Update on July Trip

Dear Friends of Mission Surge:

I wanted to follow up last week's newsletter with a quick update if I could.  I mentioned last week an unexpected trip that I need to take in July.  I will be making a dashing trip to the Dominican Republic to meet with our point-man there and discuss the future of our partnership.  This is a critical meeting and will dictate much of our future work there.  I ask you to pray for us both as we seek God’s direction as to the next step.  During this trip, there is also a great opportunity.

I will be preaching in a missions conference in Santo Domingo where 400-500 Haitian pastors will be gathered.  It is my hope that God would raise up a couple from among the Haitians to go to Martinique in order to engage the 3400+ Haitians in that country who have no church, no pastor, and no missionary.  According to the International Mission Board, “The Haitian of Martinique have a population of 3,500. They are part of the Afro-Caribbean, Francophone people cluster. The global population of this people group is 11,248,200. Their primary language is Haitian. The primary religion of theHaitian is Roman Catholicism, the world's largest Christian branch. Their GSEC status is 1, which means this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years.”

I plan to go to Martinique on the way to the Dominican in order to see the situation there and verify the reports from the IMB and Joshua project.  I am praying that God would connect me with someone there that can help us get our feet on the ground.  Pray that God would connect us in Martinique with who we need to be connected with.  Pray that God would call out and raise up a Haitian couple to go to Martinique and begin a church planting effort among the Haitians there.  Pray that God’s will would be done.  

Finally, I mentioned last week that there are many expenses that are involved in this conference and trip.  I have had some ask for specific numbers, so I wanted to share with you the budget.   

• Transportation for the Haitian pastors:  $1050.00   

Pastors and some wives will be transported into Santo Domingo from all over the island for this Saturday conference.  These men have to work hard in order to keep a roof over their heads and a little food on the table.  It is literally day to day for them.  There is no way they could travel from Santiago, Monte Cristi, Puerta Plata etc. to the capital where the conference will be held.  This is an opportunity for them to be challenged and encouraged as they serve the Lord.  It is also an opportunity for them to hear the call of the Haitians in Martinique!  

• Lunch for the Haitian pastors while at the conference:  $1450.00

The conference will last all day Saturday so lunch will need to be provided for those in attendance.  We are estimating as many as 500 in attendance so lunch has been provided at a very reasonable rate of less than $3 per person!  

• Travel and Lodging expenses:  $1800-2000

Getting from Mississippi to Martinique has proven challenging.  I will have to purchase a round trip ticket to Santo Domingo.  Exit the airport, return the next day with a round trip ticket from Santo Domingo to Forte de Franc Martinique.  I have searched high and low, called Delta, American Airlines, and our Travel Agent and there seems to be no good way to get there from here.  Total cost of tickets will be between $1300 and $1500.  Lodging will be approximately $500.  

The total budget for this trip to explore Martinique, meet with Wilfrido about the future of our work there, and help with the Haitian conference in Santo Domingo will be $4300-$4500.  If God would utilize these efforts to engage and reach the 3400+ Haitians of Martinique, it will all be worth it.  

In closing:  This past Sunday at Providence we studied Acts 15.  We read in Acts 15:3, “So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.”  What is it that brings us great joy?  For the early church it was news of the Gentiles (the heathen) coming to faith in Christ!  It would be my joy to see souls saved and churches planted in Martinique.  And it would be an even greater joy if we all could say, at the end of the day, that we were privileged to have a part in it!  You can have a part!  Would you commit to pray…to give…and maybe even, in the future to go? 

If God would move you to give to this effort, please feel free to send your check made out to Mission Surge with the code 0001 in the memo line.  You can mail it to 

Mission Surge

1126 Tanyard Road

Crystal Springs, MS 39059

Or you can contribute through paypal by going here:  

http://www.missionsurge.com/new-page/

Thank you so much for your prayers, your financial support, and your words of encouragement.  May God continue to bless and prosper our efforts to carry His gospel from here to the ends of the earth!

In Christ,

Kevin

May Newsletter

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,

I want to begin this May edition of the newsletter by thanking you for your faithfulness to pray for our ministry and missionaries as well as for you willingness to give sacrificially to see the work go forward.  I truly covet your prayers!

There are 5 main things that I want to put before you in this newsletter.

 1.  Oblivious:  We finished the actual filming of the material for the Oblivious Documentary two weeks ago and are currently reviewing and editing all of the information together into what will be the completed documentary.  Please pray that the editing process would go smoothly and quickly.  Please pray that the film will open the eyes, ears, and hearts of those in the Bible belt to see the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  Without the power and blessing of God upon this effort, it will all be in vain.  Updates will be coming soon as to release dates and viewing opportunities.

2.  I will be speaking at Audubon Drive Bible Church in Laurel, MS on June 1.  Please pray that God would do a great work in the hearts and lives of the people there.  I also ask you to please please pray that I would have more opportunities to preach revivals, harvest days, missions conferences, and family discipleship conferences.  Please pray that more pastors would open up their pulpits to me on Sunday nights and/or Wednesday nights so that I can share with them what God is doing in and through the work of Mission Surge.

