We live in a dark world...a world that suffers the affects of sin and evil. Yet this is the world into which God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. Jesus brought us deliverance from the darkness of sin and evil. He also gives us his Word to light our path, to guide us, and for us to take to the far reaches of the earth. As His word says, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shined." Isaiah 9:2 (ESV)

Monday, May 25, 2020

COVID 19 Changes our Missionwork


As of March all of our congregation visits, LWML Zone renewal speaking engagements along with our Spring visits into community have been cancelled. It was the plan to be in the north the middle two weeks of May where Dennis would introduce me to the communities and their leaders I had not yet met. Instead I have been meeting with team leaders via email, phone & Video formats. I have been talking to some of our supporters making sure they are doing okay during this time of isolation and offering prayer support. I have had the opportunity to reach out to community contacts through email, facebook messenger, and phone calls meeting many of them for the first time in this way. All of our contacts with both teams and communities were to let them know we are praying for them during this pandemic. And as we are not sure when the borders, and Northern travel will open up again, we want to be ready to go when that happens.

We have also began planning for Virtual VBS. That is, ministry from a distance by all of our teams. It became official as of May 11th as the onsite Summer VBS’s across the country were all cancelled. We have started work on a Virtual classroom where teams can share videos, music, stories, bible activities, puppet shows, magic tricks, etc. This will be accessible by community children who have internet access. Some of our teams are hosting online Bible Studies, offering youth chatrooms for their community, attending community services on Facebook Live, phoning in to the radio station offering a message and prayer for the community, sending a DVD for playing on the Community TV Channel, and participating in the discussion section of the community Facebook pages. All the teams admit that nothing replaces physically being there, but this way they are still a part of their lives as they share the love of Jesus from a distance.

Darlene and I just before Easter prepared a craft and card that we sent to each of our community contacts, and Team Leaders. We got the idea from our devotion time and were led to Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. From that we developed a woven cord of three different color strands, representing our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, the Volunteer Team, and the Community.
Each color also had meaning.
The Red cord = the life blood of our Lord Jesus shed for us.
The Purple cord = our life of Repentance as we live to change our sinful ways.
The Blue cord = the Hope given to us, through our adoption as children of God, and Christ’s promised return from heaven on the last day.
We made the cord a tail attached to a butterfly clip, representing the new life given to all believers through the resurrection (both the first at Easter, and finally when we join Jesus in eternal Heavenly joy). We added an angel pendant to the bottom which reminds us of God’s promise to be close to us always, never leaving nor forsaking us.
I am preparing a collage of the pictures of the recipients with their butterfly that I will send out for each community and team to have.

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