This year, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering national goal is $170 million, which will provide support for more than 5,300 missionaries serving around the world. The Week of Prayer for International Missions is Nov. 30-Dec. 7, 2008. We recognize your significant role to help engage Southern Baptists in personalized prayer for the missionaries serving in countries located in South America – and the peoples they seek to reach.
If you think after generations of missionary work the story of Jesus has reached every corner of South America, talk to Gabriel Mugmal.
His idol-worshipping neighbors almost burned him alive for preaching the Gospel.
Gabriel boldly shared his faith with other Quichua villagers high in the Andes Mountains of northern Ecuador. He challenged them to stop the idol worship that permeated the area.
Enraged, the crowd demanded that Gabriel renounce his words. When he refused, villagers dragged Gabriel and his family to the center of town and doused them with gasoline.
The thought, “Don’t burn me,” raced through Gabriel’s mind. But he wasn’t afraid and began preaching to the crowd from Genesis.
Suddenly, the mob fell silent. A priest was so moved by Gabriel’s willingness to die for Jesus that he took Gabriel’s Bible, raised it before the crowd and declared freedom to preach the Gospel.
That was 25 years ago.
Today some 250 villagers worship less than 200 yards from the site where Gabriel was nearly martyred.
Through a partnership with Southern Baptist missionaries Darrell and Rogene Musick of New Mexico, Gabriel has helped start nearly 30 Bible studies and churches in other villages dotting the Andes.
But the Musicks, and missionaries all around the world, need another strategic partner like Gabriel – they need you.
Your missionaries are looking for prayer warriors to undergird their ministries and for strategically involved churches to help them reach those who’ve never heard the Gospel.
And they need your financial support through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
More than 3,300 of the world’s 11,000 people groups continue to live and die in spiritual darkness.
Worldwide, 1.6 billion people have yet to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Be a part of God’s great global purpose. As Gabriel tells his church-planting students in the Andean highlands of Ecuador, let’s “quit crossing our arms and sitting. We’ve got work to do.”