36, Day 58 (Written Tuesday February 7) ~ I've spent the past couple of days in a new neighborhood. There are no houses or streets, but I've had dozens of neighbors. This neighborhood was housed in Bader Gymnasium on the campus of Freed Hardeman University. My neighbors were the many missionaries who were gathered there to introduce brethren to their works scattered throughout the world.
I spent time with an 81 year old man who is doing work in Nigeria. He's been a missionary for nearly forty years. Before that he was a youth minister at a church with over 3,000 members. He had a youth group with 650 members. His Sunday morning Bible class had 85 senior high students. However, when he met a Nigerian man who had converted himself through studying the Scriptures, he began helping him save his countrymen. Though his wife has dementia and has to sit most of the time in a wheelchair, she was right by his side (as she has been for over sixty years) as he stood nearly 8 hours a day talking to everyone who passed by. I imagine he will die while working for Nigeria.
I hung out with a 29 year old who has done mission work in over 20 countries on every continent but Antarctica. He has been robbed, beaten, stabbed, shot at and present when 3 others were murdered, yet he refuses to stop. He is also a youth minister and aspires to be a documentary film maker focusing on showing others what life is like on the mission field. Lord willing, I will spend a week with him in Nigeria this summer and hopefully film a documentary on the work of Latin American Missions in that country.
I had some fascinating conversations with a man who was raised on the mission field. His father has done mission work, beginning in Panama, for over forty years. At age 6 he was running around the San Blas Islands with his dad on missionary campaigns. Guess what that little boy is doing now? He's a missionary himself. He's not just a missionary, he's also an author of several books, a couple of which I almost guarantee you that you have read with your child if they have obeyed the Gospel.
I got to know a Christian college Bible professor who has a heart for training young men to be preachers, which he does at the college level and through future preacher training camps for young men. Although his schedule is bursting at the seams with obligations, he branched out to countries in Central and South America to begin future preacher camps for those kids too.
I sat and listened to sermons with a man who, after serving his country in the military and his Lord in the pulpit, has now dedicated his life to helping orphaned, abandoned, abused and neglected children in Panama. His life revolves around overseeing their care and raising the money to provide for them.
I ate several meals with a man who has been working in 9 countries in Central and South America for over 30 years. His passion is training those men to be preachers in their native countries. He's back and forth between North, Central and South America all throughout the year and all over this country in between. He's tireless in his pursuit of helping to reach and teach those people.
A lot of people use their platforms to write up and write about those they deem to be detrimental or dangerous, but I want to use mine to tell you about the people in my neighborhood who are doing things most people can't even dream about. These are men who are brilliant, driven and immensely talented. If they chose to do so, they could have tremendous success in the business or secular world, yet they have chosen to use their talents to honor God and serve others. Won't you be my neighbor?
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