I always hate to interrupt, intense conversations like this, but, in the interest of our finishing before the luncheon this noon, we'll start now. I hope that you can, reflect on some of the things you've already talked about, about how you were first influenced by, missionary contact or a contact with a source of truth beyond your own home. This morning's program is one that we've done before on faith stories. And in light of that, I'll remind you that next week will be another faith story of an individual, not a history of missions like at Faith First that's this morning. Our program will follow an outline that the presenters all are familiar with, so there won't be a lot of talking in between times.

But we hope that, you listen well, and we hope that we'll have some time for q and a at the very end. You'll hear from three missionaries and that's really the heart of our presentation, to hear from people who answered a call to serve vocationally and, as, missionaries and to to, recognize the kinds of things that drew them to be, missionaries and, what their mission ministry is right now. So let's pray first and then we'll hear, more. Thank you, father, for this morning's time together. Most of us have been able to gather to worship.

Thank you for that. Thank you that even in times of transition, you are with us. You are our guide. You are the one for whom we, want to share good news, whether it's across our back fences at home or around the world. And as we hear, from a variety of missionary presenters this morning, may we, understand that you're still at work in many different ways.

And, as being a part of Faith Church, we can participate in that worldwide connection. So thanks for being together. Speak to us through your holy spirit from the people that present in your name. Amen. Our first presenter is actually, the newest member of our missionary family.

Emily Nussbaum has been a part of Faith Church for a while, but, has recently joined the missions family. So listen to Emily's story. Be thinking about how you can, respond to that. So Emily. K.

I'm short, but not quite this short. So hold on. Yes. Hi. My name is Emily Nussbaum.

I'm really happy to be here today and talk to you about my calling to missions, and also kind of a rededication over and over, to missions. Quick introduction. My husband, James, and I have been attending Faith Church since 02/2012. And we we started coming here after we got married and found out after we started coming here that James's parents actually came here when they first got married and James was dedicated as a baby here. So it was kind of a fun, connection to Faith Church that we didn't even know about.

We were high school sweethearts and grew up on the South Side Of Indianapolis. Daughters Hannah and Ellie are sitting in the back. They're not making eye contact with me, but, there's a smile. My daughter Hannah just finished the third grade at the Oaks Academy, and then my daughter Ellie just finished the second grade. We have loved this church.

We have loved being a part of this, community here at Faith Church, and have really loved also the emphasis on missions. So in order for me to tell you about my calling to ministry, I want to give you some background of my faith story. So I grew up with a great family, like I said, on the South Side Of Indy. But we didn't go to church, didn't see the need for church, and didn't give much thought to God or to Jesus. I tried to be good.

My family was good. And I thought that was sufficient to go to heaven. Looking back, my parents were really strict, which I hated at the time. But when all of my friends started getting into drinking and partying, I knew that they would ground me for a lifetime if I ever got caught, and so I started hanging out with the church kids. And that was really the first time that I, had heard about who Jesus was and what he did on the cross.

But I wasn't aware of the personal decision that I needed to make, but I think that I thought, I'm good enough. I'm a Christian. Through a long and unconventional, but clearly the Lord's working, I truly began to walk with the Lord during my years at college at Ohio University. My plan going into college was to party, to make my best friends right away, live out every dream I had for myself, and basically just live out what was portrayed on TV. But what I quickly learned was I hated partying, and I was the most lonely I had ever been.

Over time, my freshman year, and through the loneliness, the Lord worked on my heart. I realized that I wanted God to be real. However, I only believed in parts of the Bible that fit into my lifestyle and made me feel good, but ignored the parts that challenged the way that I was living. I don't have a specific moment that I can say. I said a prayer of conversion, but I do remember praying every night, the fall of my freshman year, something along the lines of, dear Lord, I'm not sure I totally believe in you, but I really want to.

Will you please convince my heart? And I I probably said an iteration of that prayer for two, three months every night. The closest thing I do have to a moment of conversion was over Christmas break my freshman year. I remember I was, reading one of my mom's old bibles from growing up, and I was reading it at the beginning of Genesis because like every other book in all of history of time, you start at the beginning, and so that is where I was opening this book. And I remember just being like, there is a lot in here that I I don't understand, there's a lot that I don't agree with, but there was something in me they said, but this is the source of truth, and I'm gonna take this as truth and I'm gonna begin to wrestle with it from there.

Great growth in my Christian faith through CRU, or Campus Crusade for Christ. However, they were also marked with a lot of grief. My aunt and both of my grandparents passed away. My parents were both diagnosed with cancer, and I was faced with the reality of what happens to believers and nonbelievers after death. And this was a lot to wrestle through in a young faith.

I remember I started to talk about this with my family, and they were so disappointed in me. I remember my parents feeling like they had failed because I had decided to base my life on the Bible. Towards the end of college, I felt the Lord leading me to spend a year serving in India with crew. I remember my parents were very opposed of this. James and I had also been dating for five years.

