Blogging Our Furlough

I agree completely, men. Bro. Calvert is a class act, and I believe a great man of God.

To anyone doing church planting: Dr. Calvert has written an excellent book on the subject, God's Passion: A Manual on Church Planting for World Evangelism. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1598941151/?tag=baptis04-20)

 

Thanks! Maybe we can do this--we'll see how the schedule goes.

 

Thanks so much, Debbie. We were so glad we got to see her after our long trip from Japan and before her trip to Heaven. God is good.

We're hoping to be there in March, but it's not firmed up yet.

 

Thanks much brother. Mom was 86, had Parkinson's, high blood pressure and other problems. God was gracious to let us see her first, and her Home-going was obviously Providential.

 

One of the hardest things about being a missionary is celebrating our American and Christian holidays away from family. Thus, it was so nice to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with our son for the first time in seven years! We went to see him, had a great Turkey dinner with some friends of his (the husband is a real chef), watched a football game. It was great!

The next week we went to his seminary to hear him lecture as the guest lecturer of his mentor, Dr. David Alan Black. It was great to hear him doing what he does best, teaching the Word of God! His specialty is the epistles of Peter, and that is what he lectured on for three hours. And he's good, as Dr. Black pointed out on his blog here (scroll down until you see Friday, Dec. 2): http://www.daveblackonline.com/blog.htm

Dr. Black is a gracious man and was kind enough to invite me to take some time at the beginning of the class to describe our ministry in Japan. Though he is a well known Greek scholar and author, he considers himself a missionary first and a Greek teacher second. He often visits Ethopia, and this very week he is teaching Greek in a limited access country.

 

Since the last post we were able to report our work at Franklin Road Baptist in Murfreesboro, TN, my home church. It was great to see the pastor and other old friends.

During the day on that Thursday we went to two places. First of all, the Bill Rice Ranch (BRR) was founded by my great uncle Bill Rice, the younger brother of my grandfather John R. Rice. It was the first ever ministry devoted to reaching the deaf for Christ and has had a great impact around the world in that area.

At the BRR is Memorial Gardens, a graveyard for family members and a a few select workers. There we visited the graves of the three Rice evangelist brothers and their wives, Joe, John and Bill. My parents' graves are there also, and we visited them as well as the graves of some old friends. Mom went to Heaven in October shortly after we came home on furlough this year, and so now she rests with Dad, who preached the Gospel for 60 years. I truly thank God for my parents.

We also visited my grandparents' house, where I lived with them for a couple of years when I worked at the Sword of the Lord (SOTL) and then began deputation as a missionary to Japan before meeting and marrying Patty. The John R. Rice home was moved to the BRR after he died in late 1980, and has been made into a museum there. Where the house used to stand is now a Sam's Club right off I-24 on John Rice Boulevard. It was fun to sit in the chair where I used to eat dinner and play "42 Dominoes" with Grandad, Grandma and long time SOTL workers Miss V. and Miss Fairy.

That day we also stopped by the SOTL where it was good to see old friends. We had a short time of fellowship with Dr. Shelton Smith, the current editor, who was very gracious to us. One old friend who is a receptionist took us on a tour of the facilities. The huge Goss color web press was impressive as were other areas, but the SOTL is people first of all. The workers we did not know seemed all delighted to be working there, and others have been there for decades and are still happy there. One such as Dwight the chief printer who has been there for over 35 years. (I never could beat him at ping pong!)

John R. Rice's office has been made into a little museum with displays of some of his items and photos from his younger days: him in a WW1 uniform, revival posters, him and J. Frank Norris out golfing, etc. It was all good to see. I thank God I was privileged to have an intimate family relationship with this great man of God.

 

Perhaps the most difficult thing about being a missionary overseas is missing your loved ones and friends, especially at the holidays. So it was precious to celebrate Christmas with our family three separate times: in Chattanooga TN with my three sisters and their kids, in Lansing MI with Patty's family, and in Wake Forest NC with our son Paul on Christmas Day.

It had been seven years since we spent Christmas Day with Paul, though we had seen him a couple of times since then. Our celebration took place in a motel room with a tiny tree and three stockings prepared by Patty. As we always do, we read Luke 2 together, sang our favorite carols, shared some blessings and exchanged gifts. How many precious memories we have of doing just this for many years in Japan and on each furlough! Paul reminded us and his friends several times how long it has been, and it is hard to tell who of the three of us the time was most precious to!

Spending time with each other friend and loved one was precious too. This is when furlough means the most to us: not when we are greeted as "heroes of the faith" (we're not) by supporting churches; not when we spend time with believers who have prayed for us and supported us for years, though that is special; not when we try all the great American foods. It's when we bask in the love of our family and friends who we have not seen in many years. It's when we worship Christ with those we love.

So pray for your missionary friends overseas that they will not grow weary and faint, that God will give them strength to be away from their family and friends. You'll never know what such times mean to you until you cannot have them.

