Pray for this family...and the rest!

Check out this article about some awesome Americas workers! I am so blessed to know and count as friends so many individuals and families that are willing to go so far for the sake of the Gospel. Remember to pray for them and their work! 

Missionary family ‘blessed’ to reach hard places for Christ

Brad Connelly* watches thoughtfully as his daughter and sons splash around in the jungle river beside their small cabin.

Jungle Playground

A missionary kid swings out over a river on a rope swing suspended from a tree. In the jungle, nature itself is the prime source of entertainment.

Photo © 2013 IMB / Rebecca Springer

Oblivious to the rest of the world, the kids laugh and scream as they take turns flying off a rope-swing, plunging into the cool water and trying to swim against the current to a nearby rock. To them, the jungle is an exciting new adventure.

To Brad and his wife, Carissa*, it’s the risky place where they’re about to move their family. Still, sitting on his cabin porch at IMB’s new jungle training camp, Brad watches his children playing and knows it’s the right move.

The month-long training program is the final step to prepare the Connellys and their three children — ages 4, 6 and 8 — to venture deep into the heart of the Amazon jungle and work among one of the nearly 230 unengaged, unreached indigenous people groups in the Americas. Their people group is less than 2 percent evangelical Christian and no one is currently trying to reach them with the Gospel.

The community they hope to work in is restricted,  and permission to enter is hard to obtain. For the moment, the Connellys live in a nearby city, praying that God will soon open doors for them to enter and begin work in the area. Once that happens, He’ll be all they have.

They’ll be the only missionaries in their area, nearly 15 hours away from the next closest IMB personnel. Electricity will be a luxury for about an hour a day — sometimes. Food options will be limited, and Internet and phone access will be non-existent. The family will be up to eight hours away from the nearest decent medical care.

Living Off the Land

Children from a local tribe watch as participants in an IMB jungle training program learn how to butcher a caiman, a species of small alligator in the Amazon Basin. 

Photo © 2013 IMB / Rebecca Springer

They suspected a lot of this when they asked for the job.

“When we were looking through available [IMB] jobs,” Brad recalls, “we specifically asked to look at the hardest ones, the ones no one else wanted. Some of these jobs had been on the books for four or five years because no one else wanted them.

But moving their kids to a difficult and even dangerous environment wasn’t a decision the Connellys made easily.

“I was thinking a lot about my family and how this will work out,” Brad says. “One morning I was reading through the Bible about Abraham sacrificing Isaac. I was praying and I just felt like God asked me, ‘Would you do that and not ask any questions?’”

As a mom, Carissa had to come to terms with the threats she knows her kids will face with this life.

“In the beginning, I felt like I’m dragging them away from everything and putting them in a place where there’s malaria and dengue and all these sicknesses and no doctors,” Carissa says. “But the Lord had to teach me, do I trust Him? Because He loves my kids more than we could ever love them. If He’s not big enough to take care of them, who can?”

Washing Up

Missionary Carissa Connelly* washes clothes by hand in the river running alongside the jungle training camp.

Photo © 2013 IMB / Rebecca Springer

“It’s not just Brad’s call [to missions],” she continues. “It’s not just my call. It’s our family’s call. Sometimes the call to follow Jesus is painted as something very nice and pretty, but there’s a price. He says, ‘Pick up your cross and follow me, and you will suffer.’ That’s just part of it.”

The Connellys know that not all their stateside friends and family members understand their decision to move to a potentially dangerous place. But knowing God has called her family has kept Carissa confident in her family’s direction.

“Will they miss out on some stuff? Probably,” she says. “Will they get sick? Absolutely. But our kids are really blessed to grow up in the ministry and to know God as their Healer, as their friend and their everything.”

“You know, if the Lord wants to protect my kids, He will,” Brad added. “And we’re going to ask Him to do that. But if He wants me to lay them on an altar … to the American mind I know how that sounds, but I feel like that’s what He asked of us.”

In the face of uncertainty and risk, the Connellys look forward to sharing the Gospel with people who currently live with no eternal hope, understanding that while God’s plan may not be the safest place, it is always the best place.

“God is in control, and to me, everything else is fluff,” Brad says. “It’s like God just says, ‘There’s the rope. Are you willing to jump and hold on?’ And He’s going to swing it hard all over the place, and I’m going to get hurt and things are going to happen, but I just have to trust Him. He’s got this. I feel like we’re going to have the opportunity to see God do some amazing things.”

*Name changed

‘What our children needed’

CARACAS, Venezuela – Mike Bennett sat calmly in the parents’ assembly, facing a battle he knew he might not win.

Bennett, an International Mission Board missionary in Caracas, had been hosting talks in local high schools on values. Each talk included a Gospel presentation, and the mother sitting across from him wasn’t happy about it.

“My family is very devoted to the Virgin [Mary],” she said. “I know that you people are evangelicals, and you’re coming to this school to try and convert my kid. I’m pretty suspicious about you.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Bennett responded. “All I’m asking you to do is give me one shot, and you can come and listen. If you think that it’s inappropriate or we’ve done something to damage your child, I won’t ask to come back again.”

The mother agreed.

The following week, a visiting volunteer working with Bennett gave a talk on self-esteem for the students. The discussion focused on one’s identity in Christ, and the speaker clearly laid out the plan of salvation. Afterward, Bennett braced himself for the mother’s anger.

He was surprised when she hugged him instead.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “This is one of the best things I’ve ever heard, and that’s exactly what our children needed to hear. You’re welcome here any time you want to come.”

PHOTO: “Venezuelan students walk to class in Caracas.” 

Check out more stories about Latin America here.

Catching the Vision

Check out the following article about some of what God is doing in Peru. It's impossible to talk to the Peruvians who are seeking to go, and the missionaries that are facilitating the process, and not get excited! They are all incredibly passionate about taking the Gospel to all peoples. It's awesome! 

Please be praying for the recent graduates of the mission training school as they seek God's direction, and for the Larners and many others who are working to mobilize Peruvians to the ends of the earth.

PERU: Catching the missionary vision

by Emily Pearson on November 21, 2011

LIMA, Peru – More and more, Peruvian believers are catching the missionary vision.

And as more Peruvian Christians answer God’s call to missions, Tommy and Beth Larner are helping prepare them for what they’ll face on the field.

The Larners, International Mission Board missionaries in Peru, work with a Peruvian organization called Perú a Las Naciones (Peru to the Nations), which prepares national believers to serve on the international mission field. Recently, the first graduates completed the organization’s seminary-style training program.

“We’re very much a part of it, but it’s clearly Peruvian,” said Tommy. “It’s not an IMB mission project. And that’s exciting, that it’s coming up out of the Peruvian believers, and we just have the joy of being a part of it.”

While completing the training program doesn’t automatically put Peruvian missionaries on the overseas field, it does bring them one big step closer. Some of the program’s graduates are still praying for God’s direction, but others already feel called to a specific country.

The Larners believe that getting the organization’s first trained missionaries on the field will inspire others to follow.

“Pray that Peruvian believers will see themselves in Christ as ones that God can effectively use to reach the nations,” said Tommy. “And [pray] also for them to see themselves as equal partners to reach out to the nations, that this is a global family working together.”

For more stories and information from the Americas check out:
http://americanpeoples.imb.org/