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A Successful Search for God

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A GFA-supported missionary Jayin held a position of high respect in his community and was well on his journey to self-realization and ultimate reality. But Jayin was searching for something more. He was searching for God. His role in the village was to share his spiritual understanding and enlightenment with those who came under his tuteledge in the hope that their experience will transcend his own. Jayin’s dilemma was that he had been unable to find the living God in his studies, his traditions or his rituals. Realizing that all that he had learned and practiced had done nothing to bring him to the true God he was seeking, he became frustrated. It disturbed him deeply that he conducted and taught all of the physical rites and metaphysical ruminations to his students. If he couldn’t find God in them, how could they? As he continued to struggle, he spiraled into depression and nearly lost his mind tilting at the windmills on his increasingly quixotic quest. He became so mentally and emo...
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Unseen but Indispensable

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“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” —Romans 12:4–5 (NIV) Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing the indispensable role of behind-the-scenes missionaries. Let’s do something most of us have probably not done for a while. Let’s think about our thumbs. There’s probably nothing special about your thumbs. There’s nothing special about mine. They’re just thumbs. But what if we had no thumbs? It is almost incomprehensible how many ordinary, simple tasks would suddenly become much more difficult. Holding a book or a glass of water. Picking up a penny. Using a fork. Our entire body suffers if our thumbs are not there doing their job. What about your parathyroid glands? We each have four of them, each about the size of a grain of rice. We never see them nestled inside our neck. They are just as important for us as...
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One Year That Will Change Your Life Forever

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The GFA School of Discipleship may be the most unusual school in America. The school functions in the classical style of discipleship training where students are not just taught but are also mentored. In New Testament times, formal education ceased at age 13, then a young man would follow a profession, most likely the same as his fathers. If he chose to become a teacher, a scribe, a rabbi, a philosopher or politician, he would enter into a program of study under the tutelage of an experienced leader. In effect, he would become the shadow, imitator and emulation of a teacher, learning not only how to make his living but also how to live according to the values of his master. Jesus chose 12 men from a variety of backgrounds and occupations to become His disciples during the three years of His earthly ministry. These are the men who first come to mind when Christians hear the word “disciple.” The point of the process was for them to become like Him —to learn the truth He taught , to apply...
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Going to Their Own: The Purpose and Passion of National Missionaries

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Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing the purpose, passion and impact of National Missionaries. Dr. KP Yohannan’s seminal book, Revelation in World Missions, may have been inspired in part by a recognition that the nations of the world were themselves facing major changes in the post-World War II era. Many nations, previously parts of global empires, were experiencing the early stages of independence. Independence is the favorite traveling companion of national identity. Whenever or wherever one nation is subject to another there is always some measure of lost identity that accompanies the loss of governmental and economic control. This has been true through all of recorded history. Ruling governments, including the Greek and Roman empires, gave great priority to determine the appropriate form of governance that would be most tolerable by the local culture whilst maintaining control over them. History also shows that no government has ever found a successful way ...
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Is There Any Hope for 115 Million Asian Children Living in Abject Poverty?

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Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing the stories of Bridge of Hope center’s impact on the lives of thousands of children. Hope. An optimistic state of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes. Hope is a reason to keep on keeping on. It is a reason to keep on living. People without hope live in despair. No one can reasonably say how many people live in despair. It is fair to say, however, that most people who live in abject poverty eventually lose the hope they once had. It is impossible to know exactly when that hope is lost, but for many, it is sometime during their childhood years when they begin to realize that the obstacles in the way to what they hope for are insurmountable. As the hopes and joys of early childhood are clouded by the realities of their inability to escape their destitute life, despair creeps into their hearts until every ray of hope is replaced by a dark cloud of doom. They can’t get to where they had hoped to go from where they ...
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Touched by Tony: A Mission Support Team Story

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Tony and Kelly are partner-supported members of the GFA Mission Support Team. I remember the first time I met Tony. It was late at night, and I had just arrived at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. I was standing at the arrivals curb waiting for someone I had never met to give me a ride to the GFA campus in Wills Point. (I could almost hear my mother’s voice telling me to never accept a ride from a stranger—especially in the dark of night.) Fortunately, the first and only person to offer me a ride was the one GFA had asked to take me to Wills Point. Turns out that Tony is a member of the GFA Mission Support Team. The drive to GFA provided plenty of time to get to know him. You see, I had thought that Wills Point was a Dallas suburb. But it’s not. I don’t even know for sure how long the ride was or how far we traveled. I’m not saying that the GFA campus is at the end of the world, but in the daytime, you can just about see it from there. I’m almost positive that I saw a sign ...
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Come Unto Me All Ye Who Labor and Are Heavy Laden

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Bridge of Hope students “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt Imagine 168 million children . That’s a very difficult thing to do. In perspective, 168 million is about one-half the entire population of the United States. What’s the point? More than 168 million children worldwide are deprived of the education they need to succeed because they live in abject poverty and are forced to work to survive. Some turn to begging. Others search garbage dumps for food, shelter or clothing. These underprivileged children are extremely vulnerable to sickness, disease, death or the bondage and exploitation of human trafficking. Poverty is widely considered as the top reason why children work at inappropriate jobs for their ages . Children work because their parents are poor, and they must supplement the family income or provide unpaid labor until debts are ...
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