The Vision

As I meditate on the vision that God has given me for the future, I can’t help but think about what He impressed on me back when we started this ministry in 2011. In years past, I read a considerable amount George Muller of Bristol, England. In the 1800s, God used him to build an amazing system of orphanages, schools, scripture distribution and missionary support without ever asking anyone for anything or sharing with anyone his specific needs. He prayed and counted on God to impress on people to give according to the needs he expressed in prayer. I’m not talking a few thousand dollars per year, but according to internet calculators, his annual budget was in excess of fifteen million dollars.

When we started taking care of students, God impressed on me that He wanted me to follow a similar fund raising procedure in our ministry. To date I think we have followed that pattern pretty faithfully. We have never solicited funds for the ministry, we only offer the opportunity to give in our newsletters. And whenever people tell me they want to give and ask how much I need, I always ask them to pray and ask God what He would have them give and for what purpose. To date we have received donations of various amounts, but I’ve always felt the need to maintain an employment as well, to insure that we would have funds to spare. Things have changed. I recently completed a project in Houston that has supported our ministry budget for nearly two years and was almost immediately offered another income opportunity. As I was returning the email agreeing to meet with the employer, I sensed a strong prompting from the Holy Spirit, that it was time to operate solely on faith in God for our support. Coincidently, or should I say according to God’s plan, I have spent the past six months or so going back and not only revisiting publications concerning Muller, but reading everything I could find that he’s ever written. As I’ve read, I felt a sensation inside me like seeds that have been lying dormant for a substantial period of time, germinating, taking root and coming to life.  Bottom line, I turned down the job at least for now and feel confident that God does in fact want us to enter 2018 not only on a faith journey, but in a lot of ways, with a new and aggressive plan. I entitled this piece, “Vision for 2018 and Beyond”,  because I feel God has given me so many new objectives, I can’t see how they could all be under way in one year. We will continue with the same ministry services, but will add a number of new complimentary ministry operations as well.

We feel God wants us to start our own school. Until now all of our students attend either public or private schools and universities. Many of them will continue on that track, but we feel God wants us to gradually start a home school type system that will encompass all our new students. I feel God wants us to establish that operation before the end of 2018. Early this year we applied for approval from the Honduras government to establish a nonprofit foundation that can own businesses that serve two purposes. First to operate businesses that our students can work in to learn a trade for their future, and second to create income for the ministry. We expect to receive approval to operate the foundation in December of this year (2017) and we are already underway in the planning of opening a carpentry shop and a hydroponics (blending the raising of fish with the growing of vegetables) agriculture system. We also see the establishment of a small restaurant/hotel and the development of a construction company to develop income property on land that we already own, all this in the near future.  As I stated, it seems like a lot to accomplish, but when we look at what God has done here in the past seven years, it’s not so difficult to envision. What’s the purpose of this statement? Everyone on our mailing list has at one time or another shown an interest in our ministry. OUR PRIMARY REQUEST FOR 2018 IS TO REMEMBER US EVERY DAY IN YOUR PRAYERS. AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT US AS GOD DIRECTS YOU. We have already reestablished prayer as our ministry’s primary priority. With you praying in agreement, we’re confident that all God’s plans will be accomplished.