Let The Nations Be Glad!

LET THE NATIONS BE GLAD!


I would like to let everyone know that God has called Megan and I to the mission field and I would like to share with you the process that He used to lead us to where we are now.

In 2000 my wife and I had a major life change. I was asked to leave my job as a teacher/coach. The details, in case you are wondering, as to why I was asked to leave are not important to what I am writing about now, so I will not go that direction. However, since those details are a powerful part of my testimony I will not hesitate to share with you how God worked in my life and the truth that "the LORD disciplines those that He loves and He punishes those that He accepts as sons".

Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth experienced a horiffic tragedy in 2000. As most of you will remember a gunman stormed into the church and began shooting. He killed seven people and wounded seven others.

Not long after that, I providentially recieved an email from a lady who I not only did not know personally, but did not know existed. The email was about the Wedgewood shootings. It told about all the horrible things that took place during the gunmans rampage. After telling about these horrific events the letter then told of all the incredible events that came out of that tragedy as well as the incredible events that took place during the shootings.

I knew that I needed some incredible events to take place in my life.

The thing that struck me about this letter was the prayer that the pastor of Wedgewood Baptist Church reportedly prayed..."Our pastor, Brother Al, had prayed that God would do whatever it took to expand the ministry of Wedgwood Baptist
Church."

Knowing that God answered Brother Als prayer, I began to pray and ask God to bring a revival to my life...at ANY COST.

AND HE DID.

As I quoted above from Prov 3:12/Heb 12:6, God disciplines those that He loves. Little did I know just how much He did love me and considered me as a son, because the discipline that I recieved sure did smart!

My wife was a stay home mom and to top that off she was pregnant with our second child and I went from employed to unemployed.

Though I proclaimed to be a Christian (which I believe that I was), I had little if any evidence of such. As far as reading the Bible is concerned, I had read the first few chapters of Genesis and that was about it. I only knew two verses, one being John 3:16 and the other is the one that I quoted above, Prov 3:11-12.

Wow, think about it. If you only knew two verses and had to go through a trial, what two better ones to know than those two? Talk about Gods providence.

Like a bean that a child plants in a cup of dirt, you would have seen a little growth in my life as a believer that first year.

I knew that God was who He said that He was and I knew that I needed to know Him more. So I made myself read His Word. It was excruciating. I made myself read a chapter a day starting in the New Testament. I dont know how long it took but before long I was reading several chapters at a sitting. I couldnt get enough. As a result, like a sprout that breaks free of the ground, my spiritual growth started to become evident.

Its a shame just how ignorant of the things of God I was and of how much of my life I had wasted. When I first started reading the Gospels, I remember thinking "this story sure sounds familiar. Then a month or so later I would say to myself "this story sure sounds familiar"..a month or so later, again, "this story..." I knew so little about the Bible that I didnt realize that the Gospels were testamonies of Christs, life, death and resurection written by different authors...Like all infant Chritians, I had some learning and growing to do.

A year later (2001) I was (and still am) working for Farm Bureau and was at the home of a couple that had their insurnace through my company and I was doing an insurance review. As I was going through the review form, I came to the question that asks the insureds what they did for a living. When they responded that they were missionaries, the word Mexico popped into my head. As I was tryig to conduct the review, the word Mexico would not stop "rolling" through my head. For an hour I couldnt get it out of my head.

When I got to my car to leave and go back to my office I prayed, "God if You want me to go to Mexico, You are going to have to put it in front of me because Im not able to see it unless it is right there in front of me."

Two days later my wife and I are closing on a house in Glen Rose, Texas, that we bought (which is another miracle where God clearly showed His hand. That too is another story so I will save it for later) and the lawyer that owned the title company who was doing the closing work looked over his glasses as he was writing and asked if we had found a church in Glen Rose. Of course since we hadnt moved there yet our answer was "no".

The next thing he said was "you might like the church that I attend. Our church is really involved in the mission field."

I knew that his next sentance would be "We are about to send a group to Mexico." He then said, "We are about to send a group to Mexico."...All I knew was that I was supposed to go to Mexico and needed to know who I needed to talk to in order to sign up.

Two weeks later I was in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico!

From that time on God has continued to soften mine and my wonderful wifes heart to mission work. We have been blessed by having the opprotunity to take two additional trips to an orphanage in Chihuahua, Chihuahua and another to the Sierra Madre Mountains further into the interior of Chihuahua, Mexico. We were then blessed to be able to take a trip to South East Asia, two years ago.

Three weeks ago Megan received her call to the mission field. Since then we have decided to put our house up for sale in order to pay off debt and move closer to SWBTS. God blessed us immensly. We had a contract on our house within two and a half days of putting a for sale sign in our front yard!!!

God is good. Yes God is good all the time.

We ask that you please remember us when you pray. Ask God to give us wisdom in all the decisions that we will be making.

Ask him to grow us into oaks of righteiousness being displayed for His splendor. Is 61:3.

May God bless you and give you a heart for the lost.

mjtjlee