July 23, 2025

“As for me, the LORD has led me...” Abraham’s servant (Genesis 24:27)

“We’ve been praying for you for 60 years.” Old missionary to a younger missionary

“I love it when a plan comes together.” Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, The A-Team

For many years, our church family has financially supported a number of ministries that we consider to be strategic to our mission as a church. One of those is the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary (DBTS). This local seminary is a ministry of the Inter-City Baptist Church in Allen Park, MI, and has punched well above its weight for many years. In other words, for being a seminary on the smaller size, it has produced an impressive number of fruitful graduates. We love having a theologically rigorous graduate school in our area and value our partnership with this school. A week ago Sunday was a great example of that.

One of the strengths of DBTS is graduates who go into missions with good training in theology, church training and a proper understanding of missions. DBTS is also connected with Radius International and 9 Marks, two organizations we have a high level of confidence in. In recent years, we have taken on the support of several graduates of DBTS as they have targeted unreached people groups. We assume that it will take many years of learning a primary language, then the local language to be able to converse at a deep level with people, and then many more years seeking to translate the Bible into that particular language. But you never know how being on the way, the Lord is going to lead as we just heard.

Two of our missions teams (families) work together in a remote location in order to reach a group that does not have a church and has no gospel witness. In God’s providence they found out that 60 years before them there was a missionary who was trying to connect with the same people. This man was not able to stay in that country, but he was able to complete a translation of the NT in the local language. Since then, this man had this NT but had no one to entrust it to because he did not know of anyone who was trying to reach these people. So, he prayed, for 60 years he prayed. When our missionaries met him, he was near the end of his life, but praise God, he was able to give to them the NT translation. He also said, “We’ve been praying for you for 60 years.”

When we heard this 2 Sunday’s ago, it was like the Lord had given us a front row seat in order to witness the expansion of the gospel into another unreached group. You know the pattern in Scripture. Gospel proclamation and Bible explanation = Local churches. By God’s grace, a series of local churches will one day sprout up in this remote country and another people group will be represented around the throne in glory. It is our desire to see a similar movement take root on Manitoulin Island. This Sunday night in our Members’ Meeting, the Manitoulin team will give us a report of the most recent trip. We are seeking to be led by God. We are praying for the right people to connect with, all in anticipation of the day when we can say how much we love it, when a plan comes together.

Grace and peace,

Bob

Sunday’s Text: Luke 12:54-59