are also guilty of spiritual procrastination!  Judson hits the nail on the head when he wrote, “Of how much real happiness we cheat our souls by preferring a trifle to God!  We have a general intention of living religion; but we intend to begin tomorrow or next year.  the present moment we prefer giving to the world.  “A little more sleep, a little more slumber.”  Well, a little more sleep, and we shall sleep in the grave.  A few days, and our work will be done.  And when it is once done, it is done to all eternity.  A life once spent is irrevocable.  It will remain to be contemplated through eternity.”

“Let us then, each morning, resolve to send the day into eternity in such a garb as we shall wish it to wear forever.” 

“As every moment of the year will bring you nearer the end of your pilgrimage, may it bring you nearer to God, and find you more prepared to hail the messenger of death as a deliver and a friend.” 

"O the pleasure which a lively Christian must enjoy in communion with God!  It is all one whether he is a city or a desert, among relations or among savage foes, in the heat of the Indies or in the ice of Greenland; his infinite friend is always at hand.  He need not fear want, or sickness, or pain, for his best friend does all things well.  He need not fear Death, though he come in the most shocking form; for death is only a withdrawing of the veil which conceals his dearest Friend."

“This life’s a dream, an empty show.  O, if we could always realize this, and live above the world,—if we could tread on its trifling vanities, live far from its perplexing cares, and keep an eye fixed on our heavenly inheritance,—how comfortable and useful we might be!”  

“Life is short.  Happiness consists not in outward circumstances.” 

“How great are my obligations to spend and be spent for Christ!”

“O, if Christ will only sanctify me and strengthen me, I feel that I can do all things.  But in myself I am absolute nothingness.”

“O, let us live as we shall then wish we had done.”

       Contemplate on these quotes.  They are power packed if you ponder them and apply them to your own life.  How far we have drifted from the spiritual depth of yesteryear!  It is out of such spiritual depth that missionary movements are born.