Thanks to God!

Our Missions Team has safely arrived back in the United States. We had a tremendous ten days of ministry on the island of Puerto Rico. In the coming days, we will include the video from the week, along with additional thoughts from the trip. Please check back to hear all that happened during the Missions Trip.

Thank you all for your prayer and financial support.

How Can I Get a Heart for Missions? - Mrs. Valiante

Then saith He unto His disciples,

The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,

that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.

Matthew 9:37, 38

If missionaries are lacking in God’s field of service, why then did Jesus only say “pray” instead of at this instance to “go”? I believe Jesus was asking them first to have a heart for missions before they took the step of fulfilling the role of a missionary.

While in college, I was challenged with this very command to pray before focusing on whether I ought to go. I began joining others in a time of prayer for specific missionaries and their fields. As I prayed for them and their needs, I began to be burdened about the need for missionaries and more specifically to ask whether God would want me to go. Prayer gives us the chance to see things from God’s perspective. If we are praying for His will to be done, He begins to give us a desire to do His will.

It was only after Jesus asks His disciples to pray that He actually sends them out on their own first missions trip (see Matthew 10:1). He wanted them first to get a heart for ministry before doing it themselves. I believe what encouraged me the most in praying for missions and having a heart for missions was to communicate with missionaries. While growing up, my family had missionaries over as they passed through on furlough or deputation. Their conversations, both while they were with us and away through letters to the church and personal letters, gave me a stronger burden for missionaries and their fields. Going on trips to visit missionaries also increased my understanding of their burdens and increased my own burden for people and ministry. I look forward to this coming missions trip and learning more of the burden for Puerto Rico and more specifically for the people to whom the Westerbands are ministering.

Maybe someday you would like to go, but have you first begun to pray? Pray and then communicate with the missionaries God has placed in your path. Prayer will put your desires in line with God’s desires, and His desire might just be for you to go.

What Does a Missionary Have to be Willing to Give Up? - Mrs. Washer

In a word, everything. A person (whether they are a missionary or not) who has dedicated their life to serving Christ, must die to their own desires. We see throughout the Bible that when people obeyed God, it often meant leaving home or country, family, financial security, and possibly risk their own lives. Some examples we find include:

-Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22:2)
-Joseph was imprisoned (Genesis 39:20)
-Esther risked her life to approach the king to save the Jewish people (Esther 5:1)
-Paul was shipwrecked (Acts 27:43 & 44)
-Jesus was asked to give up His life to save mankind from our sin (Matthew 26:39)

Although these were great sacrifices, we also see how God provided great blessings through their obedience:

-Abraham and Isaac were patriarchs of a great nation of people (Genesis 22:17 – 18)
-Joseph became a powerful ruler in Egypt and saved his family from starvation
(Genesis 45:7)
-Esther’s life was spared and the Jews were allowed to defend themselves (Esther
8:11)
-Paul was used to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 28:28)
-Jesus died so that we might live eternally with Him (John 14:6)

When we serve God, it does not mean we will be asked to give up these things. We are only to give God our complete surrender to His plan for us and that He can use us however He sees fit.

How Can We Support Our Missionaries? - Jenny

How can we support our missionaries? This is a good question to think about. When we ask missionaries what we can do to help support them they will often reply by saying 'through prayer'. Many times we will throw a couple of dollars into an envelope marked with the person's name and put it in the offering plate and think that we have done our duty for the week. We have made ourselves feel better by giving whatever change we may have had leftover from the weekend.

I would say, Christian, that there is another question we need to think about: Are you giving with a willing heart? The Bible says In 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Every man according as he hath purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or out of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” See Christian, God wants a cheerful giver, not one that has to force himself to give money because it is in the Bible that we need to do so. Often times we think that because we have worked hard for the money we have earned we deserve to do what we want with it without recognizing that it is God who has enabled us to do our job and has even provided the job. Christian, do you have so little faith in your Lord that you do not believe that He will take care of you like He says he will? Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

The missionary depends on the financial support of other believers. If we do not help them who will? As believers we need to take on the responsibility of caring for those who are seeking to further the gospel. The Lord has promised to take care of your needs. Will you not help to take care of the needs of others?

Teen Missions Trip Spotlight Sunday - Pastor Valiante

Greetings to all of you who have been faithfully reading our Teen Missions Trip Blog. Our team (which includes 6 teens and 3 sponsors) have done a phenomenal job in writing very thoughtful articles regarding Missions and our upcoming Missions Trip. I hope you will take time to read through the articles that have been written, and visit us each week to read the new posts.

