And You Call Yourself A Missionary?

"What did the interns do in Thailand again?!" they ask with a puzzled look.  "We taught English," I respond without hesitation.  "Oh," they reply with an underlying tone that says, 'That's it?! You didn't plant churches or do crusades or feed kids or pass out clean water?!' (It's appalling I know!)

Why not?  It wasn't what was asked of us or needed of us.  Thailand isn't a poor nation.  There are missionaries already there planting churches and hosting Bible studies and building relationships & we came alongside them & did what they asked.  We taught English.


And you call yourself a missionary!? Why yes, I sure do.
The Thai people need Jesus, they need salvation, and you taught English!? Yes, we did.

How does this even fit in with your mission's statement at Convoy of Hope?

Children’s Feeding

Convoy of Hope is a faith-based organization with a driving passion to feed the world. Our children’s feeding initiatives are a result of that. The goal of our children’s feeding initiatives is to see lives changed as we promote healthy children, community sustainability, and development. To accomplish our goal we believe that we must go beyond the basic meal to intervene at five levels: nutrition, clean and safe water, agricultural initiatives, healthy living environments, and education.

As a youth pastor, I gave rides, I went mini golfing,  I attended school assemblies & athletic events, I worked for Old Navy every 4th of July, I loaded coke machines, I helped with homework, job applications, moving days! I visited grandmas in the hospital.  Taught school.  I made a million and 1 trips to Sams Club.  And I called myself a youth pastor.  And somehow student's lives were still changed and transformed by Christ.

In Thailand I taught English.  And called myself a missionary. And somehow Buddhist students learned about the love of Jesus and began to seek Him.

In my new position with Sustain Hope.  I will dig gardens, keep bees?, teach communities about health & hygiene, sustainable technologies, and who knows what else and I will call myself a missionary.  Because somehow lives will still be changed and transformed by the power of Christ and heaven will get a little more crowded as result.

10 Books That Have Impacted my Life

I just finished, Beth Moore's Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit Bible Study. I've put off finishing it even though, I have my next one sitting on my coffee table, it was just THAT good! I've already decided that it's one that I'll need to do over and over! I can't recommend it enough!!! Every find something like that?!  Something that just sticks with you or something that you hope will stay with you forever?!  It started me thinking about other books that I've read and re-read.  It's a strange list, but here it is in case you were wondering:

1. A Tale of Three Kings:  It's a short, but powerful read.

Check it out for yourself!

2.  Pilgrim's Progress:  This was required reading for nearly every Bible class I ever taught at Englewood Christian Academy and they pretty much hated ever minute of it! Truth is, when I was forced to read it in college, I hated every minute of it too, but somewhere down the road, I realized it's the story of Everyman.  You'll see yourself in one of those characters and you may love what you see or you may find yourself seeking to be a new character once the book is closed.

Check it out for yourself!

3.  The Traveler's Gift:  Couldn't put it down.  It's a novel, but so much more! A NY Times Best Seller too!

Check it out for yourself!

4.  A Child Called It: Truth be told I read this book for someone else's college assignment! What?! Some people like to read, other's like math.  Plus, it was an Evangel student.  I'll never need to read it again, I saw it first hand working with foster kids.  Not to be political or anything, but it's NOT the government's job to take care of the poor, the widows, the aliens, and the orphans, the Bible is pretty clear on the church's responsibility on this one!  It's a true story, an ugly one, but one that needs to be heard!  Check it out for yourself!

5.  A Heart Like His:  I've read the book and done the Bible study.  It's about David.  I've done it 3xs now.  There's a lot to learn from man after God's own heart, plus I like a good scandal, murder, adultery, lowest of lows, highest of highs! Check it out for yourself!

6.  The Shack:  (Gasp!) It's fiction! Get over it! It made me think differently, more openly, more vividly about God and His character! Who doesn't enjoy a book where God is a big black woman??(specifically the one from Touched by an Angel in my mind!) Check it out for yourself!

7.  Redeeming Love:  Not much into love stories, but this one is TRUE and CAPTIVATING! Again, I have to say I really love a good scandal! For romance click here!

