Ministry Update from the Beards.
The weeks following our return from the Philippines were filled with both personal and church tasks, so we did not have time or much to say on the CHRSTWORKS site. More recently, we have been in a “reset” mode as we look at a change in activities that relate to both CHRISTWORKS and our home-based activities in North Carolina. If you are a subscriber, thank you for being patient with the absence of new material in posts, but this will change shortly.
In terms of general ministry activity, we expect to meet with our board and another Virginia-based ministry in June. Summer is also our catch-up time with ministry administration. By July or August we will begin querying two Philippine ministries (IFL-ICDMI and HALLEL) about their perceived needs for us to assist them in late 2024 or early 2025. There is plenty of work to get done overseas, but each potential visit has to be approached with freshness: what does God want us to do this time? The people we have assisted have a critical part of this discussion, which will begin this summer before an actual trip is planned.
In terms of our online site activity, we will restart posting shortly with some special interest stories, parables, and several short articles on biblical creation-related subjects. I am anticipating a series under PEOPLE STORIES entitled “There is a place…” to address how young people can find God and stand in a culture that is increasingly hostile to biblical views.
On the personal side from GateWay, our North Carolina home, we are seeking to make contacts in our local community who might be interested in a biblical view of the heavens or have bigger questions about God. While we are certainly willing and have had quite a few families or small church groups visit for nights of observing, questions from most unchurched young people are wider in scope — who am I, what is my purpose, and where am I headed? The Bible, of course, has answers. We both remember the importance of small groups in homes when we were seeking God and then were new Christians. The influence from God-fearing men and women in their homes during those times was important to each of us as informal meetings provided answers from a biblical perspective. But, what each of us remembers the most is that those hosts loved us. It is our desire to see that happen again in our own home. Our experience in the Philippines and with a few young people in the US suggests that basic questions among the young have not changed. And, we are accustomed to cross culture situations with friends from many different ethnic backgrounds, so having a real mix of people is exciting to us — not a detractor.
So, if you know us, please remember us in prayer as we move forward to see where some of these roads will take us. Above all things, we want to be fruitful in biblical terms. We have set up our home to have people, and would it not be exciting to see many come to Christ, get to know Him, even if it’s only for a short time before they launch new jobs or go to other places? That is similar to what we do overseas when we encourage young people.
From Roland and Faylene Beard
