Go and bear sustaining fruit

Yesterday, I was asked how I could go all the way around the world to Africa on a short-term missions trip to prisons and communities around the prisons when there are people that need to be reached right here in Kent and King County. Giving to a PFC short-term missions trip to Africa didn't seem like the best use of finances.

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another." John 15:16-17 ESV

My giving support target of $3,950 was reached and exceeded,  as of Tuesday.  We'll be leaving Monday, November 8 and returning November 20 for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi.  While there, we are scheduled to do evangelistic services prisons, training conferences in churches, and preach in churches.  

The greatest long-term sustained fruit on this trip to Africa is in the conferences where we train, equip, and encourage the saints in that place to go into the prisons and reach the involved families and communities.

So, then, why should I go to Africa when people need to be reached here?  I am going: 

• primarily as a chaplain at the Regional Justice Center in Kent
• with Jim Dixon to Forks and the Olympic Corrections Centers several times a year
• team leader to prisons in eastern WA and northeastern OR 2 or 3 times yearly 
• visit an inmate at Twin Rivers in Monroe once or twice a month 
• write several letters regularly to inmates

• serve as an instructor twice a year at the PFC-University in Bothell
• this missions trip to Africa...and other trips, in time

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:19-20 ESV


But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Acts 1:8 ESV 

That is just the start of the Biblical mandate to go. God's heart from Genesis 12:1-3 through Psalm 67...and on throughout to Revelation 5:9-10 and to the end... bleeds missionary red.  The harder question is how can you and I stay.  Yes, be going across the street, into your neighborhood, and community. Go, go, go!  Do a Bible word study on "nations."  It's amazing!

 This is the richest ministry experience of my entire life since I started in 2002 and more full-time in 2006 with Prisoners for Christ Outreach Ministries.  The reality is I am seeking to raise more support for my various PFC ministries in Kent, King County, Washington, and Oregon.