Here is a good majority of the Overland team. We are still missing about 40 people. We are missing over 100 if you include all the interpreters and indigenous leaders we have raised up.
Time to catch you all up on what has been going on in my life for the months of December and January. I will speed through because a lot happened in those 2 months; but, I will highlight the cool stuff. In the last newsletter I kept it really simple. I wrote it in an email a few days before Christmas. At the time I was in Indiana with my Mom for Christmas. I had a friend visiting my mother and I in Indiana from Zambia, and who is also a part of Overland Missions. This was his first visit to America.
At the beginning of January, my Zambian friend Paul and I drove down to Florida where our organization holds their annual missions’ conference. That conference was awesome! I was able to talk to a lot of other Overland Missionaries who have been in various parts of the world such as Brazil, Cambodia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, and more. I was also able to meet some of the new Overlanders who recently joined just in 2017. Overland is growing! I have attached in this email an End-of Year Report which documents many of Overland’s current statistics: salvations, how many we’ve reached, miles traveled, and things of that like. I have also given you a fairly comprehensive list of things to pray for in this email. I did that, just so it is easier to access than having to go to my website all the time.
I ask you all to pray for these things, because prayer is so important in any ministry. A ministry without prayer will fail. I am thankful for all of you that do pray already. It means so much and has accomplished so much.
Currently I am back in Sarasota, Florida diving headstrong into fundraising. I have been able to make some progress. My pastor gave me a list of many churches to call and share my ministry with. Pray that that will go well and doors will be open. I still have quite a few to call. I plan to stay in Sarasota until I am funded. I will share with churches and people in the area. A few weeks one of my partners and I had a Skype meeting. He saw the promise Jesus gave in Matthew 18:19, “I also tell you this: if two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.” The purpose of our meeting was to agree with me for getting fully-funded by the end of March. We believe in Jesus’ promise, for He is a faithful God. We can believe His promise to us.
I picture the Bible as God’s wedding vow to us. As we were born into salvation, we were also born into God’s family, but just as we were born into His family, we were also born into marriage with God. We are the Bride of Christ. In any marriage you have to trust that your spouse will be faithful to you, that when they go out shopping, they are not going to cheat on you. You have no trouble letting them go off to a place like that by themselves because; first of all, you know them, and second, they have proven themselves faithful. Since we know God, we know He is faithful; so I will let Him go about His business in fulfilling His promises He has made in His Word. A wedding vow is like a series of promises or one long promise. You are essentially declaring to this person, the one whom you are marrying, that you will remain faithful or true in all circumstances, whether young or old, in sickness or in health, etc. Jesus tells us that we are His Bride and He binds Himself to being faithful with us. So, since we know He is faithful, we can expect a fulfillment of His promises. That is faith: a trustworthy relationship with God.
I will wrap it up for now. I hope all of you enjoy reading the report. It is quite large, so feel free to take your time, but it is a good way to learn about all that Overland is doing around the world. The next newsletter I will put out at the beginning of March. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!