Missionary Stories--January 24, 2010

This morning, we were blessed to have Greg Dixon, a recent International Missions Board Missionary to China speak to us. Greg spent two years in Hohot, China which is located in northern China in a province known as Inner Mongolia. Because of its international population and proximity to diverse cultures, Hohot is identified by the International Mission Board as one of the 100 Gateway Cities in the world for spreading the word of God.

Greg served as an English Teacher in China and witnessed to students and others as he worked to share Jesus with the lost. He showed pictures of baptisms taking place in the bathtub of a hotel. He shared that it is sometimes difficult to find a place to baptize so they sometimes rent a hotel room for this purpose. He showed pictures of the students with whom he worked as well as pictures of the city in which he worked. He talked about the work ethic of students in China and commented that most Chinese students feel tremendous pressure to achieve academic success and they are usually willing to commit time and energy toward this end. He also talked about the corruption, cheating, and deception that are commonly observed in a culture in which there is little or no moral direction. While we like to think that we have a significant moral compass in our country, I must admit that cheating, plagiarism, and illegal copying of materials (documents, songs, movies, etc.) is fairly prevalent in our own academic system as well. We do recognize such acts as a breach of integrity, but they continue to occur just the same.

Greg also shared several resources for learning more about missionary work around the world. The International Missions Board website has a plethora of facts and figures about mission efforts all over the globe. One may access the IMB website at the following URL: http://www.imb.org/main//news/default.asp

I spent some time this afternoon at this website and learned much about our missionaries and mission efforts around the world. For example, did you know what it costs to support a missionary? According to the IMB website the cost to support a single missionary is:

• $40,931.64 a year
• $3,410.97 a month
• $787.15 a week
• $112.14 a day
• $4.67 an hour
• $.08 a minute

This is the reason that our gifts to Lottie Moon and other Mission-related offerings are so important in sharing the love of Jesus to a lost world. Indeed, the website has much information today about the missionaries who are in Haiti and the efforts tht are being made to assist the people of that country.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the work of God's Missionaries in a foreign land as much as I did. Everytime I hear of such efforts, it gives me a new respect for the men and women who make the sacrifice to leave home and family to serve others in a strange place.

Next week, we will return to The Truth Project. We will begin looking at world history and how it points to God. I hope you will join us. We shall look forward to seeing you Sunday Morning at 9:00 a.m. In the meantime, if I can help you or pray for you, please do not hesitate to call me personally. (979-229-6606)

Jimmy