People, people, people…
I’m beginning to think the Metro Phoenix area has about as many people as the state has cactus! As of 2019, Statisa, a demographics research company, shows the area to have a population of 4.95 million people. I bet it took a lot of bean counters to come up with that number!
Our mobilization efforts are primarily in this area. If you look at the map you will see the cities contained within this geographical area. We live all the way east in the little green patch called Apache Junction. From what I’ve heard, it takes around an hour and a quarter to go east to west and about the same amount of time to drive from the most southern point to the most northern point. That’s about 70 miles each way or around 5,000 square miles. Yup, we’ve got some territory to cover locally.
One nice thing about the area is it is a well laid-out structure of grid-like highways running north to south/east to west. I call it a maize for mobilizing harvest laborers!
Now consider… how well do you do at making friends and new acquaintances? Joyce doesn’t foresee this as a problem, and says I would probably even talk to a broom handle. (What she doesn’t know is I used to practice my evangelism efforts on a broom handle, though many-a-broom bristled at my witness.)
Ok, ok… you get the point; much of what we are doing is establishing relationships with hopes of striking that sensitive chord in the hearts of people passionate to reach those in dark places of the world who don’t know Jesus.
Would you pray over the map pictured here? Would you pray that God will lead us to the people he is motivating to do something for eternity and that we will have the opportunities to challenge them to the task He’s given the church to do? Pray also that we may find open doors to churches where we can assist with mission’s vision. –While we have many years’ experience in mobilizing laborers for the harvest fields of the world, we are finding the area and people quite different than back east. Your prayers can make a difference.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.