Please continue to pray that the Lord will supply the needs we have for this trip, that our team members will have a servant's spirit, and that we will each be prepared for this upcoming opportunity for ministry. This coming Sunday at Lighthouse, we look forward to highlighting our Missions Trip. We hope to give the people of our church a vision of our desire for this ministry opportunity.

My desire for this Missions Trip is threefold:
1. To faithfully proclaim the gospel to the people of Puerto Rico.
2. To see each person on our Missions Team mature spiritually through the opportunity to share their faith, and serve others.
3. To be a blessing to the Westerbands who are faithfully serving the Lord.

Please pray with us that the Lord would accomplish these three goals.

How Should a Missionary Prepare for Ministry? - Mrs. Valiante

Thinking of the word “preparation” I thought of Paul, the first missionary that we often refer to in the Bible. Many others before him are missionaries, but Paul is the first one we see from his conversion and preparation (where he is mentioned as Saul) to his leadership position and ministry (where he is spoken of as Paul). So, how did he prepare for ministry? Should it be a pattern for us?

Acts 9 is Saul’s conversion account and mentions that after he came to know the LORD and was baptized (the first steps to following Christ), he began to preach Christ. Though Saul was immediately ministering by preaching and proving that Jesus was Christ it seems as though he was over-zealous and in desperate need of training. Barnabas takes him in allowing him to be under the leadership of the apostles and eventually ministering in the local church at Antioch (Acts 11:25, 26). Saul began to use his gift of teaching while in this church and being faithful to the assembly there. It was then that the church saw that they could trust Saul and use him in ministering to other believers outside the church. After returning from this first “mission’s trip,” Barnabas and Saul take on Mark and began mentoring him (Acts 12:25). In this Saul has the opportunity to stretch out in leadership opportunities of teaching and passing on what he has learned to others. He does not enter the leadership position until after God calls him through the Holy Spirit and the leadership of the local church (Acts 13:2, 3).

I believe this is a good pattern for us to follow today as we prepare for missions. Faithfulness to the local church, ministering within that church and being under the leadership of others in ministry helps to prepare us for the work God has planned. Faithfulness helps with growth in our own walk with God and in our relationship with others. Ministering within the local church develops our gifts and talents (even helping us to identify them and see how God can use us more specifically). And being under the leadership of others gives us opportunities to smooth out the rough edges making us more effective in serving. Without these necessary steps of preparation, our ministry may end up like Saul’s in the beginning, causing havoc for others and danger to ourselves. Taking it step by step allows God to be glorified through us and be able to use us as He intended.

What are the Spiritual Needs in Puerto Rico? - Samantha

Puerto Rico is one of the most beautiful islands in the northeastern part of the Caribbean. Tons of wildlife, good food and people that are very hospitable. Yet, what these hospitable people have to know is that they are lost and on their way to hell. Puerto Rico is a country that is dominated by the Catholic Church. Today, eighty-five percent (85%) of the population is Roman Catholic. Protestantism, Islam and Jews finish off the fifteen percent (15%).

In the Bible, God says, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15), even if it is in the Catholic country of Puerto Rico. The Spiritual needs of Puerto Rico are great and growing ever still. There are people in Puerto Rico now who have never even heard of the name Jesus Christ of the gospel.

This vast place is so heavily involved in Roman Catholicism that it has been historically the dominant religion. The love for this doctrinally wrong religion is so great that there is at least one Catholic Church in every municipality. Puerto Rico has seventy-eight 78 municipalities.

Apart from the church, there are the ungodly holidays that thrive in the country of Puerto Rico. A week before Ash Wednesday, like other Catholic cultures (Brazil, Trinidad, Louisiana), the solemn 40 days of Lent (a day of fasting and prayer) is preceded in Puerto Rico by a massive blow-out with elaborate costumes and parades. These carnivals usually consist of people wearing costumes as well as horned-devil masks.

On December twenty-fourth, there is a grand mass service for all Catholics. Then, on December twenty-eighth, there is a holiday called "Day of Innocence, Festival of the Masks". This celebration is as similar as Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The imagination of the immorality, and great wicked that goes on this day is just a cry for help from these people in need of Jesus.

In Conclusion, from all this and more, Puerto Rico is a very lost country in need of the Savior. Jesus can save anyone from the depths of hell like those in Puerto Rico. The Spiritual need is great in this magnificent country. Who will go? Who is there to serve God and share the gospel? The Harvest is great, but Harvesters are few (Matthew 9:37-38).