At the time, he went to Northwestern. I was at OU, so we're about nine hours apart. And I did decide again, would Jesus, would you be enough when I'm moving across the world, and creating even distance for us? I also did not want to move to India. I pretty much hated everything about India.

I had to I went over and visited for a week to see if I could survive there, and I had decided no. But I hated being hot, I hated the crowds, I didn't really love the food. I don't like getting sick, like basically anything that entails living in India. And I I actually have this moment in my head, this memory of my plane taking off from India to come back to The States after just a week, and I was looking out the window and thinking, I will never see that land again. Good.

But the Lord has a sense of humor. And I felt this nudge from him saying, you gotta go. You gotta go. And I realized that my only reason for not going to India was because I was afraid, and I was not trusting that Lord would care the Lord would care for me, and all of my fears. For the record, my other option was Ljubljana, Slovenia, which is this, like, idyllic European country.

I really wish the Lord would have led me there, but, I obviously wouldn't have felt the need for him as much for there him there either. So I begrudgingly said yes to India. But God is faithful and he has routinely and abundantly taken care of all my needs. And my year in India was one of my favorite. I ended up thriving, living there, and felt closer to the Lord than ever before.

Halfway through the year, James flew over and proposed. We all joke that it was, mostly to make sure I came home, because he knew how much I was loving living there. Track with my plan. My my plan was to go to grad school for speech pathology, and to get a job doing that. However, I continue to feel this nudge from the Lord to think about full time missions.

An opportunity presented itself for me to join the Indianapolis crew staff team and serve on the universities here in Indianapolis. Again, I was faced with the question of if Jesus would be enough, when I had had a plan. I had had more, goals of more financial stability than raising support. It just wasn't my plan. But I thought back to my experience in college and how the Lord had worked in my life and how integral it was for me to meet with crew staff who encouraged me in my walk with God.

I didn't have the foundation at home, and I was blessed to be discipled my sophomore through senior year. I decided to join the Indy Metro team and spent a few years as campus staff focusing mostly at IUPUI in Butler. In 02/2014, I was challenged to consider taking the team leader role, which entails leading all the staff and overall direction in of the ministry in Indianapolis. At the same time I was processing this transition. James and I found out we were unexpectedly pregnant with our first child.

And I had to decide if Jesus would be enough when the fears of a new position and a new season of life and a baby were overwhelming. I somehow made it through those years with my girls being born and continuing to work full time, and one of the sweetest gifts and unexpected gifts during that season, was the ministry of having so many college students in our home. We had so many come in and help babysit and take care of our girls and share a meal and see the chaos that we do not have it all together. We're quite a mess, actually. And and so it was it was just a really sweet season.

And my girls have actually been flower girls in two of my former students' weddings, and it has just been such a gift, to me. Now an also unexpected part of my story with missions is that I've felt the Lord telling me to give it all up a couple of times. The first time was in pre pandemic twenty twenty. We were pregnant with our third daughter, and I was very overwhelmed and realized my heart had been hardening towards the Lord. I didn't want to listen to him when he was saying, it's time to walk away.

But the point of me telling you this was I loved my job. I found so much joy, community, and identity in what I got to do. I wrestled with the Lord and could not understand why he would ask me to give it all up. But I felt, once again, God saying, hey, choose me in the unknown and not what you have planned. In the unknown and not what you have planned.

So a long story, but we ended up losing that pregnancy, late into my pregnancy. And, but I actually had written a resignation letter and emailed it the day before we lost our daughter. I will never fully understand why that happened. But I had realized that in me giving my job to the Lord, I realized how tightly I had been holding on to it. I realized how tightly I had been holding on to it.

I had made an idol out of my job. I liked what I could do for people, and I began to rely on myself far too much. It's a scary and ugly thing that can creep up on people in full time ministry. You can know all the answers and do all the right things, but your heart can be far from the Lord. Your walk with God can get really confusing when you are talking about him all day long, but not personally connecting with him.

Through losing our daughter and then the realities of the pandemic, I connected so closely with the Lord. And through me being totally surrendered to him, he made a way for me to step back into my position with crew. Now, I wish I could say I learned my lesson and didn't let the routine of life and time make me forget what I had learned. But there were two other significant seasons where I feel the Lord was saying to me, Emily, this is my ministry. This is not your ministry.

Will you give it up for me? Last summer, I felt the Lord nudge me into a new season of ministry, and I left my staff team who I adored. I ended up stepping into, a new role called admissions director role with CREW. And this role allows me to connect with all the staff and students in Indiana, Illinois, and Louisville, and help coach them and give overall direction to the ministry and help just build strategy on how to best have the gospel go forth on their campuses. And what ultimately led me to take this role was the impact it has on students.

You will not convince me that there is a better time for a person to grow in their faith other than college. I know there are, but you will not convince me. It's the first time that they are away from their family, and they are having to make decisions on what to base their life on. I think back to my freshman year when I so badly wanted God to be real. Known where to turn after, and to learn, and to grow.

