Reaching The Unreached

By Mark Powell, International Missions Director

This post was originally published in the 2016 Spring issue of the GB Messenger. Don’t receive the Messenger? You can always catch the latest digital issue on the Messenger website, www.gbMessenger.org

THUMB - The unreached people groupsGod has gifted General Baptists with varied and unique opportunities to preach the good news that “Jesus tasted death for every man.” Since the time of Benoni Stinson we have been faithful to the call of reaching every person with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reality, however, is that in the world today there are still six thousand unreached people groups (Joshua Project). The call of the gospel and the command of the Great Commission, not to mention the echo of Benoni Stinson’s voice, is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel.”  From Asia to Micronesia to Central America and the Caribbean we have faithfully proclaimed the good news that Jesus has indeed tasted death for everyone. The reality, however, is that there is much more to be done and much more we can do!

The Joshua Project (joshuaproject.net) identifies 16,404 people groups in the world today. A people group is a group of people with a common identity that shares the same language and thinks in similar ways and has the same basic philosophy of life. The Grecians of Acts 7 would be an example of a people group. A people group is the largest group through which the gospel can flow “without encountering significant barriers of understanding or acceptance.” The Joshua Project explains it this way: “In many parts of the world lack of understandability serves as the main barrier and  it is appropriate to define people groups primarily by language with the possibility of sub-divisions based on dialect or cultural variations. In other parts of the world, most notably in portions of South Asia, acceptance is a greater barrier than understandability. In these regions, caste, religious tradition, location and common histories, plus language may define the boundaries of each people group.” Continue reading

The Steads teaching English

Stead Family News from Mexico

By Ryan and Amanda Stead

This post was originally published in the 2016 March issue of the GBIM Capsule.

The Stead family stationed in Juarez, MexicoYou don’t have to drive very far into Juárez, Mexico to see that life there is hard. It is hard to stay warm in the winter and it is almost impossible to cool off in the summer. The average wage is $50 and $75 US dollars per week, if you can get a factory job. Most people have no hot water and they continue to have issues with the city water being potable. Yes, life in Juárez is hard, but loving the people of Juárez is one of the easiest things our family has ever had the pleasure of doing.

When you’re in Juárez the people hug and kiss you, shake your hand and say “Díos le bendiga!” (God bless you!) They call you “hermano” (brother) and “amado” (loved one) and you wish with all of your heart that you could change lives. We bring the Gospel message which provides hope, joy, and comfort. Without that hope, this job would be heartbreaking and would make us feel helpless. And, we pray for them. You pray for mercy in the scorching heat in the summer and divine warmth in the freezing winters knowing that in the cinderblock homes, there is no heat for the most part. You pray for rain, although there are few crops to benefit. The land is desert and all that that entails, rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widows included.

So — what do we do? The one thing that is apparent is that these people need opportunities. They need a way to improve their lives to help them feed their families and break generations of poverty. Shortly after arriving, the people found out that we home school. They immediately began asking us to teach them English. In Juárez English means better jobs, and better jobs mean better pay.

Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) is a great avenue for developing relationships and meeting obvious needs. More importantly it spreads the Gospel to people who wouldn’t be caught in a church on their worst day, but will show up for English classes.

We are currently teaching children’s classes. Studies show that attaining a second language is easiest before the age of 13, so we are excited to take these classes to young people. We hope to build a small library of simple readers in English to help build vocabulary. We currently have materials to begin study in the book of Matthew. We’d love to have the ability to give each one of our students a Bible with both English and Spanish. Having bilingual Bibles would contribute substantially toward learning the vocabulary. We currently have no budget for any of the materials we use and are severely limited in what we can do. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

The possibilities are endless in this city of over a million people, most of whom would give just about anything for an opportunity to better their lives. We hope to provide friendships and the knowledge of Jesus Christ as Savior to these beautiful people. Please consider coming down on a team to help here, supporting the ministry or our family personally so that we can continue doing this work. Thank you for sending us, for supporting us, and for anything you may be willing to do or invest to help the beautiful people of Juárez.

The Yeomans are preparing for a ministry in the Philippines and finally in Niger, Africa.

The Yeomans – Those That Have Never Heard

By Nicole Yeomans, Missionary to The Philippines

This post was originally published in the 2016 Spring issue of the GB Messenger. Don’t receive the Messenger? You can always catch the latest digital issue on the Messenger website, www.gbMessenger.org

Romans 10:14 tells us “But how can they call on Him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him?”

I can still remember the exact moment that someone posed the question to me for the first time, “but what about those that have never heard the Gospel, will they go to heaven?” I stood looking at them like a deer in headlights and my life was forever changed.  I spent  the next 4 years at Welch College, studying the Bible, missions and Christian Education. It is there that I met my husband, Kris, who was also studying missions. God had placed a call to missions in both of our hearts.

Romans 10:14-15 continues by saying, “And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent?”

Kris, Nicole, and familyWe believe very deeply that God has called us to make His name known among the unreached peoples of this Earth, to share Jesus with those who have never heard, to be intentional in our relationships with the purpose of sharing Jesus and to make disciples as we go where God leads us.

What does that look like for our family in the very near future? Until now, our involvement with missions has been leading short-term mission trips to some of the most unreached parts of the world, including Niger, West Africa. Continue reading