Scripture Reading — Luke 10:1-12 “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”— Luke 10:9As a missionary, I sometimes traveled with health-care workers from the Luke Society, a medical mission organization, to remote villages in the Ph
Scripture Reading — Genesis 18:1-8 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ . . . Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you.”— Luke 10:5-7We were heading south from Bacolod City in the Philippines, convoying with other vehicles for a church retre
Scripture Reading — Hebrews 13:1-3 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.— Hebrews 13:2During my first year as a missionary on Panay Island in the Philippines, while I was still single, I
Scripture Reading — Ephesians 5:8-16 You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth). . . .— Ephesians 5:8-9For a few years we rented a small fourth-floor apartm
Scripture Reading — Genesis 1:26-31 The commandments . . . are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”— Romans 13:9I thank God for the opportunities I’ve had to visit many countries and to live in several of them for a long while. All of this has given
Scripture Reading — Psalm 68:1-6 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. . . . God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing. . . .— Psalm 68:5-6“Welcome to the family; we’re glad that you have come to share your life with us as we grow in
Scripture Reading — Acts 26:12-18 “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins. . . .”— Acts 26:17-18Here the apostle Paul describes how his life turned around w
Scripture Reading — Romans 10:8-15 How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?— Romans 10:14In the Philippines there was a tribal group in the mountains that had never heard the good news of Jesus. Some
Scripture Reading — Romans 6:19-23 The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.— Romans 6:23We didn’t overload Sharon (see Feb. 9) right away with all kinds of information on how to become a Christian when she first attended our grou
Scripture Reading — John 1:35-42 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah.” . . . And he brought him to Jesus.— John 1:41-42The first time Sharon came to our Bible study group in Beijing, she introduced herself this way:
Scripture Reading — John 5:21-27 “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and . . . has crossed over from death to life.”— John 5:24I was with a group going house to house in the Philippines to share the way of salvation. We used simple tracts that
Scripture Reading — Acts 2:1-8 “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?”— Acts 2:7-8When I arrived in Iloilo City in the Philippines, I lived with a Filipino family for several months. They had two girls, a