ANNOUNCING....

After serving twenty years with Missionary Ventures, we are prayerfully transitioning to full-time service with one of our partnering organizations, Audio Scripture Ministries.  We have worked with ASM on various projects during the past eight years, and we know that they share our same vision for reaching non-readers with the translated Word of God in audio.

Jim has accepted the position of International Projects Coordinator, which means he will be expanding his territory to include more of Latin America and also Mozambique and India.  Meanwhile we will live and work in Oaxaca as before, managing the recording studio production and distribution here, and also hosting short-term teams as needed.

It is strange to no longer be formally affiliated with MVI after all these years, but we leave on good terms, believing this is God's plan for our next season of ministry.  Thankfully we have received great encouragement from our financial supporters, and now we are making this announcement public, trusting that our prayer partners, likewise, will join us in this new venture.

We will still rely on the faithful donations of God's people who believe in the work we are called to do.  More than ever we value your prayers as we work in regions that are currently or formerly under Satan's jurisdiction.  We don't expect him to give up territory without a fight, so we need prayer warriors to stand with us and behind us.

As always we are trusting God to provide the finances needed for each recording project and each trip.  We are excited to watch His continued faithfulness as we start the New Year under new leadership. 

Donations may now be sent to:

Audio Scripture Ministries 
760 Waverly Rd.
Holland, MI  49423

You may designate your gifts to Jim and Jamie Loker, knowing that 100% of your donation will go to support the work of audio scripture production and distribution among people who desperately need to hear God's plan of salvation.  Thank you for helping to SPREAD THE WORD.

"From Mission Tourists to Global Citizens"

Twelve Insights (for short-term missions teams) 

1.     It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world.

2.     That which is yet to be done in the world is far less than that which has already been done!

3.     People are more alike than their cultures.

4.     Love is the universal language.

5.     Short-term mission is a treasure hunt.

6.     In cross-cultural encounters we are meeting long-lost, distant relatives.

7.     God goes before you – you are catching up on a conversation that God has already begun.

8.     God does not send us to be critics.

9.     In the treasure hunt of grace, our encouragement and affirmation of people may be our most significant ministry.

10. Our privilege is to lift Jesus up in deed and word.

11. The quality of our love as a team and our incorporation of new team members may be our greatest witness.

12. God will not call us to do something without also giving us the resources to do it.

Taken from Short-Term Missions Workbook: From Mission Tourists to Global Citizens, by Tim Dearborn ©2003, Intervarsity Press.

The team that came down last month had a sheet printed out with these twelve insights.  During the week it became evident that they had internalized these truths as they approached difficulties as a treasure hunt, watching to see what God would do. It was a privilege for me to watch them lifting up Jesus in word and deed, as it says in number ten.  

Another thing I really appreciate is how they incorporated the new team members, not just Jim and me, but the local believers.  Normally teams try to discretely get Jim and me to take their photo so the folks back home can see "The Team."  This group made a point of including us and the local church folks in their "family photo."  I love that.

Truthfully I haven't read the book these insights came from, but it sounds like a good one to recommend to future short-term teams. I love the subtitle:  From Mission Tourists to Global Citizens.  Right on!

Exhausting, but oh, So Rewarding

Dear praying friends,

The "Treasure" (Audio New Testament) in Chatino

So much has happened since our last update, it's hard to know where to begin.  Last night Jim and I returned from a weekend at the beach with the kids following a grueling week of hosting a very rugged team from Michigan.  

Driving back up the mountain from sea level to over 5000 feet, I watched the compass on the rear view mirror vacillate from N, to NE, to N, to NW, to W and back, and sometimes even SW and SE, as we darted potholes, bounced over speed bumps, veered around washed out sections, and drove in an almost continuously snaking "S" up and down the mountains.  The outdoor temperatures ranged from 70's to 90's Fahrenheit depending on the altitude.

Sometimes our ministry feels like that.  It's a wild and bumpy ride, casting seed all over the place, through balmy lowlands and foggy highlands, and everything in-between.  Sometimes we get stuck behind slow moving vehicles, averaging a frustrating 20 mph when we'd rather be doing 60 on a straighter road, but eventually we get there.