I was so thankful for CREW on my campus and their staff. I have enjoyed settling into this new role and have loved being able to hear how Jesus is working on campuses all around the the Midwest. If you talk to people in campus ministry right now from all over the country, they they all will say something similar of that we're all sensing something is happening on college campuses right now. There is a new openness to the gospel that we have not experienced in a long time, and it is really fun to be a part of. And while I'd love that God has allowed me to be a part of that right now, I hope and pray that I would remember that this is the Lord's ministry.

This is not my ministry. He doesn't need me, but he has allowed me to be in this position during this season of my life to glorify him. My job is not my identity, but I pray I always remember that Jesus and only Jesus is where my identity comes from. Thanks. Thanks, Emily, for that, snapshot of how you recall and what your ministry is now.

I should have mentioned that our program this morning will proceed without too many announcements. We'll hear from the eyes ringers in a few minutes and, from Tom and Julie Minor by video, and we'll intersperse that with some explanations from the go team about what happens in missions here at Faith Church and from Karen Lindell about the, missionary care aspect of our programs. And I'm gonna just share a bit of how missions has worked at Faith Church over these many years. If you look up the screen, you'll see, some some the distribution of where missionaries are located right now, across the world. When Faith Church began in 1964, it began with 12 missionary families in many different parts of the world, and that has grown over the years to more than 40 missionary families who've been involved at Faith Church.

No, I'm sorry. A 40 missionaries have been involved at Faith Church in 40 different countries. So it would be even spread further across the world than this, now. But over the years, we've had a chance to see, missions mature at Faith Church from the kind of individual missionaries that would go out on their own, to gradually then sharing the the responsibilities with national leaders and passing the baton to, to those national leaders in, their countries of service. You may imagine that that was the way that, our relationships with the strategic partners began.

When Chet and Doris Woods spent twenty years at NEGST, the Nairobi evangelical graduate school of theology. We saw the value of that and established a relationship with, NEXT. Many of you probably know Steve and Nancy Wooden and remember they're spending time at, KTS, Keith Theological Seminary, and that, responsibility is passed to us as a strategic partner. Some of you may remember Paul Sanders and Agnes who invested many years at, ABTS, Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. We saw that mature to, relationship with, their seminary.

And if you're here in the last month, you'll recognize that that relationship has grown so that the Easter offering this year is being used to help facilitate a retreat for KTS staff and faculty that have been troubled by this, Ukraine Russian war for the last three years to retreat to Poland where the, ABTS staff will lead a retreat. And, Alyssa Dunker from NEGST will be there to help counsel some of the trauma that's been incurred by the, KTS staff. So that's, again, an example of how mission has matured here at Faith Church over the years. It stayed, focused on reaching the unreached. And particularly, if you can see the map here, there are a lot of missionaries that have served in those countries, North Africa, Morocco, The Middle East, Turkey, Pakistan, Japan.

Over those years, those unreached peoples have been reached by missionaries from from Faith Church. And there are a number of chapters of Faith's mission story that are not unique, but really strengths of faith's, story. You'll hear more about designated giving from Brandy in a few minutes. Rather than just pouring money into a general missions fund, faith church members give individually to individual missionaries, and by that way, develop personal relationships with those missionaries over the years that I think is really a strength of the the missions program. Many missionaries have experienced the benefit of, women's global prayer, a meeting twice a month where women gather either live or, zooing to pray for those missionaries by using their prayer letters.

And many missionaries will mention that as something that has strengthened their their ministry. Some of you have participated in, learn and visit, learning visits, vision trips we used to call them, to, missionaries and to strategic partners that has been transforming in their lives. I can look back on my family's life and recognize a number of those trips that have changed our lives and the lives of our children and now our grandchildren who are looking to see, the same kind of vision as they see how God's at work in countries beyond their own. And, the last chapter would be, missionary care. You probably saw the table when you walked in.

You'll hear more from, from Karen later about how missionary care works here at Faith Church. It's not unique, but again, we try to designated designate teams of people that are committed to pray for and care for missionaries, in their needs as time goes by. So looking back over this, history of faith, faith missions, I think we can be gratified that God is at work through that missionary family much as they are today. That the, God's work is being accomplished through, these people as well as it is accomplished across our back fences at home as we share and are sent to our our, our neighbors in that way. And that, people like, Chettin Doris Wood, Stephen Nancy Wooden, the, the Sanders have been a example of how mission has matured and developed into relationships from our church to their ministry, their ministry partners.

And the missionaries we're hearing today, both Emily, Nussbaum and the Eisingers are homegrown missionaries. They grew up and showed their ministry gifts, before they left for missions. And Tom and Julie Minor are the same kinds of, missionaries that we'll be, sharing, later on. One of the things that's unique this year though is we've asked, Steve Eisinger to share what's really critical for us to understand about how missions works and that's the biblical mandate of missions. A challenging task for Steve to do, but he'll be sharing with Joan a little bit later about their ministry.

