Season of Thanks

We are so very thankful as we approach this season of gratitude. With the holiday approaching we are reminded that "Gratitude turns what you have into enough!" We are blessed to have you in our lives and so very grateful for your prayers and support. 

Since we wrote to you this summer we have had ministry opportunities to host missionaries home on ministry assignment to provide a time of Renewal and spiritual refreshment to come alongside of them in care support. In September we had 75 Alumni and Retirees come to WGM Marion for a retreat.  They were honored and blessed, as this group of heros that have served our Lord so faithfully over the years joined us.  Our team prepared and served the meals for this event. (picture in the right corner)  

Marlene was able to get all her continuing education credits this year as we attended the American Association of Christian Counselors event in Nashville in September. Over 7000 servants of God conviened at the Opry Land for this inspirational learning event. Christian artist Chris Tomlin and many other renowed artists and speakers provided a fantastic week of learning.(picture in upper left corner) In October we were blessed to attend the Pastors to Missionaries Conference near Ashville, NC where we gathered with member care providers from all around the world in a time of sharing best practices and encouraging teaching. Most recently we went to Lake Michigan to provide a mini reteat for renewal for Aftica based missionaries. (picture lower left corner) and we are particularily thankful for the beautiful sunset the Lord blessed us with one of the evenings during the retreat. 

We had a chance to give an update to our home supporting church in Jackson, Michigan last Sunday. It was a blessing to share a snapshot of our ministry and connect with the mission committee at Encounter Church as well as visit and fellowship with great friends. We are so thankful for churches like Encounter that stand with us in regular financial support and prayer support. Partnerships such as these are what makes our ministry possible. 

One of the most common questions we are asked is where are you headed next. For nearly 20 years we have been traveling in ministry to 37 countries on 6 continents. In December we will be visiting our Southwest Ministry Center in Pheonix, Arizona. WGM has a rich history and presence amongst the native america population. We look forward to the visit and ministry God has for us there. 

We are all aware of the recent hurrican Melissa that hit Jamaica. While we have received word at this time that our missionary serving there is safe, we are also appealing for gifts that will be used for relief and sharing Christ's love. If you wish to donate to this appeal CLICK HERE. Our missionary Deirdre Graham will be assisting persons in Jamaica. Ineterestingly, we had made plans and purchesed tickets to visit Jamaica back in June. We are scheduled to be there in January just after the holidays. We will be intent on going as travel allows in order provide support and ministry there. Meanwhile, please join us in prayer for Jamaica and the ministry of WGM there. 

Finally, we want to take this chance to say thank you to you and thank you for your care and support. We are so grateful for each donation that comes in to our ministry and it helps us so much to continue to represent Christ to the nations. 

We wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Thanksgiving and many blesssing from above!

With gratitude, 

Ned and Marlene McGrady

Missionaries with World Gospel Mission

To support Ned and Marlene

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

 

Christmas Time is Here…filling hearts with Cheer…AND “GOOD NEWS”   December 2024

One of our favorite Christmas stories is the “Charlie Brown Christmas.” It does so much to emphasize the true meaning of Christmas and how much love, hope, joy and peace abounds to all who seek Emmanuel, God with us.

What a wonderful year of service in helping proclaim the “Good News” that Jesus has come and is with us.

We appreciated your prayers and support for us as we helped to mobilize and send missionaries to the fields to spread the “Good News.” As we helped prepare missionaries, teach sessions, provide spiritual formation and send people out in answer to the Great Commission.

We appreciated your prayers and support for us as we helped over 20 missionaries return to their passport country to debrief and refresh their hearts for their home ministry assignment here in the USA. These times of Renewal are refreshing to our hearts and helps to strengthen the work and efforts to continue to share the “Good News.”

We appreciated your prayers and support for us as we traveled this year to Spain, Albania, Greece and Kenya, all in the effort to provide encouragement and minister support to the folks called to those areas of the world. Places where the “Good News” is impacting lives for eternity.

We appreciated your prayers and support as we served in the Vacation Bible School as well as teaching in children’s church once a month at our local church, Lakeview Wesleyan, in Marion, IN. It is always a joy to help the little people who are hearing the “Good News,” some for the first time.

