Embracing Foster Parenthood

by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019

Rachael Porter and the Rev. David Johnston adopted two children who came from a home with opioid addiction. Johnston serves as pastor of Concord United Methodist Church in Athens, West Virginia. Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News Service.

By Joey Butler (UMNS) –

Rachael Porter and the Rev. David Johnston seemed destined to be foster parents. The couple met while on staff at a United Methodist summer camp, and there were always a few foster children in attendance.

One 9-year-old in particular, Johnston said, “would pick his scabs off just for the few moments of love and attention” he would get from a counselor. “It just struck something in me,” he said. “As a way of expressing God’s love of us, needing to show that to kids who wonder, ‘Is there enough love for me?’”

Porter said she’d felt a desire to adopt since middle school after reading “A Child Called It,” which documented the author’s upbringing in an abusive home. “I wanted to wait five years after we were married before we thought about having kids, though,” she said.

That five-year mark coincided with the couple’s move to West Virginia, where Johnston was appointed pastor of Concord United Methodist Church in Athens. Their very first week, they were invited to a cookout and encountered a woman who works as a home finder for Children’s Home Society.

The next thing they knew, they were registered for parenting classes and going through background checks. After learning about the great need for foster parents — West Virginia has one of the highest rates in the nation for children being removed from their homes due to drug addiction — they opted for that route over adoption.

The Friday before Ash Wednesday 2017, the call came and just like that, two more plates were set for dinner. The children, a brother and sister aged 4 and 5, had already been in the foster care system for over two years, coming from a home with opioid addiction. This was to be their sixth placement. “Moving was so much a part of their lives that after a few months one of them said, ‘OK, I’m ready to move to the new house now,’” Johnston said.

Questions about why they couldn’t live with their biological mother were also tough to hear, but Porter said honesty was the best policy. “I told them that their mom was addicted to drugs and she wasn’t able to make right decisions and take care of them like she should, so they had to come be with somebody who could take care of them,” she said.

The Revs. Matt and Beth Johnson have a similar story. They also answered the call to become foster parents to children living in what Matt called “a rough situation.” After a two-year process, in April 2017 they were able to adopt the brother and sister they were fostering.

“Our kids came in July, so we had a big Christmas that year,” said Matt, who is associate pastor at Suncrest United Methodist in Morgantown. “After opening presents, our girl, who was 4 at the time, looked at us and asked, ‘Will I live with you next Christmas?’ It was heartbreaking. All we could say was I hope so.”

Beth Johnson, Wesley Foundation director at West Virginia University in Morgantown, said becoming a foster parent means helping the children cope with issues of trauma, neglect, or abandonment they may experience. “The question became, ‘Am I willing to absorb your suffering and walk through that together?’ It’s a redemption story being written,” she said.

“Some nights after a tough day, we’d sit and ask, ‘Can we do this?’ It’s by the grace of God that we never both said no at the same time,” Matt said.

Both couples acknowledged how much love and support they’ve received from their congregations. “It’s almost like they have half a dozen grandparents at this church,” Johnston said.

Having a group of potential sitters is also helpful, but it’s not quite that simple. Anyone the children are left with must likely undergo a background check; some agencies require sitters to go through the same certification process as the foster parents. However, there is always a need for extra help with errands, or providing material needs for the kids. A few retired teachers even help with homework.

“If someone in your church is considering fostering, find ways to help them,” Matt Johnson said. “Stand up and say, ‘We’re not letting them do this by themselves.’” Johnson recalled the whirlwind the day their children arrived, and the fear of not having everything the children needed. “You don’t know what, if anything, they’ll show up with, or what size clothes or shoes they wear,” he said. “We had to call people and say, ‘I have a list of things, can you help us and run to Target right now?’”

Porter and Johnston insist that, though it can sound daunting, their experience as foster parents has been rewarding. And on February 1, they officially adopted their children. “It’s amazing how much joy these kids have. After what they’ve been through, they laugh constantly,” she said.

Johnston said the way his church has embraced the children is a blessing, as is seeing them “starting to learn the rituals of worship and the words, and knowing that they’re coming to know the story.”

There are numerous opportunities out there for people willing to care for children in these situations — and not only for young kids. Teens also need someone to help them with school or with life decisions they will soon have to make. Those who age out of the system may have nowhere to go and could use a network of support.

“I wouldn’t say that just anybody should do it, though there’s such great need. It’s got to be a calling,” Porter said, adding that she and Johnston are always honest and careful not to romanticize the experience when talking to others.

