Why go overseas when there are lost people here?
“The church cannot grow within peoples where relevant churches do not exist. Forty percent of the individuals in the world live within peoples with no church. They are no more spiritually ‘lost’ than your cousin who has never gone to church, but unlike your cousin, there is no church made up of people like themselves with whom they can fellowship. Such people live in groups that we refer to as being ‘unreached.” Their entire people has not yet been effectively reached with the gospel.” — Ralph D. Winter and Bruce A. Koch
We wanted to take a moment to answer the above question. Why are we going to spend so much time and money to go halfway across the world to preach the gospel when there are unbelievers in our own neighborhood? The reason is that there are places full of lost people where there are no Christians and no people who speak their language that can witness to them. The only way they will hear of Christ is if someone from another people group goes to their village, learns their language, and shares God’s Word with them. Certainly we care deeply about the lost people around us, but Christ told us to reach the whole world, and in order for that to happen, some of us need to physically go to other parts of the world to make disciples. Others of us who stay in our home countries need to pray and support missionaries who go to these places, while at the same time being faithful to witness to our friends and families who are near.
Thank you so much to those of you who have been supporting us through prayer and/or finances. Our prayer for you today is that God would continue to bless you for those efforts, and that He would give you the courage and opportunities to witness to those around you.
Till all know,
Matt, Karissa, and Ty Long
Please Pray:
– For continued opportunities to share our vision with people
-That we can get to being 50% funded by the end of June
-That God will be at work in the Bible study we are leading
– For continued health of our baby
Praise God:
God kept us safe on our support raising travels to Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas
-Ty has been doing well on his new reflux medication
We got the opportunity to share with 2 more churches
– We are now 33% funded