2009 - 50 Years of Literacy Missions!

2009! This is an exciting year! Fifty years ago, in October of 1959, the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) hosted the very first Literacy Missions workshop for SBC churches in Clear Creek, KY. Over 200 attended! Lillian Isaacs paved the way for literacy missions across North America, from Kentucky to Alaska. I came across this article written about her a couple years before she passed on to be with Jesus: Baptist Literacy Work Has Kentucky Roots. It's definitely worth the read!

I'm so thankful for missionaries like Lillian Isaacs! Because of her work and that of countless other men and women, I can stand on the wisdom and experience of others. How could I possibly have the know-how to do what I do otherwise, or the know-how to equip others to do the same?

Since that first workshop in 1959, Literacy Missions has grown to include not only Adult Reading & Writing, but Tutoring Children & Youth and English as a Second Language. What a legacy! Praise God for His great work, and pray that He will continue to call others to this mission field!

The Same, yet Different

Last week, I started teaching English classes for adults at our local primary school. It's a volunteer position and in many ways very similar to what I've done over the past few years, but in other ways, very different. I've had driven home the understanding that not every ESL ministry will look like the next. In fact, some may not even be called "ministries" as I've come to know them. But that doesn't mean they don't minister, nor does it mean that Christ cannot or will not be shared.

Because the school is funding this venture, I don't feel the same freedom that I've grown accustomed to in sharing my faith. I'm not opening my class in prayer (out loud), nor are we going over a verse of scripture each class and I'm not taking prayer requests. But I am praying as I go, silently inviting Christ into the room and to guide my words and actions. When a student asked me what I do in the morning (because I was teaching daily routines), I said I wake up, then I pray, then I get up. I am getting to know my new students, and I pray that I will be able to invite them into my home and develop friendships with them as I have my students in Sun Prairie. As needs arise in their lives, I am hopeful that I will have the opportunity to share with them the greatest friend they could ever know, Jesus.

This is ministry.

The other difference is the volunteers. I'm just getting to know them. There is an opportunity to minister to them as well...and I'm looking forward to seeing how God will work.

That too is ministry.

Please join me in praying for this new venture, both students and volunteers!