Johnston said having an “even-keel” personality is a huge help. “It’s hard work. There’s constant paperwork, contact with case workers, therapy. You have to be an advocate for them, particularly at school. You need a network of people to support you, who you can be vulnerable with about how hard it is.”

Porter said as their adoption came closer to being official, her children stopped asking about moving. They started referring to their “forever home.”

Joey Butler is a multimedia producer/editor for United Methodist News Service. 

The Devil Lives in the Mirror

by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019

“Demon Seated” by Mikhail Vrubel (1890), an illustration to the Russian poem “demon” by Mikhail Lermontov.

By Jessica Hooten Wilson –

I stood before the dazed librarian as she scanned each questionable title: The Death of Satan, I See Satan Fall Like Lighting, By Authors Possessed, the books about demons piling up before her. I remember my discomfort and lame apologies about what appeared to be a sinful attraction to evil. This was a Christian university library, after all, and I had a stack of demonic literature rising to evil proportions at the checkout counter.

A similar discomfort confronts me now when I sign the author’s page of my book Giving the Devil His Due – its cover depicting a half-naked demon donning a red cape. Or when a radio personality invites me on his show in the hopes that I will denounce America’s absorption with that “demonic” holiday Halloween. Extended family members often confess their demonic encounters to me, trying to convince me that The Screwtape Letters is no mere caricature but the accurate epistolary adventures of an ancient monster.

Most discomfiting of all, I have stood before an audience of nonbelievers numbering in the hundreds and begged, “Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not listen to any little voice inside you; it may be the devil’s.” I can hear everyone thinking, What’s a nice girl like you doing reading and writing books like this? Instead of comfort, I have chosen to prize truth, in imitation of the two writers I admire most – Fyodor Dostoevsky and Flannery O’Connor. Both of them give the devil his due in order to save us from losing our souls.

The demonic has been a literary trope for centuries – think Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, Mephistopheles from Faust, or somewhat recently I, Lucifer. So, when I began writing a book about Dostoevsky and O’Connor, I was not discovering something new by pointing to the devils in their work. No one who reads their stories will miss the demonic overlays. Rather, as I wrote about the two novelists, I began learning the identity or whereabouts of the demonic. Unlike Frank Peretti – whose demons lurk in shadows and wage war from outside of us – Dostoevsky and O’Connor depict the devil within us. O’Connor defines the novelist’s job as reflecting “our broken condition, and through it, the face of the devil we are possessed by.” If you read her stories, you will be shown a mirror that reflects a scandalous image – yourself as possessed.

Her stories, like Dostoevsky’s, describe the demonic as parasitic evil that detracts from our being, gaining energy and power by our complicity. For example, in her novel The Violent Bear It Away, the main character is a 14-year-old boy named Francis Marion Tarwater who rejects his destiny as a prophet of God. When he does, a stranger’s voice begins whispering within his mind. At first the voice irritates him, soon it sounds the same as his voice, then he sees the stranger’s eyes, and finally, the devil assaults him. Likewise, in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, readers witness Ivan Karamazov dialoguing with a devil in his apartment. Apparently, this is the little demon’s third visit. Over time, the devil has gained power in Ivan’s life.

The question should tug at us: How does this happen? How do we wittingly or unwittingly court evil until it claims authority over us?

The devil’s greatest wile is to convince us that he does not exist. When Tarwater’s demon first addresses the boy, he lies by saying, “[T]here ain’t no such thing as a devil. I can tell you that from my own self-experience. I know that for a fact. It ain’t Jesus or the devil. It’s Jesus or you.” In other words, the choice between Jesus and “you” is the one decision that we all have to make on a regular basis. But here’s what the devil doesn’t explain: The choice to follow one’s self actually enslaves a person to demonic whim.

I found similar truths while reading The Brothers Karamazov. The characters who succumbed to pride – and thus to the influence of the demonic – lived according to false narratives about their identity. One calls himself a buffoon. Another poses as an intellectual. Yet another is torn between being a romantic hero or a sensualist. The holy figure in the novel, Father Zosima, cautions these characters: “Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth.”

When we believe that we are our own, we conform to a falsehood given to us by the “father of lies” (John 8:44). The more we believe in ourselves, the less capacity we have for discerning truth. As Paul reminds us, “You are not your own, but have been bought at a price.”

Now as ever, the devil’s lies hide as truth – in common mottos of our culture that sounds appealing, inspiring, and desirable. We want to be in charge of ourselves, in control of our future, and able to make ourselves better. That sounds nice and good. But when “you do you,” as the saying goes, you become the supreme self. “If pushed too far, the quest for a ‘Supreme Self’ can blur into the most ancient human temptation,” writes Ross Douthat in Bad Religion, “the whisper in Eden that ‘ye shall be as gods.’”

