God shares his good news in mysterious ways

A few months ago, the LCANZ was contacted by Genie Hudkins, a member of La Jolla Lutheran Church in California USA. Genie’s church runs a ‘Bibles for the Nations’ project.

At the same time, Cross-Cultural Ministry Facilitator Craig Heidenreich and I became aware of a developing ministry with people of Tamil background in Geelong. What do the La Jolla Lutheran Church and Lutheran outreach in Geelong have in common? They share the desire to reach the nations with the good news of Jesus Christ and to pray that ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed’ (Gen 12:3).

Thanks to Genie and her community, Cross-Cultural Ministry received $500 to provide Bibles to several ethnic communities in their heart languages. Among them are the Tamil people of Geelong.

Genie explains: ‘La Jolla Lutheran Church is a small “community” church with an average attendance of about 50. Small in size, but large in its desire to spread the good news!

‘Eleven years ago, God inspired our pastor to begin a campaign of ‘Praying for the nations’ – one nation per month. Three years later, one member heard an interview of a missionary to China who said that three villages had to share one Bible. That inspired us to begin sending Bibles in addition to our prayers!

‘To date, we have prayed for 98 nations and have sent $US24,987 for Bibles. We have found that God has very creative ways of spreading the gospel. Australia was nation 98! We have been so blessed to serve God and spread his word through this project! We plan to continue until we have reached every nation in the world.’

So, was this contact from La Jolla Lutheran Church an out-of-the-blue coincidence? I prefer to think of it as a God-incidence. God is good. All the time.

Dr Tania Nelson is the LCANZ Executive Officer – Local Mission.

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