I’m always amazed at our Lord’s faithfulness in building relationships with new leaders and bringing new funding concepts, such as a New Donor Giving Match. We recently experienced a change with one of our major donors, a charitable foundation. SIU was assigned new champions to represent SIU within their organization. These champions guided the 2024 grant cycle and represented SIU as their board considered our request for funding to provide training among our partner networks in multiple Southeast Asia countries.

Do you sense it? Do you feel it? I have been talking to a lot of people recently and it feels like there is more hostility, conflict, and division than ever before. There has always been conflict, with disagreements and differences of opinion. However, there is so much anger and strong opinions right now, with lots of yelling and not a lot of listening. One of my close friends said recently, “When my family gets together, we don’t speak about faith, politics, or money. Those topics bring much intensity, and it usually doesn’t go well.” As a follower of Christ, I try to seek the Lord often on how to be a good listener and be gracious in my response – “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger”. This is hard to do right now with so much hate and division. What does our Lord Jesus say about this?

Many people come to us each year requesting to participate and experience one of our orality equipping and training events, known as “Bridges”. Unfortunately for those who ask, most of these training events are held overseas in difficult to reach, remote regions with one of our proven Asia or Africa partners. However, …drum roll please… we are holding a stateside training event in Joplin, MO in February! Here’s your chance to explore an interactive, knowledge-building, experience with the active living Word of God through oral Scripture engagement. Learn to tell stories the way Jesus, the Master Storyteller, did…

Each year, our proven partners in Asia and Africa tell us about opportunities to reach into areas that many people or organizations don’t have access to. These are places where cultural and linguistic barriers have isolated people from the transforming message of Jesus Christ, places where the message of Jesus has never been heard in the local heart language and cultural styles. Because of our Partners’ locations and close proximity to these hard-to-reach places of the world, they have access while others do not. Will you join us in reaching the least reached?

The Lord loves to grab our attention and has an interesting way of bringing things to us when we least expect them. We seek the Lord and ask for His clear wisdom, discernment and direction and He gives us opportunities that sometimes seem out of the blue. Recently one of those out of the blue opportunities came my way. A key leader from one of our supporting churches introduced me to Art Brooks from the “Rescuers” Radio Show. Art has a passion for sharing what he calls “the untold stories of society’s unsung heroes.” Art’s radio show tells those untold stories and shares what God is doing through some amazing people.