For believers, this struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, comes down to our view of authority. We Protestants often cringe at this word in part because we recall abuses of power and authoritarian overreach. However, the word should also evoke the one who authored us into being. If we reject all authority in order to “think for ourselves” and “be our own guide” in the world, Dostoevsky and O’Connor (and I alongside them) suggest that we will unwittingly fall prey to demonic authority. But God is the ultimate authority.

When I wrote about “giving the devil his due,” I didn’t mean the horned figure with his bright hot poker. Rather, I wanted to partner with Dostoevsky and O’Connor to remind readers of the real devil, whose contagion of lies and violence draws on every human heart. This devil plagues each one of us. Through our media culture, in particular, he lies sweetly and constantly. Every children’s film seems to depict a hero staring at his or her image in a mirror or a pool of water and discovering that the secret to life is to believe in oneself or to trust oneself.

But “the heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah warns us in Scripture (Jer. 17:9). The devil must be unmasked so that we can each see ourselves for who we are – as souls in need of a savior.

Jessica Hooten Wilson is an associate professor of humanities at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and the author of three books, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor and The Brothers Karamazov (which received Christianity Today’s 2018 book award in Culture and the Arts), Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence, and Reading Walker Percy’s Novels. This article originally appeared at Christianity Today and is reprinted by permission.

Two Bishops Offer Plan

by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019

Minneapolis Convention Center, location of the 2020 United Methodist General Conference. Photo: Meet Minneapolis

By Sam Hodges (UMNS) – 

Two bishops propose turning The United Methodist Church into an umbrella organization for new, self-governing church groups that would offer different approaches on ordination of gay clergy and same-sex unions. Michigan Conference Bishop David Bard and Texas Conference Bishop Scott Jones began collaborating on a plan after the rancorous 2019 General Conference and shared it with United Methodist News this week.

“We both envision a future where the church will focus on its mission of making disciples and spend less time and energy debating issues of human sexuality, which means we need to bless different parts of The United Methodist Church to be about the mission in their own ways,” Jones said.

The denomination has faced conflict for more than four decades over theological differences regarding homosexuality. The 2019 General Conference, held February 23-26 in St. Louis, reinforced restrictions on LGBTQ ordination and same-sex unions, but also led to protests and resistance by many churches across the U.S.

Bard and Jones’ plan comes as various groups of church leaders discuss options for the denomination, including schism. A September 18 deadline looms for petitions to be submitted for the 2020 General Conference in Minneapolis.

Though bishops don’t vote at General Conference, Bard and Jones said they feel an urgency to stimulate debate and action. “We’re offering this plan as a thought experiment that we hope others will take seriously and consider as they are making decisions about the future of the church,” Jones said. Bard added, “Scott and I acknowledge that there’s room for other ideas to be incorporated.”

Under the Bard-Jones plan – titled “A New Form of Unity: A Way Forward Strategy 2019-2022” – an annual conference would choose to join one of three groups the bishops are tentatively calling the Traditional Methodist Church, the Open Methodist Church, and the Progressive Methodist Church.

The Traditional Methodist Church would begin with a Book of Discipline that includes the Traditional Plan, which passed by a vote of 438 to 384 at the 2019 General Conference and strengthened enforcement of restrictions on LGBTQ ordination and same-sex unions.

The Open Methodist Church and Progressive Methodist Church would begin with a Book of Discipline modified to include the Simple Plan as presented in St. Louis. That plan called for eliminating restrictions on same-sex unions and ordination of gay persons as clergy, as well as removing the church’s official position that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Under the Bard-Jones proposal, the Progressive Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline would be further modified to affirm clearly the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in marriage and ordination candidacy. The Open Methodist Church and Progressive Methodist Church might choose to be one group, the bishops say.

The two or three churches would each decide on a name (“Methodist” isn’t required to be part of it), and each would hold its own General Conferences, with complete freedom to revise its Book of Discipline. Each would fund its bishops and decide on approved seminaries. The two or three churches would share in governing the General Council of Finance and Administration, Wespath, the United Methodist Publishing House, and the General Commission on Archives and History. They would contribute proportionally to the Black College Fund and Africa University. Other general church agencies would have their own boards and be accountable to the Open Methodist Church but would provide services as requested to the other churches.

The United Methodist Church would no longer have individual members but would continue to exist “as an umbrella to facilitate this new form of unity,” the plan says. The churches would be in full communion, and each could use the cross-and-flame logo of The United Methodist Church.