Chatino believers and American visitors at the village church

Some villages warmly receive us, and are ripe for the gospel, and others are foggy and confused, cold to the message we bear.  This past week we had the privilege of visiting a Chatino village where believers have faithfully sown the Good Seed, and we were blessed to participate as several individuals gave their hearts and lives to Christ.  Talking with the native missionary who accompanied us on our audio Bible "Treasure" distribution effort, we learned about several near-by villages where the same variant of Chatino is spoken, but where there are no known believers, no evangelical witness.  The more we do, the more work there seems to remain.  Yes, sometimes it feels overwhelming.

Maybe I will blog about the actual week of long hikes, sleeping on the ground, living, eating, and ministering with the local people (minus anything remotely resembling an adequate wash room).  For now I just want to say thank you for your prayers - even though my last email listed the wrong dates for this trip.  It was a physically, emotionally, and spiritually stretching week, not just for our visitors, but for me, too.  Looking back, I realize I should have anticipated the level of spiritual warfare we might encounter, and I acknowledge that more prayer backing would have been helpful.  It was intense.

Shangana Christians with their Megavoice scriptures in Mozambique

Jim had only returned from his trip to Mozambique shortly before this team arrived, and he is still trying to get caught up on life and ministry details.  Maybe being disconnected from the internet for a week at a time is beneficial in some ways, but in other ways it is certainly a challenge.  He thoroughly enjoyed his time in Africa, seeing the recording studio there, and participating in a MegaVoice distribution outreach.  Already he is checking the calendar to see when he might return early in 2013.

Currently (today!), I am trying to get the kids caught up on school work, doing mounds of disgusting laundry and hanging it out to dry, hoping to get a new gas tank to replace the one stolen while we were away - so I can cook dinner tonight, and answering a long back-log of emails.  Jim is handling the ministry "business" plus looking to get both cars checked over and repaired with auto parts the team brought down for us.  Bless his heart, it looks like he has made getting gas to my stove a high priority.  Maybe I will reward him with an Aldi's chocolate bar that the team brought down, or better yet, some pumpkin muffins with the canned pumpkin they gave us.

A new generation will grow up hearing God's Word

Meanwhile out in other villages, our recording technicians have just finished another Zapotec New Testament which was sent up to the U.S. to be processed, they're continuing with Chinantec of San Felipe, and looking to start a different New Testament next week.  The technicians will invest three or four months for each New Testament recording, and then the fun begins as we distribute them to native speakers who have never seen or heard God's Word in their own language.  It's the same ol' same ol'.  In case you can't tell, we love it.

Life is good.  It's exhausting, but oh, so rewarding.  We wish each of you could experience a week in a rustic village just to catch the spirit of what we do and why.  Then again, it sounds cruel to wish that off on people we call our friends. 

Praise the Lord with us for safe travels all week in both our high mileage vehicles, for relative good health, for receptive hearts in the village, for new believers, and all that transpired.  Praise the Lord we survived and that we are looking at it from the rear view mirror now.  Please pray for current and future distribution efforts, for the Seed to be planted in good soil, as Jim preached to the Chatino people this past week.  Pray for the young believers to grow strong as they hear the Word in their language, and for more people to come to faith as they listen.  Pray for us to remain faithful and to not grow weary.  Pray as God leads.

Thank you for standing with us and behind us, for your encouragement through prayers and financial backing.  We thank God for each and every one of you.

Partners in reaching the unreached,

Jim and Jamie Loker and family

And that's what it's all about.

 I would add that "The greatest missionary is the Bible (communicated) in the mother tongue.  It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner."  Cameron Townsend is the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, the organization we first joined before leaving for Guatemala in 1986.  We still partner very closely with WBT on the field, taking their New Testament translations and recording them on audio for non-literate people in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Unsung Hero

Today I'd like to tell you about an amazing woman who has contributed over $3000 toward our ministry over the past 26 years.

