For the Long-Term

Did you know that Global Infusion also trains and sends long-term missionaries?  Every facet of foreign missions plays a different, yet vital role to seeing the Kingdom of God grow.  It takes the collaborative work of our indigenous Pastors and leaders, our short-term teams, and our full-time missionaries.

Chris Penner (Peru)

Full-time GI missionary

In 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, Paul writes, “to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”

Following Jesus is about a relationship with our Savior.  Missions and evangelism builds on the same principle: relationships.  To truly become “all things” to all people, it takes time.  Time invested in getting to know someone, a family, a community.  Time to study the Word of God.  Time to socialize.  Time to “do life” with people.

Global Infusion is growing every year.  In the near future, our long-term missions department will be growing rapidly.  Pray for us as we train future missionaries that will live in the countries where we work for an extended amount of time. Keep watching our newsletters as we announce our full-time missionaries being launched.

To those who have been donating and investing in GI over the years, it is because of you that we are sending out 25+ teams a year, and now are sending out long-termers.  Thank you!

I appeal to each of you now, as GI grows, to become a monthly partner, a giver into the good soil of our ministry. We have seen thousands of lives changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in order to grow the Kingdom of God, we must grow our resources, which means we need you.  Prayerfully consider donating to GI as we go into all the world, becoming all things to all people, so we can see lives changed for eternity.

Beyond The Closed Doors

Do you know what a closed nation is?  There are countries in the world that severely punish their citizens for accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior.  Punishment can include excommunication from family, loss of job, destruction of personal property, monetary fines, physical assault, imprisonment, and even death.  Closed nations are those that do not allow proselytization (converting, or attempting to convert someone from one religious belief to another).  The majority of the time, the anti-proselytizing laws target Christians primarily.

This, however, is contrary to the Word of God.  Mark 13:10 says, “And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” 

Revelation 5:9 says, “For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

The Bible clearly gives us both the mandate, and the authority to go into every nation and preach the Gospel. 

Over the last few months, Global Infusion has sent 3 mission teams into closed nations.  We are also going to be launching a long-term missionaries family into a closed nation in 2017. 

We are committed to going beyond the closed doors built by humans, and reaching the lost.  Some who we reach are entangled in a web of lies as they follow false religions and cults.  Some, have never heard of Jesus.  Both groups need the transformational power of the Gospel to infuse their lives and their nations.

Pray for Global Infusion, our missionaries, and our teams.  We frequently go to areas in the world where the Gospel is unknown, and strong repercussions await those who make decision for Jesus.  Your support, both in prayer and in finances, allow us to reach the unreached and go beyond the closed doors.

Summer of Salvations

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What a summer we have had!  Global Infusion has launched 15 mission teams in the last few months to many nations around the world.  We have ministered in the Philippines, India, Peru, Tanzania, Ghana, and also in the closed nations in the Middle East and Asia.  We have seen many salvations, and the Kingdom of God is growing.

Last month, I was leading a large team of 30 members to the country of Guatemala.  Most days we split into 5 groups: medical team, evangelism team, VBS team, construction team, and teaching English at our contact’s school.  We treated 870 patients, and shared the Gospel and prayed with them.  We set up these outreaches and clinics in a village, 2 garbage dumps, our contact’s church, and also at their school.  Every day the evangelism team went out we saw salvations – it was truly amazing to see what God did.

In the village we fed almost 60 families a 1-month supply of food, in addition to treating them medically and running a full-day VBS.  This is a remote area in the mountains where Global Infusion has planted, and built a church. 

It requires riding in the back of 4x4 pickup trucks in order to reach the people.  There were no Christians there 6 years ago, and now there is a church that can have over 100 people. 

Global Infusion is reaching the unreached, seeing the salvation of the lost, and making an impact all over the world.  We need you!  Pray for us, join us on the mission field, and consider becoming an monthly partner with GI to partner in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jonathan Haward, President & Founder

Global Infusion 

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Those Who Need It

Why did God send Jesus to us?  Was it so those who were already followers of God could learn more about the Law?  Was it to encourage those who already went to the synagogues to go more often? 

