Volunteer of the Month: October 2013

Jim & Shirley at the Jungle Village Celebration in October. 

Most people think of retirement as a chance to rest, relax, and check out from job and duty. School to the Nations is blessed beyond measure that Jim and Shirley Fox do not see it this way. Rather than spend their retirement traveling to exotic places, resting, and not doing much of anything they have chosen to spend their retirement continuing in the Lord's work.

For seven years they have served STN faithfully doing anything from carpentry to weed eating, without complaint and with smiles on their faces. More recently Jim has spent countless hours on helping complete our Jungle Training Village on campus. Jim and Shirley serve with a ministry called Campers on Mission which means they live in their camper and serve full-time as volunteers for our ministry.

"They love Christ and the Kingdom and truly have served the cause of the Gospel on a 

daily basis. What a joy and example of growing older in Grace." 

-Randy Copeland (STN Founder/Director) 

"Jim & Shirley are a godly example of what it means to serve Christ on a daily basis. 

Their consistency and faithfulness are an inspiration to all of us at School to the Nations."

 -Jackie Arnold (Office Administrator) 

Jim & Shirley are blessed with six children, 22 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren! They are avid St. Louis Cardinals fans as well. Jim loves photography and Shirley enjoys doing crafts. They are members of Starling Road Baptist Church.

Thank you Jim & Shirley for your passion to reach the unreached and for using your gifts to help School to the Nations. This month we honor your hard work and dedication!

Focus on the Unreached: Three Fields of Thailand

There is no doubt that the Lord has led School to the Nations into the Buddhist world, where, out of billions of people, less than 2% are evangelized even after 200 years of missionary work in these areas. The true essence of Buddhism is complex: it is a meld of humanism and animism, not based around a deity, yet full of idol worship.

The concept of a living God is very far removed the mindset of the Thai people. This human-centered worldview is coupled with a strong social solidarity, which makes missionary work a challenge.

In this difficult and exciting new work, we know that God’s timing and his providential work among the nations is to be highly considered. Many people have gone before us to sow the seed and we are confident in God’s timing – there will be a great harvest in the days ahead. School to the Nations is blessed to be a part of this, as God has opened door after door in the last 18 months to allow us to move into these new fields for the message of the cross of Christ. Once again, He has been faithful in this calling, which is spelled out for us in Matthew 28:19, that we should “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”.

 This winter, we are mobilizing 22 people to four separate Buddhist fields, 3 of which are in Thailand. They are currently being trained and equipped to communicate the message of the cross in the Buddhist culture specifically. One team will be in Bangkok working with university students, a work which began last winter on our first Thailand outreach. This particular campus has more than 100,000 students, most of which do not know the name of Jesus. Another team will work in Bangkok to pioneer the deaf ministry to the Thai culture. Unlike our work with the deaf of Botswana, that is concentrated on deaf schools, the Bangkok deaf outreach will focus on finding deaf in the human trafficking trade and other areas where the deaf tend to congregate in the Thai culture.

Because we have a large team for this outreach, we are opening a new field in Chiang Mai to accommodate the outflow of disciples. This team will focus on strategic evangelism to the Thai, working in a variety of locations.

 Pray For:

 -The 23 disciples working in Thailand to be spiritually prepared, well-equipped, healthy, and that they would trust in God for the finances for this trip.

-          - An influx of prayer partners for the Gospel to spread throughout Buddhism.

-         -Our new field among deaf field in Bangkok; This is heavy on our hearts as the deaf are the least reached among the unreached worldwide.

-         - The peoples’ eyes to be opened to the hope of the cross.

-         -That our partners, the full-time missionaries who follow up and disciple those we will work with long after we are back home, would be strengthened and encouraged.

-         -A great movement of the Holy Spirit to open the eyes and hearts of the Buddhist people all over Asia so that the glory of Jesus will shine upon these nations who wait to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

To read a true story of God’s hand on the Thai people during our trip last year, read this post.

God Has Gone Before Us: Botswana Fall 2013

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you." Deuteronomy 31:8

     This scripture came alive as we entered Botswana. Every place we turned we could clearly see that the Lord had been working and we were honored to join His work there. Last year we met a young, small body of deaf believers in Southern Botswana; this year we met a thriving, large body of deaf believers who had changed spiritually to a degree that was visible physically. They anticipated time to learn God’s word, they go out and share God’s story and they come back to church with a few new friends in tow. We were able to spend several days encouraging the church and training on communicating the Gospel clearly and effectively.Our time at the church left us encouraged and excited for all that the Lord will do with these faithful believers in the coming year.

     After our time at the church, we traveled up North. We saw the Lord going before us in a different way. Up north we had formative contacts and no deaf church established. The Lord provided contacts for us and we were able to find two new schools for the deaf where we built relationships with the leaders of these schools. We also returned to the primary school in Maun that had become like home last year. We were burdened for the teachers as there were now only 2 teachers for all 7 grade levels. We continued to speak God’s promise over the place “do not be afraid or discouraged…He will neither fail nor abandon you.” By the end of our time there we saw the Lord developing understanding in the lives of the students, the teachers regaining a small glimmer of hope for their weary souls, and the team resting in the knowledge that we serve a God faithful to all his promises.

We pray that the church in Botswana would soon become a sending church. That they would go out to the far corners of their country, the countries around them and beyond. They have a commitment to God’s word, a insatiable hunger to know more and a humble posture as they share the good news. Please join us in praying for how we can be an encouragement and resource as this body begins to live out the great commission so that the Deaf worldwide may understand and receive God’s glorious grace.

(Post written by a School to the Nations Staff Member who led this outreach)