But Steve, share about God's plan for us in scripture. Well, a couple of months ago, I received a message from Phil Johnston, which roughly said, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to explain the biblical basis of missions in five to seven minutes. Well, even though this sounded to me like mission impossible, I did accept and I'm thankful that Phil wants us to focus on this. For I'm persuaded that I need and that all of us need God's word to constantly renew our hearts with God's passion for the lost and unreached peoples of the world. And the good news is that as we draw near to God, this missions renewal can continually happen for the Bible reveals that missions begins with God himself.

Our God is a missionary God. In fact, theologian John Stott says, we see this in the very first words of the bible, in the beginning God. He says, these words supply the key that opens our understanding to the bible as a whole. They tell us that the religion of the bible is a religion in which God takes the initiative. He always makes the first move.

He is always there in the beginning. Before we existed, God took action. Before we decided to look for God, God had already been looking for us. The Bible isn't about people trying to discover God, but about God reaching out to find us. And even just two chapters later in Genesis three fifteen, just after we heard the bad news of man's rebellion against God, we learn of God's merciful plan that one day the offspring of a woman, Jesus Christ, would one day crush the head of the serpent, Satan, and would save mankind from death and eternal separation from God.

And then we see that God amazingly plans to use people who are weak and sinful to carry out his plan of salvation to the whole world. In Genesis chapter 12, verses one to three, we read, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. All the families of the earth. Abraham and Israel were not chosen by God for their own sakes, but for a much wider purpose, the salvation of the world.

Now, how is this to happen? Well, Israel was to be the recipient and guardian of God's special revelation to the world, the channel through which our redeemer Jesus Christ was to enter human history and God's servant and witness to the nations. While I think it's right to say that Israel's missionary activity in the Old Testament was was largely centripetal, that is the nations were to come and see and learn of God's saving action through Israel as opposed to centrifugal or today we are to now go and tell. We hear of God's heart for the nations in many many other Old Testament passages, far too many to mention this morning. But here are two examples, Isaiah forty nine six, which is sometimes called the Great Commission of the Old Testament, God says, it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel.

I will make you as light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Or Psalm 67 verses one to three, may God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let all the peoples praise you, oh God. Let all the peoples praise you. And then with the coming of our God and savior Jesus Christ, we see God himself reaching out to find us, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

And then through his death and resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit and the formation of the church, we begin to see God's promises fulfilled as the early church sends out missionaries to proclaim the gospel and people from every nation are brought into the worldwide family of God. Listen now again to God's heart for the nations and how he calls his church to be involved in his missionary plan. From the last words of Jesus on earth to his disciples and to us as well, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all of that I have commanded you, and behold I am with you always to the end of the age. Acts one eight, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

From the apostle Paul in Romans 10 verses fourteen and fifteen, how will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

And then from the apostle John, we see a heavenly vision of the ultimate fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham to multiply his descendants and bless all nations. Revelation seven nine and ten, after this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. This then is a very, very brief reminder of the biblical basis of missions and the basis of the mission statement of Faith Church, which is written on the wall opposite this room, which says, our mission, and I believe we are truly blessed if we accept it, is declaring the glory of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Thank you. Thanks, Eve.

I said in the first hour we needed at least one drinking out of a fire hose experience for a program to be, legitimate. We're gonna hear from Tom and Julie Minor just in a moment by video. I asked if they might be available for our q and a, after the video, but they had the audacity to say, no. We're gonna be in church that hour. So we all, if there are some questions, ask them at the end.

We can probably find answers, but, let's hear from Tom and Julie. It's great to have the opportunity to share with you about our ministry. We're Tom and Julie Minor, and we serve with Jesus Home Project, which is a ministry of crew. Faith has played a major role in us being in the ministry today. We are both working in Indianapolis when we met, and I had already been join already been attending faith church, and then Tom joined right before we got married in 1985.

At that point, I was supporting some missionary couples, and then Tom also joined in that support. Over the next several years, we were excited to give and hear stories of what God was doing and regularly participating in the missions conferences and getting to know missionaries. And each year, there was a call at the end of the missions conference to say, is anyone feeling called to full time missions? And we felt each year that really that wasn't us. But we were happy to continue to pray and to give to to missions.

But then God started working on our hearts, and he said, what about you? And both of us kind of felt that leading together, but we put some limits on God. And we said, you know, we're not really open to raising support. So we were only I was only looking at paid ministry positions. Well, then God used the lottery to change our hearts.

And we shared about this in a faith podcast we did a few years ago. I was at work, in our office one day talking to some of my coworkers, and they were asking the question, if you won the lottery, would you continue to work at your job? And my immediate response was no. I would I'd leave this job and I would go into full time missions work. And at that moment, just God just grabbed my heart.

I had to step away. I had to go into my own office and just process that with God because he was saying, why won't you trust me to provide for you? And basically, from that moment on, we were open to supported positions. So this was around late nineteen ninety four, early '19 '90 '5. So since we supported many missionaries through Faith Church, we had lots of connections.

