(Photo credit IMB)
International (MNN/IMB) — [Editor’s Note: This is story was recently released by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.]
What can you do with $128? Go to an amusement park? Afford a fancy dinner? Buy that television series you’ve been dying to get?
The Lighthouse at Conestoga Mission in Monroe, Georgia, recently collected $128 for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, which may seem like a drop in the bucket to many, barely worth mentioning.
But in God’s economy, a “little” can be a “lot.” All gifts to the offering are used to support missionaries overseas. On average, the cost to support a missionary for one day is $139, which includes housing, salary, children’s education, medical expenses, retirement, and more.
What else can IMB do with $128?
Missionary Heather McAfee and Viviane Kassou pray together in Viviane’s home before setting out to visit nearby houses in the Abobo quarter of Abidjan to share Bible stories with Muslim women.
(Photo, caption courtesy IMB)
For starters, in South Africa, it can buy 18 meals for human trafficking victims on the streets. It can give them a second chance. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate love in action and share the Gospel of Jesus with people who have lost hope. It can also purchase up to 38 Bibles to give to women in a crisis pregnancy center in Johannesburg.
In Nairobi, $128 is equal to two weeks of rent downtown. Missionaries can offer hospitality to kids in the street in forms of meals, medical care, and Bible studies.
In Uganda, it can provide almost two months’ worth of medical supplies, including malaria treatments for IMB missionaries and nationals living in a remote Karamoja village in the north.
In London, it pays for transportation for five days to prayer walk and minister among internationals in London’s Southwark borough.
And in Lesotho, it rents one Basotho pony for a missionary to travel 18 days spreading the Gospel to 18 villages that haven’t even heard the whisper of the name “Jesus.”
$128 doesn’t seem like much, but remember: people are living on dollars a day, sometimes less. Your contribution not only makes a practical difference in lives, it helps expand the Kingdom of God.
More than just rent money or food, $128 is love. It’s reaching out and showing the little girl in Syria she hasn’t been forgotten. It’s lifting up the chin of the man who thinks he’s at the end of his road and telling him, “You are special; you are loved by me and by God.”
With your support, IMB missionaries can do more; click here to help.
Pray for those living in poverty as they continue pushing forward, especially during the holiday season.
Greetings in the name of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
I am Nehru Naik, I am native of small and backward village NVK THANDA,
Peddavoora Manadal, Nalagonda District, telagana India. I am
born in a very poor family, my parents were daily wage labours. I
belong to Schedule Tribe community which is most neglected community
in the society.
Voice calling me ” I NEED YOU MY SON”, I looked here and there but no
one was there. I opened the BIBLE, God spoke to me through the
scriptures, Nahum :1:15. According the Scripture I decided to search
the Gospel to the unreached areas of our society. And started
preaching the gospel in the year 1992 till now preached 24 villages of
our surroundings after taking Bible Training in collage and
established achurch, where saints are worshiping regularly.
One day while mediating the God’s word, God spoken with me by the
Scripture James 1:27 to care of orphan children. Hence, we have
started small orphanage with 10.orphans by providing food, shelter,
education.
We request you to kindly pray for these children as they need of
school books, bags & fees. We love you to invite you to come to our
children home whenever you visit India.
With much love &
pastor.nehrunaik
[email protected]