Summer Ministries

 

This summer has had many opportunties for ministry that you have helped to make possible. In the month of June we joined our Member Health Team (pictured below Greg and Teresa Leeth, Ned and Marlene, Christine and Jeff Stanfield, Rick and Lori Lampen, Mike Banks) for a monumental event in Honduras. Nearly 200 adults and children gathered together for our IMPACT 2025 Rally. Global Workers and Missionaries from over a dozen different countries around the world came together for 10 days of seeking the Lord, through worship, prayer and impactful Biblical teaching. Each day provided time to gather for corporate times of worship and learning as well as small groups and regional meetings to help hear the direction of the Holy Spirit as He led us closer to himself. 

We began our time with a visit to the dump ministry, Brazos de Jesús (Arms of Jesus) which is a school and a meal program on the edge of the main landfill of San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras. Founded by Honduran pastor Carlos and his wife, Mirna, in 2015, the school’s goal is to provide education to children of people who live and work in the dump. Nearly 300 children attend the school. 

A graduate of WGM's El Sembrador Bible Institute, Carlos pastors a church located near the dump. The teachers at Brazos de Jesús are all members of that congregation who work a second shift teaching at Brazos de Jesús, in addition to their regular jobs. Their goal is to continue to increase enrollment and provided educaton through high school with the vision to accompany their students until they reach a college degree so these children can change the future of their own families and the generations that will come after them.

This ministry is a vibrant, growing ministry and readily receives work teams, as well as financial support to continue to help change lives of children that would otherwise have no future. Arms of Jesus Ministry

We returned home to Indiana the end of June and had an opportunity to connect with supporters and friends at a camp meeting in Michigan. While pastoring and working in Michigan, we attended the Winding Creek Camp in Hastings, Michigan.

We had not had a chance to visit for a number of years, but we were blessed with the opportunity to go this year. Our granddaughter's went with us, and they had a chance to experience the camp that their mommy attended most of her life growing up in Michigan. Days were filled with swimming, bike riding, playing in the park and meeting lots of new friends. Ama and Papa, as we are known by them, enjoyed connecting with supporters of our ministry, as well as sitting under some encouraging teaching and wonderful worship opportunities during camp. The girls asked if we could plan to come again next year! So, I am pretty sure we will plan to return again next summer. Marlene and her sister, Janette used to teach the kid's program at this camp during the time I was pastoring the Wesleyan Church in Jackson, Michigan.

It was a great week for us as a family and so wonderful to be passing on the experience of camp meeting to our grands. (Marlene, Ned, Elliot and Rowen)

Our ministry with WGM reached a milestone in July of this year as we celebrated 15 years of missionary service with World Gospel Mission. The mission was founded in the camp meeting movement that spread across the USA, and WGM turned 115 years old in June, after sending their first missionaries to China in 1910. So camp meeting still has a primary importance in mission work around the world.

The end of July was the time to host missionaries on their Home Ministry Assignment. Three times a year we offer an event we call Renewal. During this week we assist missionaries by processing and debriefing their term of service in ministry. We give plenty of time to listen to the Holy Spirit, look to the joys and concerns they have encountered, and provide plenty of time to spiritually recharge and renewal their spirits. Processing well the last term helps prepare the way for a successful next term. An interesting fact during this Renewal was that it represented the changing face of missions. We had two Global Workers from Albania that have Argentine passports, a Global Worker from Hungary, one from Bolivia as well as those carrying a USA passport. Truly, the face of foreign missions is changing as more and more people from non-USA origins are being sent out to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are truly exciting days we are living! And it is so encouraging to see God sending folks from all over the world to the world! 

The question that we are most often asked is, "Where are you headed next?"  - well, we are not sure yet, but looking at possibilities in Asia and maybe the Carribean. We will see where God leads us next, and we will be sure to keep you informed as we listen to His voice and answer His call to go. Speaking of answering His Call, we thank you for partnering with us. Many of you reading this today, have supported us financially as well as through your prayers and we appreciate that so much! Thanks is hardly enough to convey our deep sense of gratitude to God for you! 

Please continue to pray and if you would like to support our ministry with a special financial gift, it would help so much as we make plans to continue our service in answer to Jesus Call! Thank you for your kindness and care. Support Ned and Marlene

May the Richest of Heaven's Blessings be yours,

Ned and Marlene McGrady, WGM Missionaries 

Kenya update on the way to Honduras

 Good June summer day to you all, our faithful friends and supporters. 