So we began to inquire about opportunities that may fit our gifting. In late ninety five, I had a trip to Orlando for my job. I took that opportunity to visit cruise crew headquarters and meet with leaders of Jesus film project. And that's where God kinda made the connection in my heart to say, here's where your experience could really be helpful for the Mission of Jesus film. And I came home very excited a couple months later, and then together we went a couple months later and, learned more about what this would mean and what it would look like to live in Orlando.

So after that trip, we prayed. We said, ask God. We said, we think that this is where you're leading us. But if it's not, please close the door. Otherwise, we're gonna walk through it.

Well, we joined a crew in 1996 with three little kids, and we raised support in about six months, seven months, I think. I don't know what it was. And we have often said that it was such an advantage for us to be a part of a church that already was familiar with missions and very supportive of them. Yes. So I remember one of our first appointments was with Glenn and Ina Kamateram.

And they had hosted us for dinner and afterwards, Glenn said, we're gonna support you, but if you wanna practice your presentation, we're happy to hear it. And we kinda laughed to ourselves, but it was a really big encouragement for us. And they're still great friends, faithful supporters, and lead our care team. And we're so appreciative of them and many others who joined our team right at that time and continue to support and pray for us, as well as a lot of people who've joined along the way. What a blessing that is to us.

And we still consider Faith Church as our home church. Mhmm. So we've now served with, Jesus' phone for over twenty nine years. Tom began as a partnership coordinator working with the different ministries that we're connected with, and then he moved to his current position as chief operating officer in 02/2010. I work in, LDHR on the sending and transitions team.

So over the years, we've seen God do amazing things through Jesus Film Project, and we're just privileged to be a small part of what he's doing. We wouldn't be able to continue serving without the prayers and the support of Faith Church and many others. We know you pray for us. You send us cards. You give us opportunities to share at missions conference about what God's doing.

Stay connected with us and just encourage us in so many ways. You are such a blessing to us, and we're very thankful for you. So thanks for letting us share our story. God's blessing to all of you, and thank you for being a part of what God's doing. Thank you.

If you have a chance to respond, thank them for participating this way. I'm sorry they wouldn't be able to share some of the things that Jesus Film has been doing. Many of you have probably heard about the 2,000 plus languages that Jesus Film has the gospel of Luke has been translated into. And also the American sign language done by signers on the Jesus film. The latest project, I'm not sure that Tom and Julie had a lot to do with the decision, but it's going to be animated.

I guess animated films are now very popular in the younger age group, so, you can pray for that. And, I'm sure that I'll be reporting more about that in the not too distant future. So, Randy will share next about, some details about from the, global outreach team and, how we can be responding to that. Thanks. Well, here's another map, shows kind of the same information except it's got names on it.

And, so you can kinda see where our current missionaries and strategic partners are are based. Go ahead to the next one. My job is to talk about giving to missions at faith because it's a little different than in some places, at least where I've been in contact with where, the missions committee decides the whole missions budget and who is supported and who isn't. Here, it's a little more personal, and we have, some items that are back on the table there that we have a a missions family giving guide that that shows you all the, people you can designate money to and and a giving form that I will talk about. Next.

At at faith, if you want to support a particular missionary, you need to designate a portion of your offering to go to that missionary. And and we do that on purpose to encourage personal relationships so that you you're not just giving to some anonymous pot of money that gets spread out by the missions committee. You're giving to a particular missionary. And I think it has has worked to develop to help develop personal relationships. So, we have two categories of giving.

You can give designate to specific men missionaries, organizations. We support serve and learn trips that way. You have to designate money to them. Or you you can also designate gifts to a general missions fund, and a in a little bit, I'll tell you about what the general missions fund is used for. To designate your giving, there's a few different ways.

You have to choose a specific missionary or a partner, but you can fill out a form that's available. It's available on that back table or in the office and at the welcome center on Sunday mornings. So there's a form you can fill out. You can email finance@faithchurchindy.com with with a pledge and a frequency, monthly, yearly, every week, or you can designate your your giving on push pay, our electronic giving platform. Any of those will work.

I I'll make a special note about the Easter offering. That's a onetime yearly thing that we do, so it's it's not a a monthly thing. It's just a onetime appeal for special project. Next, a picture of the push pay screen. So if you if that's not familiar to you, Britney can help with push pay if you need help with that, or your friends that have done it, whichever.

Go ahead. Specific uses of the general missions fund. This is a fund you can designate to as well, and it's used for several things. Special projects of our missions family. For example, we've used it to publish a version of the of the bible that was translated by one of our families, with Wycliffe.

So we've used it for a printing project. We've used it to fund, special travel for a special project, things like that. Also emergency needs, if if there's an emergency medical need that's not covered by insurance or or, some, particular thing. Occasionally, that fund gets to be large, and when it gets to be large, we do a general distribution to the entire admissions family. We might designate 500 or a thousand dollars to be spread around the missions family if we haven't had other special projects.

