Reports of recent Trips and Work by Godspeed Missionary Care

Reports and Experiences of the Godspeed Staff

"May 2002 Newsletter"

Dear friends,

Oswald Chambers, who died as a young man in 1917, has a timeless ability to write about my own current situation. In an excerpt from his renowned devotional, he once again seems to be reading my mail, reading my mind, describing my thoughts:

This newsletter has been on my mind for two months. It is long overdue, and it has been difficult to finally put it together; each time I would start to work on it, something of more apparent urgency would interrupt. We have had several mountaintop experiences, times of illumination and thrill, over these past few months. Two trips to Africa, one trip to Ukraine, visits with missionaries home in the U.S. on furlough…these are the activities that we relish, these exemplify the work of Godspeed Missionary Care. Yet, there are the other, less exciting duties: the administration of the business of a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, the day-to-day correspondence with those who support and those who utilize this ministry, even the preparation of newsletters. These tasks, too, are the important work of Godspeed Missionary Care. We are grateful to you for your prayers for all the work, the mountaintops, the valleys, and the daily rounds.

Speaking of mountaintops, we found ourselves on one recently, with a group of missionaries who serve in Mozambique. They had taken off several days to travel to South Africa, and allowed us to accompany them on a tour through one of the national game parks. I would call your attention to the makeup of this multicultural team: not just different cultures, but different ages, sexes, and sizes. We all seem relaxed after having been on the run from elephants, bats, and other creatures of the wild. That's Karen and her rugged safari partner in the middle of the back row…

Even in the midst of travel to the most distant countries, though, the work must go on. Many of you have received e-mail reports from the field about the various people, places, and events we encounter as we meet with missionaries in different ports of the world. This snapshot is of two brothers hard at work on their laptops. I am composing one of my "Reports from the Field", and my brother Maulidio is assessing his daily schedule. He is roughly thirty years younger and 125 pounds lighter than I am, yet his spiritual fervor dwarfs mine. His schedule is full of "daily round", as he travels on foot and by overloaded bus throughout the city of Maputo and the surrounding villages in Mozambique, to set up showings of the Jesus Film. It is his hope to show the film to more than 12,000 people over the next six months.

Our "target population" is that of missionaries and mission teams who serve around the world, but there are times when I find myself meeting someone who does not carry the designation of missionary, at least not officially. The picture to the right is of me trying to learn a Tsongan phrase from Samuel, whose "daily round" is that of being a gate guard at the home of one of the missionary team members. Samuel, who has the equivalent of a seventh grade education, is a gifted teacher of three languages. More importantly, he spends hours each day teaching the Bible to his countrymen who come to sit around his little table behind the gate where he works. He teaches and reaches countless numbers; he is a missionary in the truest sense of the word.