We can not thank you all enough for your prayer support for us as we shared in the Kenya Field Retreat back in April. Many of you reached out to us saying you were praying with us and standing with us in your love and care as we went to minister to our missionaries serving Jesus in Kenya as well as in other parts of Africa. 

Each day we gathered in worship and prayer as we shared encouraging messages from the Word of God to our people. Hearts were challenged to lean in to the goodness of God to meet every need. Missionaries have a unique situation being deployed to a different culture to work amongst a different people all with the goal of unifying one another under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It was an amazing ministry and the prayers of God's people made it so worthwhile. Thank you. 

Whether we were speaking at the conference, fellowshipping with the missionaries, or hanging out with our African friends, God was so present and faithful to give us rich and fullfilling ministry all along the way. 

Our travels allowed us to explore more of Kenya, and the ministries that are flourishing there. 

A prop plane took us from the thriving city of Nairobi to the coast where we held our conference. Traveling along the way we dodged a few cattle, or perhaps a lot of cattle and got stuck in the mud, but we made it. Great times of prayer and sharing were a blessing and we know God's faithfulness shone through. 

Just two weeks after we returned from Kenya, Ned's mom's health began to take a turn. She celebrated her 100th birthday January 9 and we had a party to honor her and celebrate her long life. She enjoyed every minute as nearly 200 people came to celebrate her. She was thrilled to reach that milestone  and did so gracefully. Her mind remained so good, even as her body began to grow weary. 

On April 30, mom went on to her heavenly home. She had always said she just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. During our time as a family at her bedside in those final hours, we were singing to her some of her favorite hymns. While we were singing, "I'll Fly Away" she mustered strength to raise her arms in praise to Jesus. Just a few short hours later, she drifted off to sleep and on to the arms of Jesus. We were able to celebrate her life well lived for Jesus on May 6 at our family home church in Rockbridge, Ohio. 

As we make this update from Kenya and mom's funeral we are now preparing to head to Honduras. We will travel this week for our World Gospel Mission IMPACT Rally. With the advent of several International Global Workers that are now commissioned by WGM to serve around the world, more than 200 of God's choice servants from all around the world will converge in Honduras for a a week of seeking God, planing for ministry, praying for an anointing and outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our work and the mission of WGM. In addition there will be over 50 kids that our team will be part of ministering to.

Would you continue to pray with us? We have dozens of people flying from everywhere to Honduras and we will have many opportunities to sit with Global Workers from around the world to hear their hearts, hear their stories, and lift them up in prayer. We covet your prayers for health, for safety, for insight to hear, hearts to empathize, and a spirit to connect with Jesus. This will be an amazing time for our people to be encouraged and help to spread their vision to reach their world with the Good New and Love of Christ. 

Your part in our ministry is vital and so appreciated, whether you are praying, giving, or just even pausing right now to lift us to heaven in prayer, we need it and we thank you for it. 

May God Bless you each one. We thank you for standing with us in mission. 

With Grateful Hearts, 

Ned and Marlene  

Giving and Praying Click Here

90 Days of Prayer - "A daily Prayer guide for our April 2025 Kenya Global Worker Retreat

90 Day Prayer Guide  (CLICK on it to print) 

We are well in to the New Year 2025. Happy New Year

As we enter this new year we want to invite you to pray with us for ministry as we prepare to return to Kenya in April. You may recall, we had the honor of joining with our co-workers, Jeff and Christine Stanfield last November 2024 for 10 days of ministry at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya. Many of you followed us in prayer and support during that time. As a result of that visit the four of us have been invited to return to Kenya for the Global Workers Field Retreat as their main speakers. 

The Kenya field is one of flagship fields and we have several workers with WGM serving in various medical based and church based ministries. We are humbled and honored to respond to this invitation and we realize how much we need the prayers of God's people. As we approach this opportunity we are asking for your prayer support so that we may have the heart and mind of God as we plan to serve His people. 

Above is a 90 day prayer guide that you have a link to be part of our prayer team. It is possible for you to print this off and join us each day in prayer for this ministry opportunity. God has opened the door and is preparing the way for us to go. You can be a part of helping equip us spiritually for this ministry opportunity. 

We thank you for praying with us. Your support means everything to us!

Best wishes,  

Ned and Marlene

www.wgm.org/mcgrady