Monday, March 21, 2016

Olive Branch Mississippi and The Gospel...

Recently, I made my way to Olive Branch, Mississippi, with the opportunity to share with several women from different churches in the surrounding area regarding Pure Joy International. What a sweet time of fellowship, sharing and prayer. Several of them are prayerfully considering one of the three trips coming up. God is moving to put the teams together for each trip. So please continue to pray for the teams as they come together. He Knows.

In January each year our Pure Joy Board, Advisors, and Staff meet to review the previous year and look forward to what God has in store for the new year. Each year I give the group a new notebook. This year the ministry staff all received a notebook with a statement on the front that says:
                                             
This Message Is Illegal In Many Nations

And then it has Romans 1:16 quoted:
Romans 1:16 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.


There are many things we do daily to keep from doing something our nation (U.S. A.) has deemed illegal. It is illegal to drive up a one-way street the wrong direction. It is illegal to take things that aren’t yours, it is illegal to forge someone’s name on a document, etc., etc. But it is not illegal to go to church on Sunday, it is not illegal to share the gospel with a lost person, it is not illegal to claim your Christianity, at least not yet, in our nation.
  
God has called many to go into the nations that do consider the message of the gospel illegal. He has called men, women, families, the old, the young, to carry the message of hope, to be the light in the darkness. Many pay the price for doing something foreign nations consider illegal which can result in consequences such as being kicked out of a country, prison time, beatings, beheadings, etc.
 
I say all this to remind us of two things very specifically:
  1. We have missionary men, women, boys and girls, (young and old) risking their lives daily in foreign nations, living in desperate situations, just to be able to share the gospel of Christ with those that are lost and in need of a Savior. Please remember them in your prayers.
  2. Sharing the gospel in our nation (USA) is not illegal, let’s stop acting like it is.
This coming Sunday is Easter Sunday. Please invite your lost friends to church to hear a message of hope. It doesn’t get spoken any clearer than Easter Sunday and you won’t be doing something illegal. (smile)

Love you, He has Risen!

His,
Vickie

Friday, March 11, 2016

Longview Texas and A Special Prayer Request....

Well, I made my way down to the Lone Star state this past week. Met with an awesome group of women to discuss the up-coming trips o Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Greece. We had a sweet time and I always love seeing new faces and getting to hear their stories. It is amazing to watch how God is at work in women’s lives preparing them in advance to get on board with the ministry before I ever get to share my heart with them. I love how He works in our lives. He Knows.

We are negotiating contracts with the hotels this week. So we will most likely open registration for the conferences in Southeast Asia and Guanajuato City, Guanajuato, Mexico, the week of March 28. So get the word out to your friends that are serving in those areas of the world. Remember first come, first serve. Also, the teams are filling up that will be traveling to these countries. We have gone to a waiting list on the Mexico trip for team members, as of last week. If God is moving on your heart to be on a team, please contact me even if we are on waiting list status, because it isn’t uncommon for people to be moved up from the waiting list with team members and/or our missionary women.

I have a very special prayer request. Jon Moore a precious friend and co-founder of Christfollower.com was diagnosed with stage two Lymphoma cancer last August. He went through treatment and was given a cancer free status. However, this past week they found three nodules on his thyroid, one of them is malignant. They will have to take out his thyroid gland. The prognosis for this surgery is good. I am asking that you add him to your prayer list and that his body will continue to heal by God’s grace and the men and women He has gifted in the medical field.

I want to close by sharing with you something Jon shared in the note he sent out to his prayer warriors. I love it because it shows you his heart and the quote by Corrie Ten is such a truth for all of us regarding the darkness we come up against on our journeys. And I quote.....

We were initially taken back by the news, but on reflection and prayer realized it was no surprise to the Lord, and we have every confidence He will walk with us (and carry us) through this as He has on numerous occasions in our life. The Lord has been so good and gracious through all of this, and He led me in my reading just two days after receiving the news to a quote by Corrie Ten Boom (author of "The Hiding Place"). Her statement, "When a train goes through a tunnel, and it gets dark, you don't throw away your ticket and jump off the train. You sit still and trust the engineer!"

My dear ones, I pray if you are in a dark place, sit still and trust the engineer!

Love you all,

His,
Vickie