Thursday, February 5, 2009

Missionary Heroes

For those of you who don't know, one of my major fields of study in college was missions.  Since I was called to the ministry as a teenager I've felt like doing mission work was part of my calling.  For a while I thought that meant I would be living in a slum in India or some grass hut in the bush of Africa.  People who do overseas missions are some of my heroes.  Very few people have the guts to leave behind everything, immerse themselves in a strange new culture and invest their lives so that people from half a world away can know about Jesus.

My sister Sara, her husband Shaun and their daughter Abi are three heroes.  Tomorrow morning they'll be boarding an airplane in Atlanta to travel to Paraguay (for those of you who don't know, that's in South America between Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina) where they'll be managing an orphanage for the next couple of years.  I'm proud of them and excited about the work that they'll be doing.  If you want to find out more about their work you can check out their awesome blog at www.mortonmissions.blogspot.com.  

I've come to realize that all of us are called to be missionaries.  Most of us will never take the plunge and move overseas, but we can share the life-giving power of Jesus with the co-worker in the cubicle next to us.  

At LifeGate we are totally focused on the mission of Jesus to "Seek and Save What Was Lost" both here in Lexington and around the world.   We plan on sending teams across the planet to share the gospel of Jesus, sending financial support to missionaries in other nations, planting churches in the United States and encouraging you to step around the cubicle and introduce someone to the greatest news the world has ever heard.

4 comments:

michael said...

Pastor Ashley:

Thank you for the inspiring reminder today about "heroes." Our nation certainly needs a fresh group of those people that we can trust and that we can applaud.

We are praying for you and for Lifegate church. Due to my schedule I will be unable to attend the launch meeting but you will be in our prayers.

Blessings!
Michael & Ann Willingham

Christie said...

We hope you'll be sending a team to Paraguay! Thanks for sharing your sister and her family with us. We love them already!!

Morton said...

Thanks for the kind words, Ash. If you had never started learning Spanish so long ago, I would likely have never worked so hard at it. Without your planning, my first mission trip to Mexico would never have happened. It was there that I realized God was calling me away from my homeland and into foreign missions. You shared your passion for missions with me and now I am out here on the foreign mission field. Thanks for your encouragement and support.

Sara

michael said...

It is great to see the report of the launch service. I thought of you as I drove to the meeting in Westmoreland, TN. We will continue to pray for you and for the vision that God has placed in your heart. The meeting in TN is going well.