At one point in His earthly life, Jesus was asked why He spent so much time with sinners.  In Mark 2:17, the Bible says, “When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Jesus did not spend His time reaching out to the healthy.  He was reaching the unreached.  He did not focus on those who were saturated with Biblical teaching every week, He found the ones who had not heard of Him, or knew Him.  In addition to evangelism in unreached areas, two of Global Infusion’s latest mission teams were able to visit prisoners in prison.  They shared the Gospel, they prayed with and for the inmates, and lives were changed. 

Imagine living in a country that is not saturated with the Gospel, churches, Christian radio and TV.  It’s one thing to hear the message of salvation and continually reject it, it’s quite another to never have had the chance to accept Jesus. This is why Global Infusion goes to regions of the world where the name of Jesus is not known.  It is why we go beyond the capital cities to the remote villages and cities—it is not the healthy that need doctor, but the sick.

Pray for us this summer, we are about to launch out fifteen more teams around the world.  Each of them will be evangelizing, helping to meet physical needs through food and medicine, and reaching people in a personal way with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Pray for souls to be saved, and lives to be transformed.  We also need more people to partner with the vision of Global Infusion to reach people around the world with the Gospel.  Pray, and consider supporting GI on a monthly basis.  Your support allows us to send hundreds of people to the mission field every year, and see lives transformed for eternity. 

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A Hero Goes Home

The world tends to judge a person according to their actions, which is a direct reflection of their character.  Character is not developed in public, it is forged quietly in daily living.  A few weeks ago, Global Infusion received the shocking news that one of our Guatemalan contacts, Pastor Eliú Gutierrez, at the age of 46, went home to be with the Lord.  He leaves behind his wife, Betsy, and three young children: Sarah, Rebecca, and Jacobeam. 

Pastor Eliú’s family lives in a mountainous region of Guatemala, in a small city called La Union.  For years, Global Infusion teams have gone out to work with him as he strives to plant churches in unreached areas of his country.  If you have been with GI to Guatemala, you have met Pastor Eliú.  You have ridden on the back of a 4x4 pickup truck, and carried hundreds of pounds of food to deliver among impoverished families.  These families are typically coffee workers, and are paid $2/daily to harvest 100 lbs worth of coffee.  These families are also unemployed when coffee is out of season.  I personally have handed 50-lbs bags of groceries to a man who said thank you, because he, his wife and children had been existing on bananas and water for the last four months.

The goal of these remote village outreaches is not just to feed families, provide health care in the medical camps we facilitate, or play with the kids in our VBS’s, there is a bigger goal.  Pastor Eliú lived and worked among these people in order to bring them the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.  He planted churches so people could hear the Gospel, and be saved.  Meeting their tangible needs was just a key that unlocked the door to their heart.  

Please pray for this precious family, they fully intend to keep the work of their ministry going.  Pray for God’s strength and grace to cover them.  Global Infusion is setting up a fund to financially assist Pastor Eliú’s widow, Betsy, and also the children.  If you would like to donate, click the link below:

Support Gutierrez Family

(For “Designate my Donation” select Guatemala: Pastor Eliú’s Family)

A Hero In Heaven:  

Well done, my good and faithful servant

Pastor Eliú Gutierrez planted multiple churches in some of the most remote and impoverished regions of Guatemala.  He is truly a hero of the Christian faith, and God in His sovereign plan, called him home.  His absence is a tremendous loss to his own family, and the Global Infusion family.  We pray that the Holy Spirit comforts his wife and children, and the ministry they began will be sustained and grow. 

Thank you Pastor Eliú for living a life that has left a godly legacy.  We will see each other again, my brother.

Jonathan Haward, President & Founder

Global Infusion

If Everything Is Missions

For most of my life I’ve periodically heard the phrase, “you’re a missionary wherever you go.”  I suppose I understand the general meaning behind it, but over the course of leading 70 foreign mission trips I’ve encountered a lot of actual cross-cultural missionaries.  When I see what they deal with every day, and hear their stories, I’m not so sure that what I face when I’m home compares at all.  I can only imagine what it would be like to move my family to the other side of the planet, say goodbye to all friends and family, learn a new language, dress differently, eat strange food, battle exposure to foreign diseases, resort to sketchy transportation to get around, shop for the necessities of life with new currency, struggle with the paperwork and planning of visas, flights, homeschooling their kids, and deal with oppressive political and religious regimes ruling the country—some of whom are determined to eradicate their nation of Christians either by eviction or execution. 