3.  I also ask you to pray for me.  An unexpected trip has become necessary for me in July.  I will be making a dashing trip to the Dominican Republic to meet with our point-man there and discuss the future of our partnership.  This is a critical meeting and will dictate much of our future work there.  I ask you to pray for us both as we seek God’s direction as to the next step.  I will also be preaching in a missions conference in Santo Domingo where several hundred Haitian pastors will be gathered.  

This is a unique opportunity because it is my plan on this trip to travel to Martinique (God willing) to explore the 3400+ Haitians in that country who have no church, no pastor, and no missionary.  According to the International Mission Board, “The Haitian of Martinique have a population of 3,500. They are part of the Afro-Caribbean, Francophone people cluster. The global population of this people group is 11,248,200. Their primary language is Haitian. The primary religion of theHaitian is Roman Catholicism, the world's largest Christian branch. Their GSEC status is 1, which means this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years.”

I plan to go to Martinique AND call out the Haitian pastors in the Dominican Republic to pray for them, give for them, and go to them.  Pray that God would connect us in Martinique with who we need to be connected with.  Pray that God would call out and raise up a Haitian couple to go to Martinique and begin a church planting effort among the Haitians there.  Pray that God’s will would be done.  

Finally, there are many expenses that are involved in this conference and trip.  If God moves you to give to help, please contact me asap.  Please pray that God would raise up funds to help transport the Haitian pastors into Santo Domingo for the conference.  Pray that God would provide funds for their meals and pray that I would be able to cover my travel expenses to Martinique and Santo Domingo.  Above all, pray that God would work to bring the gospel to the Haitians in Martinique!  

4.  Fourth, I want to invite you to check out our new website.  It is not yet fully complete, but you can still explore most of it without issue. 

Go to www.missionsurge.com and learn who we are, how we operate, what we believe, and about our partnership with Refugee Ministries International, Coram Deo, and ECCI.  Click on the “From the Field” tab or banner.  Please take time to do so and pray for us and our missionaries.

Also, several of you have asked if our paypal account and link is functioning.  Finally, I can say yes!  So you can give online and even choose to do so monthly if God leads.  You can find it all at www.missionsurge.com

5.  Finally, if you have not been keeping up with my blog at kevinivy.com please remember that I am posting twice each week quotes and notes from the autobiography of John Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides.  His life is amazing!  I would encourage you to go to the archives and read about him and his work if you have not done so already.

We desperately need God to work.  We are so grateful for your willingness to pray, to give, and to go!  Please pray pray pray!!  And if God is moving you to get involved and go, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  There is a whole world out there!

In Christ,

Kevin

Quotes and Notes from the Autobiography of John Paton, Part 7

In this addition of notes and quotes, we begin to see Satan strike closer to home with John Paton than ever before.  Paton had left his comfortable and godly home.  He had left his fruitful mission at Glasgow.  Now he has arrived on a dreadful island where the natives were constantly fighting among themselves, eating one another, murdering widows, and threatening the lives of Paton and his wife.  Nothing could have been more difficult to bear than what was coming.  We read…

“My dear young wife, Mary Ann Robson and I were landed on Tanna on the 5th November 1858, in excellent health and full of all tender and holy hopes.  On the 12th of February 1859, she was confined of a son; for two days or so both mother and child seemed to prosper, and our island exile thrilled with joy!  But the greatest of sorrows was treading hard upon the heels of that joy!  She had an attack of ague and fever and then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3rd March.  To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy whom we had named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one week’s sickness, on the 20th March.  Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me…as for all others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows!”  79

It would be more than vain for him to attempt to paint his sorrows for us indeed.  The loss, risks, and sicknesses challenged him and his resolve, but it could not break it.  He wrote, “My reason seemed for a time almost to give way.  Ague and fever, too, laid a depressing and weakening hand upon me…the ever-merciful Lord sustained me, to lay the precious dust of my beloved Ones in the same quiet grave, dug for them close by at the end of the house; in all of which last offices my own hands, despite breaking heart, had to take the principal share!”  80

Imagine the heartbreak and distress that Paton must have felt?  It is a wonder that he did not return to Scotland after such a loss…but the loss could have been part of what anchored him on Tanna and emboldened him with determination to reach the island for Christ.  “Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord, and is won for Christ, men in after-days will find the memory of that spot still green, —where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that land for God in which I had buried my dead with faith and hope. But for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there I must have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave!  80

Lest we think Paton was the only one with such faith and resolve, let us pay careful attention to the words of his beloved Mary Ann, “She fell asleep in Jesus, with these words on her lips:  Not lost, only gone before to be for ever with the Lord….It was very difficult to be resigned, left alone, and in sorrowful circumstances; but feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was too wise and loving to err in anything that He does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work.  I do not pretend to see through the mystery of such visitations, —wherein God calls away the young, the promising, and those sorely needed for His service here; but this I do know and feel, that, in the light of such dispensations, it becomes us all to love and serve our blessed Lord Jesus so that we may be ready at His call for death and Eternity.”  85

As we attempt to process all of the pain and suffering that Paton experienced I think it appropriate to end with one more brief quote from Paton:  “All trials that lead us to cling closer in fellowship with our Savior are really blessings in disguise.”  89

Until next time….