 

Thanks much, brother! :wavey:

 

I've been meaning and planning to post more here. I have some good stories to tell! But we've been busy visiting many churches. Anyway, I've uploaded some pictures from our furlough so far, so check out the album. :type:

 

Thanks, Bob. So I'll add a post today. :thumbs:

Here we are in Walsh, CO. You have to come here on purpose or you'll never know it exists. Walsh is a town of about 500 with a school, a library open two days a week, one cop, one grocery store that the farmers banded together to reopen when it closed--and four churches!

This church has supported us for over 30 years. And over 10% of the population attends it! How's that for a great church? The pastor here is an old friend who once visited us in Japan. We graduated from the same college and know many of the same people. He gave me a hug when we got here, and the fellowship with the family has been wonderful!

So anyway, this morning the wife and I were working in the old auditorium where they have their "prophet's chamber" when we heard a loud siren. What in the world would an ambulance be doing in Walsh, CO? It would have had to come from the "big town" a half hour away! Is someone dying, deathly sick? Or maybe it's the town cop chasing a bank robber for the only time in their history!

We ran to the door to look out and see what the commotion was. There was their cop car with the siren on full blast, being followed by a bus and a bunch of honking cars. As it turns out, the town's high school basketball team had won the game that sent them to the state championships. Small town USA--gotta love it!

 

Recently in Garland, Texas, we were in the most innovative, exciting missionary conference we've ever been in. I plan to write and explain about this more next week when I have time, but in the meantime look at the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D7FtPvcMoE

 

You got it. And Bro. Coleman certainly is a gem of a man, a great pastor. You should hear his assistants talking about him and what it's like to serve God under him.

Hopefully I can blog here tomorrow about the GIC. It was an extremely innovative, effective conference.

 

Global Impact Celebration

The Global Impact Celebration (GIC) last month at the Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland, TX, was a tremendous experience. It was the most innovative, unusual missionary conference we've ever been in. Pastor Gary Coleman and his staff did a bang up job in every respect.

It started on a Wednesday with a briefing for us missionaries on what to expect. The evening service was a seemingly normal opening service. We missionaries all paraded in family by family to a great ovation as our names were called. Then a missionary statesman gave a wonderful message about reaching the world for Christ. Finally, at the end of the service the youth pastor bounded up on the platform with a wild outfit on, and the movie screen descended with "The Price Is Right" blaring on it.

The missionary wives (and the single lady missionary) were all called up to the stage (uh, platform) where they were ostensibly to play the TV Game Show. Ladies in the audience (uh, congregation) held up signs and hollered out the names of the missionary ladies. Huge signs with their names were hung from the balcony. The MC (uh, youth pastor) said, "Our first item is a dozen red roses." Then he hollered to my wife, "Patty, what is your bid?!?" Several ladies in the audience hollered out, "One dollar!" Poor Patty didn't know what to say when suddenly the MC threw his notecards up in the air and said, "Aw, let's just give it to all the missionary ladies!" Whereupon a church lady came up to each missionary lady with a dozen roses! The same thing happened with a limousine ride to a $300 shopping spree. I was moved to tears at that time for their graciousness to Patty.

Then things got really wild! 7000 balloons and a huge amount of confetti descended on us while the church people gave a standing ovation. You can see this all on the video at Youtube that I linked to.

The ladies went out to a fancy restaurant for lunch on Thursday. Then they went shopping. Each missionary lady had a guide who showed them around the stores. And they were strictly instructed not to buy for anyone but themselves! It seems one year a missionary wife kept trying to buy a chain saw for her husband! Patty got some wonderful clothes. We've had churches buy us things before, but never before has my wife had such incredible hospitality from a church.

More tomorrow.

 

One of the main goals of the GIC was for the church people to get to know us missionaries personally, and in that they succeeded admirably through several different initiatives. First of all, on Thursday evening the adult Sunday School classes met informally at various locations with one missionary family each. We met at a home with about 30-40 older adults and had a wonderful time. There were snacks and coffee and fellowship, then we all sat down in the living room together.

We then had a very relaxed time where Patty and I gave our personal bios, our testimonies, how we met each other and how we were called to be missionaries. There was a lot of laughter and fun. I also shared about the various facets of our ministry in Japan: evangelism, church planting, literature, Bible institute, NT translation. During a Q&A at the end there were some excellent questions about Japan and our work.

Friday morning we missionary men all got together with the male staff of the church at I-HOP and had a wonderful brunch together. It was all informal of course, and we really enjoyed getting to know them all better. The young men told stories on themselves, then told how Dr. Coleman would have them into the office after their blunders and gently say, "I'm going to have to wound you." It was great to get to see Dr. Coleman again. He openly gives credit to John R. Rice as his mentor. I shared with him how my Grandma Rice had told him he had to take me on as a missionary when I was a young single guy on deputation, and he laughed and said he had forgotten about that.

Friday evening was the banquet--and what a time that was! More tomorrow.