Who's in the family?

 

 

 

 Family is life's most precious commodity. Family is a precious gift, one that refreshes the heart, renews the spirit, and reminds us just how blessed we are. We have been traveling a lot in these recent days, but we found some time over the Labor Day weekend between running from Bolivia to Indiana, from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and in between to spend some time with our family. Lake Michigan has been our family destination for a long time. Seeing  the beautiful double rainbow over Lake Michigan reminded us that God's promises are always true and we can trust Him. We enjoyed a weekend together with our Josh, Jordan, Jessi, Zac, and our baby Rowen. Rowen had her first experience recently meeting a donkey up close and in person with "Papa" and she loved it. Yes, family is life's most precious commodity and we are thankful for our family and each one of our kids. We love them all so very much and grateful to God for His abundant blessings to us. While we hold this family so dear, we realize that the family of God is so much bigger and we all are part of that great family. Even as we think of you as the reader of this blog, you are part of our family. You are reading this today because you care about us, you pray for us, you may even send in financial support for our ministry and we feel the same warm thoughts about you as we realize you are part of our family too and we are so thankful for you. Then, as we think about family, we realize that God has blessed us with an amazing missionary family that we get to
work with. During the past two weeks and over the summer we have had an the opportunity to invest in the lives of our missionaries in some incredible ways. We conducted a total of three Renewal sessions over the course of this year, yielding us the opportunity to debrief and provide spiritual support and renewal to nearly 60 missionaries serving from all parts of the world. God is doing great things and WGM is on the move to impact the world for Christ in exciting ways. We listen to story after story of a life that is changed because a missionary went to serve and we (Marlene and Ned) are privileged to partner with you in encouraging, supporting and coming alongside of these servants in their work and ministry. It may be that you are reading this blog today and God may be speaking to you about how you might become even more involved in missions. We'd love to have a conversation with you about that, the Lord of the harvest is still calling laborers into the mission field. Will you pray Luke 10:2 that the Lord of the harvest will send workers.
Many of you are aware that Jordan is heading to McAllen, Texas to WGM's border ministry to serve as a Phys Ed. teacher and soccer coach for the next year. This door of ministry has opened for him and he is excited to go. He is currently in process of raising funds to serve for the next year, and he is in need of about $4000.00 more of support to be fully funded. He will be leaving for the field on October 9. If you would like to support Jordan, your tax deductible gift can be sent to World Gospel Mission Box 948, Marion, IN 46952 or a secure gift can be given on line at www.wgm.org/jordanmcgrady We look forward to seeing what God will do through Jordan as he goes to do this important ministry.

Since we last talked to you, we had the privilege of visiting our missionaries serving in Bolivia in the month of August. We spoke to them as a group, shared a meal together, and went to some of their places of ministry. We visited the "El Alferero" ministry to university students in Santa Cruz, where our missionary Amanda Hoogcamp serves as counselor and librarian in this exciting ministry. God is working to use our WGM missionaries in some incredible ways. Your prayers for us as we come alongside of them in ministry is so important. We also traveled out about 5 hours by car to Asuncion' to visit our long term missionary Dr. Nina Kunkle who has faithfully served the Lord there all of her adult life. Dr. Kunkle was born and raised in Bolivia and has literally saved the lives of many while telling them of the eternal salvation that only Jesus can bring. Dr. Kunkle is pictured here (lower right)with the pastor and wife of the local WGM Nueva Esperanza Church (New Hope). We have a supporting church that is part of our family,    
Village Hope Church in Jackson, MI. There are a couple of ladies that recycle greeting cards into laminated tracts with the plan of salvation scriptures in Spanish on them. We took a supply of 500 of these with us and distributed them at this church and the people were so excited to take these cards out to help tell others about the love of Christ. Have you ever wondered what you could do to advance the Gospel in our world? Who would have known that recycled greetings cards could make such a difference?
We just returned from a journey out east here in the USA. We traveled to Philadelphia, PA where we had the honor of visiting the Mariam Clinic,
where long term missionaries, Dr. Michael and Kay Johnson serve in an inner city ministry. Dr. and Mrs. Johnson served for 20 years at our Tenwek hospital in Kenya, Africa until they sensed God leading them back to USA where they have started this inner city clinic serving the underserved medical needs of the people living in inner city Philly. I know that sometimes we run into people that wonder why don't we minister to the needs of the people right here in our own country. Well, the family of God is not an either/or situation, it is both. God is about redeeming and restoring lives around the world and He cares about everyone's needs from Bolivia to Philadelphia. God's people are in need of our prayers and our support and we have some great members of God's family reaching out around the world with the love of Christ. Are you interested in how you can be a part of this great work? We would love to hear more from you.


From our family to your family, may you be blessed in all ways.

Sincerely,
Ned and Marlene McGrady
Missionaries with World Gospel Mission
Directors of Member Health
Box 948
Marion, IN 46952
765-671-7240
www.wgm.org/mcgrady