Though specific in many ways, the plan leaves unanswered big questions, such as the global nature of The United Methodist Church. “Churches in Europe and Asia could form their own Methodist Churches or belong to one of the two or three churches, with the precise nature of the relationship to be determined,” the plan says. “There would be a United Methodist Church in Africa, the precise affiliations to the two or three churches to be determined.” Asked about the ambiguity, Bard said, “While we’ve had conversations with our colleagues from other parts of the world, we didn’t want to go too far in defining what they may wish to do.”

Another unknown: Would these new churches have a Judicial Council? “Each of the new church groupings would determine whether or not to form a Judicial Council or similar body,” Bard said.

The Connectional Conference Plan that failed at the 2019 General Conference would have realigned the denomination according to perspectives on LGBTQ inclusion, as does Bard-Jones. But the Connectional Conference Plan required constitutional amendments, a lengthy process involving votes throughout the annual conferences. Bard and Jones believe their plan could be launched by General Conference action only.

“The key is the proposal to allow U.S. annual conferences to leave the denomination,” they say in the plan. “It was contained in section 9 of petition 90041 of the Traditional Plan. This section of the petition was ruled constitutional by the Judicial Council. Because the petition died in the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, section 9 would need to be reintroduced and passed in 2020.”

The Bard-Jones plan foresees churches that disagree with their annual conference’s affiliation decision having the right “to transfer conferences with their assets, thereby joining a different church.” The plan also lays out an implementation timetable, with the 2020 General Conference approving the major steps, followed by annual conferences choosing their affiliations with one of the two or three new churches in 2021 and the first General Conferences of those churches in 2022.

Bard and Jones said they have shared their plan with fellow bishops as well as with groups discussing the future of the church. The stakes are high, and the two bishops hope to have an influence. “Our plan offers a vision for keeping as much unity as possible and a pathway for decisions to be made,” Jones said.

Sam Hodges is a Dallas-based writer for United Methodist News.

Sparking Hope

by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019

Graduates of Scarlet Hope’s Career Development Program. Photo by Charissa Koh/WORLD Magazine.

By Courtney Lott –

The readers of World, a Christian news magazine, nominated 200 small ministries over the past year that offer challenging, personal, and spiritual help to those in need. After countless interviews, and a 3,000-mile road trip, this list was narrowed down to five organizations as contenders for Hope Awards issued by World. Here are brief profiles of these innovative faith-based initiatives.

Scarlet Hope

In 2008, 24-year-old Rachelle Starr walked into a strip club with three friends. They wore turtlenecks, went without make-up, and had to pay the bouncer just to get in the door. Across the street, their husbands waited and watched as Starr and the other two women asked the owner of the club if they could bring the dancers a weekly meal. Though skeptical, he agreed. Ten years later, Scarlet Hope is still taking food to clubs every Thursday and building relationships with the dancers.

Since that first day, this ministry has expanded to provide vocational training, as well as Bible classes. During the week the volunteers drive the streets looking for sex workers. They distribute roses with their business cards and care bags filled with an outfit and toiletries. Starr utilizes technology developed by Seattle Against Slavery to gather and message the numbers prostitutes share online. She receives a variety of responses ranging from rude rejections to desperate pleas for help. Along with meeting these physical needs, the volunteers of Scarlet Hope also pray with the workers and tell them that Jesus loves them.

Unable to provide safe transitional housing for the women who come to them for shelter, Scarlet Hope has partnered with other organizations nearby. This has also enabled them to focus on helping sex workers build a life outside of the industry. In 2017 they started a Career Development Program. During this 18 month training, women learn life skills from a Christian perspective, receive counseling, and obtain job experience. Taking classes earns students “Scarlet bucks,” which they can trade in for donated clothes and household items. Starr says that providing jobs with dignity for women who once sold their bodies to survive is vitally important. A sign at Scarlet’s Bakery sums this concept up quite nicely: “We don’t hire people to bake cupcakes. We bake cupcakes to hire people.”

Little Light Christian School

After school program at Little Light Christian School. Photo by Charissa Koh/WORLD Magazine.

At Little Light Christian School (LLCS) in Oklahoma City, the students start the day with a unique ritual: changing out of their street shoes and into a pair provided by the school. It’s a matter of safety, says Principal and founder, Robin Khoury, so all the students get rid of their status symbols the moment they walk in the door. In order to attend Little Light, children must have at least one parent in prison. Most struggle academically and deal with a wide range of emotional trauma that only adds to their burden.