Her life has not been an easy one by anyone's standards.  Her untold story includes a special needs son who is still a child well into his adult years, a divorce, and a limited income.  As far as I know she has remained faithful to the Lord.  She has certainly remained a faithful financial partner in our work.

Of course I will protect her privacy and not post a photo or reveal her identity, but I guarantee that this woman is for real.  She is not on Facebook or even email, and seldom hears updates from us, nor does she expect or demand much thanks or recognition.  She would be horrified if she knew I had honored her on this website.  That's just how she is.

"It isn't much," she would insist.  Ten dollars a month doesn't sound like much, does it?  But 26 years of faithfully sending a check for $10 has really added up.  A woman who seldom sees that much money in one place has built up an inheritance for herself in a place that is guaranteed to bring a full return on her investment.

"Well done, my good and faithful servant" is what this precious servant will hear from her heavenly Father someday.

For now, we praise the Lord for using her to bless and encourage us.  All we need is another 120 people just like her, and we will have what we need for our monthly living and ministry expenses.

Please join us in praying for additional monthly donors - young or old, whether they can pledge large or small amounts.  Either way, may God be pleased with the willing offerings of cheerful givers like our unnamed friend and partner in reaching the unreached.

Clipart "faceless woman" from clker.com

For the mother who has everything....

This, folks, is a video projector.  Can you imagine such a portable little device?  In the early days they were bigger than our TV, and had to be hauled to villages on the back of a pack mule.

If you go to Missionary Ventures Gift Catalog, you can purchase one for an evangelist overseas for $360.  You could also buy audio Bibles or help fund an audio recording of Old Testament Bible stories.

Maybe you could shop for a gift in honor of the mom who has everything - for Mother's Day. 

Highlighting Unreached People Groups

Joshua Project is a group whose tag line reads "Bringing Definition to the Unfinished Task."  After posting the rousing missions sermon about finishing the task - (which you really must listen to if you haven't!) - I thought you would like to see this super cool world map.

Hover your cursor (the arrow for those of you less techie people) over different countries and you can see population, number of people groups, and how many are still unreached.  For instance, hover over Mexico and a box pops up saying:

Population:  114,598,000
Total People Groups:  329
Unreached People Groups: 15
% of People Groups Unreached: 4.6%

Click on the country of your choice, and another window opens with all the information you might want about that area of the world.  If you click on Mexico, you can see a breakdown of each language group, including the 50 or so that we have worked in over the past 18 years here in Oaxaca.

Click on languages while you are on the Mexico page, and you can see a list of languages that have a printed New Testament translation, and which ones have the Jesus film and audio recordings, many that were recorded either in our studio next door or in make-shift recording rooms in the villages by our sound technicians.  By clicking on the movie icon, you can even see the Jesus film in a language of your choice.

Pretty cool, huh?  The only part that I would take issue with is the section on religions, where they listed Mexico as 95% Christian.  This would include those who consider themselves Catholic, which skews the results quite a bit when you factor in that Catholicism in Mexico is often mixed with other beliefs that are in direct opposition to true biblical Christianity and the gospel.

You can download Mexico unreached peoples prayer cards (106 KB) by clicking here: Download.

Keeping in mind what David Platt said in the sermon I linked last week, that Satan has Matthew 24:14 posted on the walls of hell to remind him that his doom is sure, but that his time is not over until every ethnic language group has been reached with the gospel message about the kingdom of God. 

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14 ESV

It makes sense that Satan will do everything in his power to hinder the proclamation of the message.  Which is why we still need prayer, more workers, and more finances to finish the task of world evangelization.

Here is a prayer for Mexico, which I also found on the same Joshua Project web page:

Something to Fuel Your Passion for the Unreached

The following is a sermon by David Platt, author of a book I read last year, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.  One of many quotes from Radical is: 

"Do you believe that Jesus is worth abandoning everything for?"

In this sermon, which you can read if you prefer, by going to The Gospel Coalition website, here are some more quotes worth mentioning:

What drives passion for unreached peoples is not guilt, it’s glory—glory for a King.