We fund for newly commissioned missionaries. We funds a portion of the one time expenses, set up expenses for them. Special events, missionaries can attend men's and women's retreat and will pay for it. We fund, missionary kids to attend student events, and we for, missionary children, we fund attendance at the Urbana Missions Conference, which is this year. So, it's coming up.

Out of that fund, we pay for missions house and vehicle maintenance. We adjust, serve and learn trips if they've come in over or under, their their fundraising goal. We use a little bit of it, not a whole lot, for go team member education and development. That's occasional. And sometimes we bring in special events and speakers for the for the benefit of the entire congregation.

So that gets paid out of this fund. And missionary care is not covered by the general missions fund. We actually have a budget, a church budget line item for missionary care. So that, missionary care, pastor missions trips is not paid out of this general fund. That's a church budget line item.

Next. If you have questions about this, here's the go team. I'm I'm Randy, and you can see me or any of the other members of that global outreach team if you have questions about giving or the projects we special projects we support or the missionaries we support. So thanks. Thanks, Randy.

We've already heard from Steve, but we wanna hear from our third missionary reps this time. Steve and Joan have been with the church for a number of years. We'll let them tell that story, but, join us. Steve, Joan. Okay.

Oh, I gotta get up here. Maybe I shouldn't have told you to take that one. Okay. Oh, no. I need that one.

Well, as, most of you know, we are Stephen Joan Isinger. We've been connected with a mission agency called ReachGlobal for the past thirty eight years. Even though we are now officially retired, we are serving as ReachGlobal retired staff. From 1987 to 1990, we served in the country of Germany, then 1990 to 02/2004 in the country of Turkey, And then from 02/2004 to the present, our ministry has been in the Indianapolis area. The common thread in all these places of ministry has been a focus on evangelism and discipleship primarily among Turkish and Turkish speaking people and other Muslim immigrants.

Why this focus? Well, the story that story has a long and gradual development and Joan is first gonna tell her part. I can't remember a specific moment in my life when I experienced a call to missions, but I feel like it was more like many smaller calls that I said yes to, by God's grace. I had the great privilege of growing up in a Christ centered and very missions minded home. I gave my heart to the Lord when I was four or five years old in a good news club that my parents hosted in our home.

There we weekly sang the song, Be a missionary every day. Tell the world that Jesus is the way. My parents also regularly hosted missionaries who stayed in our home or had a meal with us. I'd love to see their slides and hear about what they had been doing. We had week long mission conferences at our church each year too.

I was particularly struck by the story of one man who was working with Muslims in India for forty years I decided that I definitely would not want to be a missionary to Muslims. Another person who impacted me was a missionary to Greece who spoke at summer camp I attended. I rededicated my life to the Lord at that same camp when I was 12. Well, it was at this time that my brother and his family left for Ethiopia to serve with the Sudan Interior Mission. When I was 16, my parents arranged for me to spend the summer with him there.

That was before short term mission trips were a thing, but my parents courageously sent me off. I loved my time there. The food, the language, the people, the culture were all so interesting to me. There was a leprosy hospital and an eye clinic on their compound, and I was invited to observe and participate in the activities there. The doctor told me he thought I'd be a good nurse, so that started me down that career path.

After graduating from high school, I enrolled at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago as a foreign missions major. My study of God's word and experiences there propelled me along the way towards my goal of missionary nursing. And after graduation, I immediately began nurses training here in Indianapolis. It was here at IU that I also met Steve through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and first began attending Faith Church in 1976, back when it was in Broad Ripple. Not long into nursing school, I realized that if I was going to succeed in that field, I was going to have to eat, sleep, and drink nursing for the next few years.

The caring side of nursing came easy to me, but not the science part. I remember feeling afraid and very overwhelmed as I returned to school after a break and singing tearfully to the Lord as I drove towards Indy, the song, I am willing, Lord, to be just exactly what you want me to be. It was another time of surrender to God's plan for my life. Meanwhile, my heart was being knit together with Steve's as we corresponded during his time serving with Operation Mobilization in Europe and with the London City Mission. He began sharing with me his burden for the Muslims he was meeting and particularly the Turkish people.

I must admit that I did not instantly share his enthusiasm. But as I said yes to his marriage proposal, I also said yes to this new direction from the Lord. And the Lord poured his love into my heart for the Muslims that we began meeting as we prepared for ministry and lived and worked in Germany and Turkey over the next seventeen years. Interestingly, I was not able to use my nursing skills during our time overseas, except for patching up our own children. But when we returned to The States in 02/2004, I took a refresher course and began working at the Good Samaritan Health Clinic, downtown for some extra money to help with our son's college expenses.

