Bringing Missions Home

About a year after my husband and I were married, we were introduced to a lady who needed families to host exchange students from China.  They were in a desperate situation and needed some families.  My husband and I jumped on board and, well, we have never jumped off.  To this date, we have had a total of 11 exchange students stay with us.   They have been from all different parts of China and it's been really a neat opportunity hosting them.

Many times in church, we hear about missions needs and missions trips to foreign countries.  If we had all the money in the world, we would probably go BUT we just don't have it.  Well, here is an AMAZING program that brings the children to you.

Yesterday, I blogged about being a book that people read. This is the type of missions that you do with these children. Many of the kids can not speak very good English, so it is next to impossible to sit down and share the gospel with them.  What you can do is be the hands and feet of Jesus.  You can love on this kids, you can take them to church (this is a great cultural experience for them.)  You can pray for their salvation and you can show them that there is something different about you.  They WILL read you and if you are being the BIBLE, they will read it through your life.

We always present an English-Chinese Bible to our kids.  That way they can study their English using the Bible.  We tell them this is the most important, treasured book that we have.  We give it to them as a treasure.

To this date, I don't know if any of our children have received Jesus, but I do know that we have planted the seed of salvation in their lives.  I do know that we have been able to have different conversations with a handful of them about "the Book" and I know they get some of it.  "Some plant, some water, BUT GOD gives the increase." (I Cor. 3:6)

This program is only about 3 weeks long, sometimes shorter.  Yes, it takes time, money (feeding them) and effort but it's ALOT cheaper then flying over to a foreign country and sharing the gospel.  Pray about it--maybe you will feel led to take a child and show them Jesus through your life.  I hope you decide to bring missions home. - Rejoicing in the Present.