Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to you and yours. May all your days be blessed.
 

As “mature” teens, God called Kathy and me into ministry. We had received His great love in Jesus Christ and felt Him compelling us to move to New York to give ourselves in service to boys and girls in inner-city neighborhoods through the ministry of Camp Shiloh. That’s where we met and decided to marry.

When we married in August 1970, we moved to inner-city Los Angeles to finish college at Pepperdine. George Pepperdine's life motto, adopted by the university and characteristic of God’s call on our lives, were Jesus' words: “Freely ye received, freely give.” 

Following that call, and His commission to “go into all the world” opened our lives to many adventures of significance. 

A friend from Beyond’s home office wrote mid-September that mail addressed to us had arrived; he had opened the envelope expecting it to contain­ a support check. It didn’t. But he thought we’d like to see the enclosed letter, so he sent us an electronic copy. What a wonderful surprise!!

One of the boys we were surrogate parents for at Golden State Christian Home (1971-76), Rod Jackson, wrote to say he’d searched hard to find us, as we are very special to him. Rod and his brother Mel, had returned to their Dad in 1975. We last saw him in July-’76, when he came to see our firstborn, Jared, and tell us goodbye before we left California for Colorado. After which God sent us onward to Guatemala, Russia, Thailand, and points between. (A few months before Joel was born in 1978, Rodney phoned to say his Dad had died, he’d moved to New York and was getting married. Thereafter, we lost touch.)

It was a great joy for Kathy and me to reconnect with Rod, to meet by Skype his “bride” of 39 years, Robin, and hear how their lives have unfolded in upstate New York: they’re grandparents, and Mel lives nearby. What an affirmation, to be told that we matter, our lives matter . . . to God, and to people with faces, whose lives He has linked with ours!

Averill returned Monday from a country where he traveled to encourage a couple, explore their present realities, projections for the future, and brainstorm possibilities for next generation workers. Twenty plus years ago God gripped their hearts for the millions of minority peoples – in mission parlance, Unreached People Groups or UPGs – who occupy large portions of the country. Since then they have prayed hard and worked steadfastly training and mentoring national partners and networking with expats to see each of those UPGs engaged by focused Gospel outreach.

Critically important, God linked them as partners in prayer, life, and ministry with a local couple, whom He also compelled in love to bear the Good News of the Kingdom to those very tribal minorities – their countrymen of different ethnicities and languages and cultures. To date, God’s power in the Gospel has drawn many thousands of people in 12 UPGs to forsake fear and futility to embrace hope and life in the Son. Disciples are multiplying rapidly, churches too.

We worshiped with and greeted 46 developing leaders from four UPGs. Several shared a recent lesson learned, how they’d put that learning into practice, and how God blessed their obedience by birthing new brothers and sisters into His family; He also empowered some of them and several new families of followers – the first fruits of a new people group – to endure and rejoice in the face of harsh persecution (New believers’ houses burned, jobs ended, expelled from village). They are eager to see God free and transform their people.