This clinic serves low income patients and those without health insurance. At the same time, God introduced us to a Turkish speaking unreached people group that was, had been settled right here, around Faith Church as refugees. Their first greatest need was to learn English, and so faith international English classes were born. But many of them also needed health care, and they didn't have health insurance. So I became both their interpreter and their nurse as they visited our clinic where Phil Johnston, by the way, was a volunteer doctor and still is.

I remember sitting at a stoplight one day and just being overwhelmed with God's amazing ways and how he wove together all the strands of my life to accomplish his purposes. What an awesome God. So now when young folks seem discouraged by things not working out quite as they had planned, I tell them, don't worry. God never wastes anything. As it says in Romans eight twenty eight, all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.

Well, like Joan, I have to say there was not one specific moment when I experienced a a call to missions, but it was something that god gradually revealed to me, which then developed into a conviction that this is what I must do and nothing else. Looking back at my childhood, I believe there were two factors that influenced me. First of all, I was a pastor's kid, a PK, and I was brought up in the context of the church, and that was a relatively positive experience. Secondly, I was taught by my parents to have a respectful attitude toward people who were different from me as they invited African seminary students to our home, and I had the opportunity to meet them personally. But even though I was raised in a religious home, I was not raised in a gospel centered home.

My father was a pastor of a mainline church, and I don't recall having the gospel clearly explained to me as a child. Later, though, while in high school, god brought another PK into my life whose family introduced me to Christ and helped me get connected to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship when I began studying at Indiana University. Through InterVarsity, I was then introduced to the world of missions and God's heart for the world, especially the unreached and neglected Muslim world. This came through an adult graduate student, a man who was serving with a missions agency called Operation Mobilization, and he was studying for an advanced degree so he could go back and continue teaching at the University of Shiraz in Iran, in order to be a witness to for Christ to Iranian Muslims. He then discipled a small group of us where we learned more about unreached Muslim people groups and short term mission opportunities.

So I ended up serving ten days with OM in Mexico, then two months in Europe where our outreach was to Turkish Muslim immigrants. And then God led me to an evangelism training program with a group called the London City Mission. After that year in Europe, with many rewarding experiences and positive feedback from others, I came to the inward conviction that unless God would stop me, I was headed back over, overseas to serve him. But before this could happen, God knew that I needed to take some important next steps. First of all, because of my weak church background, I needed to learn the important lesson that it was the local church that sent out missionaries, and my subjective call to missions needed to be affirmed or not affirmed objectively by church leadership.

Secondly, God knew I needed to find a wife who didn't just want to settle down in suburban Indianapolis. Well, in God's good providence, I met this attractive inter varsity nursing student at IPY who also felt called to missions and just happened to be part of Faith Church. After Joan and I were married in 1979, became part of the Life of Faith Church, we began to seek God together for our next, missions preparation steps, and it began became obvious that I needed more biblical and missions education. So we moved to the Chicago area, and I began studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Another turning point in our mutual missions call came just before the last year of my seminary training when we both took a six week training program in Muslim evangelism in New York City.

After six weeks learning from experienced missionaries among Muslims and after experiencing warm hospitality from a wide variety of Muslims, we came away sensing that, yes, God could use us to serve in the Muslim world. So after graduating from Trinity in 1985, we came back to Faith Church where I served as a missions intern. And after applying with the Evangelical Free Church Mission, which is now called ReachGlobal, we along with two other families were sent out by Faith Church in 1987 to start reaching out to Turkish Muslim immigrants in Germany. Joan has highlighted some of the mission's journey after that, but I wanna finish by highlighting a scriptural promise that has kept our call to missions alive over all the years. Psalm eighty six nine and ten says, all the nations you have made will come and worship before you, oh lord.

They will bring glory to your name where you are great and do marvelous deeds. You alone are god. Thanks, Steve and Joe. Among the threads that tie all these stories together are the connection with Faith Church. Many of these, couples grew up at Faith Church and have continued to minister.

So at the end, you'll hear from Karen about the missionary care. At the end, there's some handouts on the table back out that explain more of this. And in this room, there'll be a luncheon for some second generation missionary family here. Gladys, I'm sorry. David and Joy, Skinner, the the son of Cap and Gladys will be having a luncheon here.

So feel free to stay and learn more about their ministry after this, is over. Karen. Hi. I'm Karen Lindell. I'm on the missionary care committee, so I'm gonna talk about missionary care, which, goes beyond the financial support, other ways you can care and support missionaries.

So, I have different levels of, ways you can do that. And the first thing you can do is attend, go time events. Missionaries every, depends on the missionary, a few years, five years, I don't know exactly the the timeline. They'll have a go time event instead of having a a missionary conference where both many missionaries come in, they each have their own go time events and there'll be different events, focusing on that missionary. So just be going and attending those events, is supportive to the what they're doing and what they have to say.

Also, you can, participate in the, church, letter writing campaigns, especially Christmas. You'll see the table set up with with, sheets of papers, where you can write a short note, for the missionary, and they get sent out. And we often get, notes back from the missionary of their appreciation that so many people would take the time to just write them a short note. So that's two easy ways to, show support for for missionaries. You can also sign up for their individual newsletter.