It’s people who know that our sovereign God deserves the praise of not just 10,000 people groups on the planet, but all 16,000 of them. And we’re not going to stop until every single people group purchased by Christ is exalting His Name.

For every $100 a Christian in North America makes, an average of $0.05 goes to the unreached.

God gives his people worldly wealth for the spread of worldwide worship. The sovereign God of the universe has willed for us to be wealthy for the sake of his worship.

 A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions.

He closes his message to pastors with these words:

Let us be finished and done with puny theology that results in paltry approaches to missions in our churches.

Let us believe deeply in the sovereign God of the universe who holds the destiny of the world (and our lives) in the palm of his hand.

Let us see the hopeless state of man before God apart from Christ, and let us lead our churches to pray, to give, and to go to unreached peoples with the greatest news in all the world.

We have been saved by a graciously, globally, gloriously particular sacrifice, so let us lead our churches and let us give our lives—let’s lose them, if necessary—for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom and the accomplishment of Christ’s commission.

And let’s not stop until the slaughtered Lamb of God and sovereign Lord of all receives the full reward of his sufferings.

May this encourage and inspire us as we partner together to reach the unreached of Oaxaca, and may it give boldness to us Lokers as we seek to raise more awareness, prayer, and financial support for this vital task over the summer.

 

A-Z Things I Took for Granted

A = availability of grocery items
B = bridges (here we drive through rivers)
C = chicken packaged nicely with no evidence that this was once a breathing, pecking, feathered, living thing
D= death not displayed for my children in newspapers and on the side of the road
E = exercise in air-conditioned house or outdoors without being stared at
F = fuel at the gas station
G = grains and flour that aren’t bug-infested
H = hot water any time I want it
I = Internet working reliably
J = just being able to drive where people respect the laws and speed limits
K = keeping the house presentable with no sand, dirt, and dust after cleaning
L = laundry without hanging, ironing, etc.
M = menu items I order at the restaurant actually being available
N = neighbors that don’t have loud music blaring all night
O = oven and stove not shutting off when the gas runs out unexpectedly
P = power
Q = quality for a price (here you pay more but it may not be better quality)
R = restaurants open before 7:00 P.M.
S = seatbelts and other safety measures
T = telephone service everywhere
U = urgent care help, ICU, emergency room facilities
V = vegetables and fruits that don’t require soaking and scrubbing
W = water
X = expiration dates being accurate and expectation that people will stand in line
Y = yucky stuff removed from the nicely packaged, already dead, meat
Z = zoos and other safe, fun places to take the kids to play

This is actually a cross-post from my Women of the Harvest blog, published October 2010.  I thought our partners in ministry might enjoy a different glimpse of our sometimes less-than-idyllic life on the mission field in Oaxaca. 

Oh, the things we used to take for granted.

(The photo of the letters came from this website.)

Guatemala in the Rear View Mirror

What a difference 25 years makes!  When we returned to Guatemala early this year, we were thankful to find our former coworkers still following the Lord and faithful to His Word.  It took a bit of effort to locate the homes of our dear friends, since everything in the villages had changed so much. 

We realize that they have seen many missionaries come and go, and wondered if they would remember us.  It was a joyous reunion as they greeted us with obvious recognition, even though we have all grown a bit older. 

Their homes are much more modern now, and the streets are paved.  Running water and electricity are the norm, and in fact, we found a cell phone tower right down the street from our old house in the Mam village where we lived.  What an amazing transformation.

 Jim with Emiterio, our main language tutor and the voice on the Jesus film and the audio New Testament in Mam of San Juan Ostuncalco, and his family

Emiterio with his family about 24 years ago

Jim and Santiago, who is the son behind Emiterio in the photo above

 Norberto, pictured here with Jim this past January, was our neighbor across the street, and a vital member of our team as a native missionary among his own people.  Notice the phone tower in the background and the paved street.

 This was the front of our house back in 1987.  Today the road is paved and the house is replaced with a big 2-story building.

Emiterio and Norberto promoting scriptures in the local market