Sunday, October 28, 2018

Launching into the Deep in Lawrence, Kansas

Pastor Scott Hanks
We travelled on Wednesday from Marion, Iowa to Lawrence, Kansas to Heritage Baptist Church for their Faith Promise Missions Conference. Their theme was "Launch Out Into The Deep." Pastor Scott Hanks is the pastor of this wonderful church. They had seven different missionaries in for the conference and Dr. Bob Smith from the Trinity Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas was their guest speaker. Dr. Smith preached some great messages throughout the conference.
Dr. Bob Smith
Coming to Heritage Baptist Church was a little bit of a home coming for us. Not only had I been privileged enough to preach for Pastor Hanks from time to time over the years, but my son got married in this church. My daughter-in-law is Faith Painter, who use to be Faith Smith, her family attends this church. In fact her parents took us out to eat Friday night. It was great to spend some time visiting with them.
Bro. and Mrs. Kirkland Smith
We also had the privilege of seeing Travis Miller who is attending the Heritage Baptist College here at the church. Travis comes from Lincoln Baptist Church where I use to be the pastor. Interestingly enough my wife led his mom to Christ out soul winning on a Thursday night in 2009. She had an Episcopal background. Then I was able to later lead here husband to Christ who had a Catholic background. I was also able to lead Travis to Christ that year. The whole family got baptized at our church and became faithful. Now his dad is a deacon in our church and his mom is a Sunday school teacher and faithfully runs our African bus route in our home church. Now here is Travis at Bible college training for the ministry. God is a great God!

Travis Miller
While here I also was able to have an old reunion with Brother Shawn Ham. Brother Ham and I went to church together as little kids at a church in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is a friend and good brother in Christ. Back when he lived in Nebraska we would sometimes go and win souls together. It is great to see him and his family faithfully serving in this great church!

Brother Shawn Ham
On Thursday afternoon we went out on the soul winning bus being driven by Pastor Hanks himself. While out door knocking I was able to meet Matthew. He said he was unsure about his eternity, so I took my New Testament and showed him God's map to Heaven. He bowed his head and trusted Christ as His Saviour. He asked a lot of questions about the church program for the family and wants to get his wife and two children into church.

Pastor Hanks leading the soul winning!

Matthew after getting saved!

My wife's soul winning partner, Shania

On Thursday evening Pastor Hanks had me give testimony and present our ministry to Thailand. It was a great time giving testimony in this church that I am so familiar with the folks in. Truly a great work is being done here in this church for the cause of missions. Dr. Bob Smith was preaching great messages each evening. Pastor Hanks set a goal for the church to add 15 new missionaries this year!

On Saturday morning they asked me to go on a Lawrence bus route and visit a Chin family from Burma that comes. They sent a bus worker from the route that knows the family with my wife and I, named Adrienne. She introduced us to the family and my wife and I visited with them. They weren't sure if the husband was truly saved, so they asked me to talk to him. I spoke to him a little bit in the Burmese language, but my Burmese is not very strong. However, his English is much better than my Burmese and he gave a testimony of trusting Christ when he was a teenager in Burma. We visited about the land and area that I have such a heart for and then moved onto make some other visits. The family came to church Sunday morning.

Adrienne and my wife Saturday morning
Maung and his family on Sunday
I taught the boy and girl teen Sunday school class on Sunday morning. The had a special before I taught the lesson and even gave me a nice love gift afterwards. I was very impressed with the teachers, helpers and the kids themselves. The entire program here is very first class. Then I preached teen church during the morning service. God blessed with one getting saved during the invitation time. It is good to be used as a tool of God!

Special in Teen Sunday School Class
Update: My daughter Rachel was supposed to have surgery on Monday morning, but we had to switch surgeons, so she will be having surgery on Tuesday morning now. We will travel to Lincoln tomorrow from Lawrence so we can be there for the surgery on Tuesday. Then because of time frame and the logistics, my wife and I will be flying out to Parkersburg, WV for a missions conference. Please pray for the surgery to go well and for our travels, when we fly back we drive to Arkansas. We definitely stay busy with our meetings! 

No comments:

Post a Comment