Every missionary has a newsletter and prayer update they send out. They have their own list. Lots of them are right by email. Perhaps you've listened to the missionaries today, and you wanna get on their news, letter. There's a little blue sheet in the back and you can put your name on, your email, and the name of the missionary and, we'll make sure that they get it so they can get you on their list.

Perhaps you want to just take one and you want to learn about some other missionaries and decide whether you want to get on their newsletter. You can do that too. So here at Faith, every missionary has a news group. Group, and then the you'll, be get information or, about what's going on with the missionary. It's not like you'll get lots of information, but different events that might be happening.

You'll get informed of those. Sometimes they'll be already on the faith news. Sometimes they're not faith, on faith news because it's specific to a smaller group of people and so the news group might get that though. The news group is also used to help, with different needs for the missionary. There might be an emergency or special need, that the care team, might, go to the news group, which is a larger group of people to help support.

I know I am the care team leader for the Dunkers, and I used the missionary news group when they got evacuated out of Tanzania at COVID and, they had work permit issues, so they got evacuated And they were living in the mission's house for a while, but there was a limit to how long they could stay there. They needed to, get a home set up for them. And so I went to the to news group and put out requests for things that people weren't using, that they could donate to the Dunkers. And we pretty much furnished almost their whole house. You know, we had to they had to buy a few things of furniture, but, mostly everything, all the kitchen things were just people donating, through things they had.

Or I know one person, their, their mother had passed away so they had lots of dishes and things that they just passed along. So it can be used for things like that as well. It can also be used, when you're putting on a lunch, care team might be sponsoring a lunch and they need help supplying food. So things like that. But, that's how a news group might be used.

And then the the most, the next thing is to join a care team, and the care team is where you're getting the most involved. It's a committed group of individuals. They're working to keep, tabs on the missionary, really keep really up to date with what's going on and, try to really develop a personal relationship. Can you switch the slide now? So what do they do?

Well, you you learn about the missionary and their ministry. You you're committed to reading their prayer updates and you wanna be responding to them occasionally because you're really trying to develop a relationship with them, a personal relationship, getting to know them and them getting to know who you are as well. So you can do that through email and your responses, right? But also, through personal conversations when they're in town. You wanna greet them and and so you can get to know them.

As you develop that, relationship, maybe you wanna go to coffee or have lunch or do something like that and really kind of really, have that relationship with them. You wanna, participate and support their go times. Like I said, you have the care team, leader, is helping, to get those things going, and they need help to prepare for these events, whatever they might be. They don't do all the events but they're often working to get the luncheons going or dessert nights, things like that and so the care team leader needs help, they can't do it all and so they look to the care team first and what the care team can't handle then it goes to the news group. And then also any other special requests we like to send out birthday cards, sometimes Christmas gifts or Christmas cards, other gift packages, prepare and clean the missions house if they're coming in town and they're gonna stay, and that includes, also providing some food items for them because the admissions house doesn't keep food in there regularly, so breakfast items, snack items, maybe a dinner or two, to, help them feel welcomed and and, get them going as they they stay.

Also, at transportation, I didn't mention this the first time, but I know for the dunkers, when they would go back overseas, they would go back with lots of luggage, lots and lots of luggage. And we sometime would caravan multiple vehicles with their luggage to the airport. You know, Aaron, that's just what we had to do. And then there's other needs that are specific to missionaries. Every missionary is different, and they all have different needs.

Whether they're young and have young children, middle age, about to retire, different life stages, different countries, different ministries, so whatever, that makes sense for that missionary. And then lastly, and probably the most important, is to be praying for that missionary on a regular basis. And many care teams, well, some care teams have them monthly, have prayer times where they get together and pray for the missionary. Some are more sporadic, but at least every individual on the care team should be playing regularly for their missionary. So those are just some ways that you can care for a missionary, beyond just providing financial support.

So that's it. Thanks, Karen. And thank you all for being patient. This has kind of been an overall drinking from a fire hose experience. A lot of material to share in a short period of time.

This will continue. The, faith stories will continue next week, so don't, shy away from participating in that. And as I said, don't hesitate to stick around for the luncheon for the Skinner's right after this. Might have a couple minutes for questions if anyone had a burning question they wanted to ask one of the presenters here. If not, they'll stay here.

And, if you wanna approach, the Eisinger's or the Emily or, I guess you can't approach the Viners, but, they all I'm sure would respond to an email quickly. So well, thank you all. Let's pray before we go, our separate ways. Yes, father, we're grateful for the heritage of missions at Faith Church. Heritage that you have guided and that we have followed, and I pray that we would be faithful followers.

Thanks for the examples of the three missionaries who followed you into vocational ministry. Help us to be open to the way you guide us whether it's across our back fences or across the ocean or to a neighboring state. May we be obedient to your call. We give thanks in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you all again.