 Missionaries are not overseas to make money; in fact, they live on donations.  Their entire “job” revolves around winning the lost, discipling and training believers, and figuring out ways to meet the physical needs of people: food, water, clothing, education, medicine and health care, abandoned children.  They do this on limited resources, technology, and most are surrounded by practicing false cults and religions. 

 In 1959, Scottish missionary Stephen Neill wrote, “If everything is mission, then nothing is mission.” In other words, if you a “missionary” every day, everywhere, then there is no intentionality.  Jesus purposefully sent out His followers (Matthew 10:16), and He purposefully commissioned the rest of us to “go” into all the world (Matthew 28:19-20). 

Not known as a missionary, Gospel singer and songwriter, Keith Green, astutely observed, “A Christian missionary is a person whose passion is to make the Lord Jesus known to the whole world.  I believe that ‘being a missionary’ in the truest sense of the word is taking the Gospel where it has never been before, or at least to a different culture or a different language group.  A true missionary is someone who will risk everything for the sake of the lost of the world.”

We are Christians wherever we go, and that is certainly not a lesser title; just as being a missionary is not a higher form of Christianity.  In fact, it is a very specific calling.  As Christians, we should be evangelists in our home country, yet if the opportunity presents itself, I shamelessly implore you to join a short-term missions team, or if God asks, then answer the call of long-term [cross-cultural] missions. 2 billion people haven’t heard the name of Jesus once.

Beyond Our Borders

I’ve noticed that while Jesus was on the earth, He was always moving.  He did not stay in His hometown of Nazareth.  In fact, He rarely stayed anywhere for very long.  He was on a mission to reach the hurting, the dying, the sick, the demonized, and the lost.  Were there no lost or sick people in Nazareth?  Most likely there was, but He went out beyond the borders of His home to reach the unreached, the untouchable, those who needed Him the most. 

Global Infusion has already sent out our first mission team of the year. Team Guatemala spent most of their time physically improving a school that does not get government support.  They do, however, preach the Gospel—as did our team.  

Our next team this month will be headed to the Himalayan mountains of Nepal.  Our medical team will facilitate free clinics and share Jesus among the unreached Buddhists, as we trek for miles from one village to another. 

In John 4, Jesus leaves Judah to go to Galilee.  He intentionally stops in Samaria—a very foreign and despised culture to the Jews.  Then He makes His way over to a well, and started a conversation with a Samaritan woman.  This even was not random—it did not occur simply because He happened to be going through Samaria.  It was a God-ordained moment.

Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.  Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 

Jesus regularly went to foreign locations to purposely connect with lost people who did not share His cultural background so that they might be saved.  We should do the same.

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365

Every January, I think back on the previous year and what God has done through Global Infusion.  In 2015, we sent out 24 mission teams, and launched 2 full-time missionaries.  I think about the hundreds, if not, thousands of lives that were changed.  Many people received Jesus for the first time, and many more received care and the basic necessities of life, such as food, clothes, medical treatment, and education.

It is January again.  On January 1st I thought about how many thousands of people could we potentially reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the next 365 days.  How many more new souls will be in the Kingdom by December 31, 2016.  Well, that all depends.  It depends on how many people will say “yes” to the call of missions.  It depends on how many people will support Global Infusion as we are only limited in our outreaches by the amount of funds we have raised prior to each trip.  It depends on how many of us will pray for the nations.

Go. Give. Pray.   These are the three ways that God can use us to accomplish His will.  In Habakkuk 1:5, God says, “Look among the nations and watch— Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you.”

The salvation of people in this world all starts and ends with Jesus, yet He has called us to join Him.  Who will go?  Who will give?  Who will pray? 

It is January, but think ahead.  Before the ball drops on New Years Eve of 2016, wouldn’t you like to say that you were a part of seeing souls reached for Jesus?  People who have never heard the Gospel even once?  How about those who live in abject poverty that do not have government assistance or the resources of the United States?  Those who live in garbage dumps.  Children who begin working full-time in the fields before the age of 10.  Those who fear for their life because of an oppressive political regime or demonically saturated religions in their country that seek to destroy them.  365 days. The clock is ticking. What will you do?

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