June 2007

June 2007:
We begin the fun task of calling churches to follow up on our letters. Lessons learned from this experience:
If they tell you they need to take it to the Deacon Board it’s simply a polite way of saying “No.” – you can just mark it down
Leaving a voicemail message is useless.
The turndowns are extremely discouraging. Good training for Honduras.
There are some very nice pastors out there who were a pleasure to talk with
Somewhere along the way the Church seems to have lost it’s understanding of it’s primary purpose (the evangelization of the world) and many times see taking the gospel to the world as just another program of the church.
Sometimes it seemed God was using our phone calls to encourage the pastor. Please pray for pastors. Most have such a heart for God but through the years have been worn down.

We had our first speaking opportunity at Howell General Baptist Church. Brad put a presentation together and then on the way to the church he decided he didn’t like it and created an entire new presentation on the way. This is the basic presentation we are still using today.

Brad also begin meeting with Paul Medcalf to learn more about what is going on with missions, import/export business, and people using business as missions around the world. Paul has a wealth of knowledge and contacts in this area and has been a great help in opening our eyes to what is happening around the world with local contacts. We see this as building our knowledge base so when we run across an opportunity where something along these lines might be useful we will already have the contacts in place to take advantage.
We went out to eat with some friends and when we were leaving after supper they gave us a check to go toward our expenses for Honduras. Talk about overwhelming and humbling. The thought that goes through your mind is “I am definitely not worthy of this.” It is greatly appreciated and extremely humbling. This has been repeated several times with this same couple. Words are not adequate to express what this means to us.