We appreciated your prayers and support as we honored our WGM Retirees at our Indiana Office, again this year, by providing a retreat for over 60 heroes of the faith who have served faithfully in spreading the “Good News” across the globe.

We appreciated your prayers and support as we spoke in churches this year in Florida, Michigan and Ohio, as we helped to expand the vision for taking the “Good News” to others, everywhere.

We appreciate your prayers and support for our family extended as we have been able to be together with our granddaughters, their parents, as well as our sons and as our family joins together to celebrate Ned’s mother’s 100^th birthday. We are having a celebration on Dec. 28^th when most family and friends are available to honor her special day. She was born January 9, 1925, in Logan, OH. Mom has dedicated her life to sharing the “Good News” over the years and we are excited to honor her on her special day.

As we look ahead in the New Year, we continue to have grateful hearts for each one of you and for your faithful support for our ministry. We would not be able to travel as we do without you and each time we go, we take you in our hearts with us. Together we are impacting the World with the “Good News” of Emmanuel, God is with us.

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year,

Ned and Marlene McGrady

 

WGM Missionaries                                         Online giving go to www.wgm.org/mcgrady              

6964 Mary Court                                              Checks can be sent to WGM

Marion, IN 46953                                             Box 948 Marion, IN 46952

Ned@straightpaths.org

727-459-2966

 

The pictures below are from our recent trip to Kenya in November.  We visited the new Cardio Thoracic Center, a state-of-the-art health facility built and underwritten in partnership with Samaritans Purse and WGM. This facility will be a premier provider of heart related surgery in the country of Kenya.  The other pictures are of us visiting with and hanging out with several of our missionaries and our MK’s serving in Kenya, spreading the “Good News.”

Responding at a Moment's Notice!

 Recently we were sitting around a table with a group of missionary workers and discussing our ministry as member care givers, sharing a little understanding about what we do. We were asked at that time, where we would be traveling to next for our ministry. We responded that at this time and for the remainder of the year, we do not have any out of country visits planned. We continued our visit together and left the meeting, only to receive a phone call asking us if we can come to Kenya. 

Often our ministry is not unlike the Minutemen volunteers of the Civil War Era. They were ready to respond in a moments notice, and we like them too are ready to respond. We have been in this ministry of support and care to our missionaries for over twenty years now. It is a joy for us to go, to share, to listen, to care and it is time to respond again. 

We will be leaving for Kenya this weekend for two weeks of ministry with our team serving there. We anticipate many opportunities to support and care for our people there. We ask an interest in your prayers as we go that we may have ears to hear and hearts to empathize as we meet with folks during these days. 

Everytime we are called to go, we pause to think of you, the reader of this blog. We sort of think of you as our "Minutemen" persons that we can stop and say, thank you, Father God for giving us a support team that continues to stand with us in ministry. We thank you, Father God for people who pray for us as we go on ministry journeys like this, and for the many individuals and churches that give sacrificially to us through World Gospel Mission so we can go. While we say thank you, Father God, we say thank you to you. Without your faithfulness, we would not be able to go. 

Please pray for us as we prepare for this trip. Please pray for our flights, connections, and luggage as we will be carrying supplies with us for the ministry there. Please pray for our visits with our team mates and co-workers serving faithfully on the front lines of ministry. Please pray for the entire staff continuing to work throughout Kenya as they partner with the African Gospel Church and the various important ministries taking place through the mission. We will have significant time to share with workers at Tenwek Hospital and at the newly opened Cardiac Thoracic Center. This state of the art facility was a result of a partnership with World Gospel Mission, the African Gospel Church, and Samaritan's Purse. 

Finally, thanks for praying and supporting us in a minute's notice. If you would like to give a one-time gift to further support our work and help defray the extra costs of this ministry visit to Kenya, please make a contribution to WORLD GOSPEL MISSION . It will be a blessing to our work, as will your prayers. 

Thankyou for being our "Minutemen" in this important endeavor. 

Sincerely,

Ned and Marlene McGrady

Missionaries with World Gospel Mission

Box 948

Marion, IN 46952

727-459-2966

God is at work in Europe and What's Next?

 

God is at work throughout Europe.