Today the Church celebrates World Missions Sunday. This is a loud cry and summon from Jesus Christ himself to all of us that the mission of the Church is to evangelize.
A little over two years ago God called us into a radical type of service. We left our lives in America and headed to rural Costa Rica to preach the gospel and serve the poor with Family Missions Company. It has been an unbelievable time for us and I couldn’t possibly list all the blessings and trials that have shaped our family to date. We are forever grateful, and know that the beautiful people of Coopevega, Costa Rica have changed us forever. We have encountered a genuine love among the people here.
The unreached
About three years ago I began to wrestle inside with a wild and almost unfathomable statistic: there are roughly 3 billion human beings in the world who do not know Jesus Christ. They have yet to encounter his loving grace and have yet to be pierced with the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This wild statistic has turned into more of a reality for me as I spent some time in Asia this year discerning if indeed God was calling our family to serve there amongst the unreached. Amongst those who are not yet reached with the gospel. I still cannot fathom not knowing Jesus Christ, and moreover, not living in proximity or in relationship with other people that do know him.
After much prayer and discernment, Lacy and I have decided to move to Asia in hopes of preaching the gospel and serving the poor, and setting up a new Family Missions Company Mission Post. We are beyond excited to receive this type of calling, and we know we are barely prepared and not hardly qualified. So many shortcomings in our lives stand in our way, from our own personal sinfulness to our lack of knowledge and understanding of who God is. And that is OK, because God has called us and He is the one who is sending us. But, we do know two things and these two things have encouraged us along into this decision: Jesus himself has commanded us to go to ALL nations , and he has told us that his grace is sufficient for us. We are relying on these two truths as we prepare to move our family to Asia on November 13.
Would you please keep us in prayer and would you please consider becoming a mission partner of ours ? We are 100% dependent upon financial donations to serve in this capacity. Details to donate are below
Because of the delicate nature of misisons and the Church in Asia, we have chosen not to state exacrtly where we are moving online, but it is indeed no secret. You can reach out to us privately and we will let you know. You can continue to follow this blog for details on our new journey.
For those of you have have supported us and continue to support us so faithfully we simply express an enormous THANK YOU! We could not be out here serving as full time missionaries without you. Because of your support, numerous people here in Costa Rica have encountered the love of Jesus Christ in such a profound way.
In Jesus,
Phil, Lacy, William, Annie, Miriam, Norah, Lily, Andrew