8.  The Circle Maker:  If you have trouble praying or understanding prayer or your prayer times are boring and seemingly unproductive, Then click here and get this book! (I keep hearing that once you've read one of Batterson's books you've read them all, while that may be true about your FB statuses I disagree about Batterson!)

9.  The Last Sin Eater: It's a novel.  It's different.  I couldn't put it down.  Click here!

10.  Living Beyond Yourself:  If you're looking for a new devotional or Bible Study or Life Change! Look no further just Check it out!

New Season, New Day

It's been awhile since I have blogged.  I have several items in my drafts folder that I'll hopefully finish up and hit the PUBLISH button on soon, but this one seems to be the most pressing at the moment.

2013 has come in with a bang! While I had plenty of plans of making LOTS of changes this year, a brand new job was NOT one of them! This is what I get for telling the students of Tennessee they must be willing and able to up and go, to uproot, wherever and whenever God speaks to them as the pursue the Wild Goose Chase of following Christ!  Been there done that! It was easy to challenge them to this as, in my mind, I had already done that and it wouldn't be asked of me again anytime soon! If you don't think God has a sense of humor then you don't know Him all that well!

Just days after preaching that message to the students of Tennessee I had a staff meeting at Convoy of Hope where my team was told that the internship department would be shutting down indefinitely, but with hopes to one day revamp & start again, but that it would at least be a year if not yearS! I was told that if I felt called to Convoy of Hope that they would find a spot for me, but that it would likely be administrative in nature.  I was given the holidays to pray about the opportunity.  And pray I did as well as check out every opportunity on the goag.org website to see if God had written on that wall for me! Sure I could go to Africa and tell people about Jesus, I could stay in the US and do the same, I could fight human trafficking, I could teach English in Thailand again and share the love of Jesus with my Buddhist friends there, heck, I could dust off the masters degree and put it to good use! Unfortunately my heart was not fully in any of these! My friends tried to help me, well, what DOES your heart want to do?!  I difficulty replied, "Lead the Convoy of Hope interns!" God had forgotten about me indeed!

I scheduled a meeting to let my AGWM boss Dr. JoAnn Butrin know how God had forgotten me and that there was no place for my heart, so I was going to the garden and eat worms! To my surprise she did not seem to share my sentiment! She mentioned she had already been thinking and praying about where I should land.  I figure this meant God must've known before hand that this door was going to close for me! Weird huh?  She put somethings on the table for me to pray about and consider and off I went for Christmas break.

Over Christmas break I headed to Ft. Worth Texas to help with the launch of new fundraising endeavor for Convoy of Hope at the World Missions Summit 3.  There I got to hear from some Amazing missionaries and spend time with some of my favorite people on earth, my former COH interns! I took each of them to coffee and we talked about their relationships, their futures, and how God had changed their lives during their internship, and we laughed quite a bit.  One night after a midnight trek to In n Out with this Motley Crue I sighed knowing that my heart and passion and the call of God on my life wasn't just to missions, but it was to the next generation of missionaries.  Since this was no longer an option at Convoy of Hope, I had to GO and see what door God would open up for me next.  So at 1am I sent my resignation letter.

God has given me the desires of my heart by opening up a new door within AG World Mission's International Ministries.  I will be joining the team at Sustain Hope, where I will launch an internship program and go out into all the world and share Jesus and help the developing world do just that, DEVELOP.  Evidently I'm going to be learning a lot of new things, one of the first emails they sent me was about taking a bee keeper class?! Talk about Wild Goose Chases! I'll also be dusting off the masters degree and putting it to good use internationally, so stay tuned!

I'll keep you posted on the changes and happenings! I'm still a missionary.  I'm still fundraising!  You can DONATE right here My account # remains the same 294171.  My email address has changed.  I can no longer receive email at mbking@convoyofhope.org (something about not working there!?!) I'll be using my personal email from here on out.  It's just easier! marybethking77@gmail.com  Please make these changes in your contacts info! I'm still going to be globe trotting with students in tow, developing nations and developing the next generation and maybe even developing some pictures along the way if they even still do such things!

Here's to many more photos like this one in African villages!