We are a free methodist church, part of many churches connected around the globe. Together we support many missionaries around the world. We believe strongly in sharing the Good News of Jesus! If you would like mor einformation regarding what our missionaries are doing, or some programs that you can donate to, please visit one the sites below.
International Child Care Ministries
On Sunday, May 22, we will be focusing on Missions with special missionary speakers Mike and Maria Long. There will be a potluck lunch following the service in the Fellowship Hall.
The following articles were submitted by Ken and Linda Kaufmann, missionaries we support.
In the midst of the political turmoil, Middle Eastern youth are looking for
answers to the many questions of how their society should be run. During our
7 years of living in the Middle East, we have seen roadblocks, at times made
of burning tires or furniture, put up by masked gangs of young people trying
to disrupt traffic and economic activity from which they felt alienated.
Once we saw them shooting in the air in order to terrorize people in a mall.
Several times we have heard chants by crowds of hundreds of people
protesting against the government. But in this time of societal turmoil,
some are looking for knowledge about God. Two young people reached out to us
when they realized that we were followers of God.
While sitting in a waiting room, I was having a not-so-quiet “quiet time”
reading my Bible. Suddenly, I found myself alone in the room with a young
woman. She asked if I was reading the Injil which is the name used by the
Qur’an for the four Gospels. We talked about the Qur’an saying that Muslims
could read the Tawrat (Torah), Zabur (Psalms), and Injil (Gospels). She said
she had always wanted to read the Injil but could not read English. I
offered a Bible in Arabic but she said she could not read Arabic for she was
Iranian. I told her to take the bi-lingual English-Arabic Bible home anyway.
Then I was called into the office. When I came out, the young woman was
gone, and the Bible lay on the chair. Later, my spouse said he had seen the
woman reading the Bible in the waiting room. We have heard rumors that young
people in Iran are secretly going to Bible studies. Pray for the people of
Iran, who face uncertain days, to seek and find the Gospels about Jesus.
That same week, I was waiting four hours for my husband to process papers
through a bureaucratic labyrinth. That time I found myself alone with a
young married man waiting for his first child to be born. He asked many
questions about the reasons for our living in the Middle East. As I tried to
explain that my husband was a doctor working for the church, he wanted our
address which I wrote on a card for him. The card has Jeremiah 29:11,13
about God knowing us and being found if one seeks Him with all one’s heart.
He asked me to explain what that meant. I explained that it was God saying
that He cares about him. He said he talked to God. Pray that the young
people of the Middle East find the one true God.
Starting All Over Again
As Israel moved through the wilderness for forty years, they learned to move
their household and to constantly be making new politico-economic
relationships. We read about Israel learning to trust God for their every
need in Exodus. Today, there are brothers and sisters in the Lord who are
still moving in search of a safe place to call home. According to some
people, with whom we have talked in the Mid-East, their families have been
moving from place to place for more than a century.
When we arrived in Bahrain, we were surprised to find that many established
families on the island were originally from Iran though they spoke Arabic.
One explained to us that families have always moved around the Arabian Gulf
(so called by Arabs and called Persian Gulf by Iran). They told us that the
families would put down roots wherever there was no fighting going on at the
time.
Now that we have moved to K-I, we are learning about the wilderness
wanderings of Christian families in search of a peaceful home for over 100
years. Some fled genocide in Turkey to Iraq. Their children and
grandchildren have been internally displaced from one city to the next due
to violence against Christians. We are emotionally moved as we think of
these picking up their family members to move to a different place and
starting businesses with which to support themselves. They have to make a
new set of socio-political alliances with each new community where they
settle. It takes a long time to become economically viable. It takes time to
put together minimum household goods. We have experienced a taste of this
over the last two years as we answered a call to help with village health
work in K-I., and traveled around the US raising funds for 18 months. These
families, though, have not only wandered more than once a lifetime, but for
more than one generation.
How does one keep their emotional and physical being pulled together through
wilderness wandering whether for a couple of years or generations? Trusting
in God. We learn to trust in God for provision of food, clothes and shelter.
We learn to look to God for safety. We learn to rely on God to watch over
our children, parents and extended family living in a far away land. We rest
in God to take care of our future.
Ken & Linda Kaufmann