Principal Khoury opened this free Christian school in 2012 after volunteering for almost two decades in prison ministry. While there, she learned that children with parents in prison struggled significantly in academics. The curriculum comes from a Christian worldview, modified from Khoury’s time homeschooling her own children. However, it can also be adjusted to meet each students’ needs. One boy found motivation to catch up to his grade level by being allowed to work on an iPad, while a fifth-grade girl has gone from being emotionally closed off to forming connections with the other students.

Teachers are equipped to care for kids who have experienced deep trauma and trained on how to try and de-escalate bad behavior. LLCS not only provides two meals and two snacks every weekday, but it also sends students home with backpacks full of food on the weekends. When classes end, LLCS offers an after-school program from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. The school is limited on resources and Principal Khoury often isn’t sure how she will pay all of her teachers. However, she also has many stories of how God has provided in the past and trusts him to continue in his faithfulness.

Forge Center for Virtue and Work

Founder James Whitford began working with the homeless in Joplin, Missouri, nearly 20 years ago when he and his wife rented out a room at the Red Cross. Calling their shelter “Watered Gardens” in honor of Isaiah 58:11’s encouragement to work with the poor, the Whitfords offered necessities to the impoverished of their city. After reading Toxic Charity and developing a desire to empower people to escape poverty, they created a “Worth Shop.” Here, those who come in can do simple tasks for a set amount of time to earn what they need. Fifteen minutes of work buys four items from the thrift shop, an hour earns a week of groceries, and twelve hours a week reserves a bed in the shelter.

Three years later, Watered Gardens developed “Forge Center for Virtue and Work.” This program takes six men through three phases to help them get back on their feet. Each must work at the Worth Shop for three months before they are allowed to move into the Forge dorms and enter phase one: education. Here they take classes for eight hours a day, learning a wide range of topics including the Bible, health, and legal living. Work readiness follows this phase in which Forge finds companies willing to hire one of their students. They then shift to a transitional phase where they move out of the dorms and into a house with two other students. Finally, they take the step to independence. In order to graduate, they must have a full-time job, their own place, and medical insurance.

There is a 5 percent graduation rate. While this may sound like a small number, it is actually very good for an intensive program like Forge. Many get 45 days in and believe they can stay sober on their own. Those who do, often end up back at Watered Gardens drunk or high. Without heart change, director Jamie Myers says, there will be no behavior change. Whitford believes that the most effective programs are work-oriented and outcome-driven. One day, he hopes to create a network of nonprofits like Forge around the United States.

Purposeful Design

When marketing consultant David Palmer saw how difficult it was for the homeless of Wheeler Mission in Indianapolis, he prayed, then went to Google. Though he didn’t have a background in carpentry, he and some friends put together a piece of furniture and, based on the positive feedback they received, decided that working with wood was the answer. This began Purposeful Design. Here, men leaving addiction, homelessness, or prison are able to work and find community. Sales have continued to grow as the men create tables and earn loyal customers like Purdue University.

Recently, this non-profit was able to move into a new, larger facility. Their lobby displays placards with ways Purposeful Design has changed the lives of the men who work there. “I used drugs and sold them,” one reads. “Then I had an encounter with a man named Jesus.” Another says, “God picked me up, sanded me off, put a new coat of stain over me, and set me back on the shelf.”

The only requirements to get hired is that a man must be able-bodied, clean and sober, and ready to follow instructions. But teaching woodworking is only one part of Purposeful Design’s goal, says Palmer. They’re also working to “get under the skin.” Without heart change, the skills and paychecks are just a “Band-Aid for a terrible wound.” Employees participate in morning prayer and weekly bible studies. Though many of the men don’t claim to be Christians, they continue to attend these meetings and ask questions. Accountability and friendship keep them coming, providing community and dignity within their work environment.

20schemes

Natasha Davidson talks with a resident of the Niddrie scheme in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo by Gary Fong/ Genesis Photo Agency.

When people in the U.S. hear the word “scheme,” sneaky hijinks often come to mind. In Scotland, however, this word means something very different. Here, schemes are neighborhoods with a high percentage of government housing. These two- and three-story apartments were built by the local government after WWII in order to provide for the poor. They often become their own little worlds and are populated with large numbers of people officially defined and “income deprived.” The international winner of The Hope Award, 20schemes, seeks to create “charity-infused churches” in twenty such areas.

Director Mez McConnell comes from a similar background to many of the schemers. Abandoned by his mother at the age of 2, he entered into a life of violence and homelessness that was only turned around by an encounter with Jesus after a group of Christians visited him in prison.

Though the houses and apartments often look nice, McConnell explains that many children who live here haven’t had a hot meal in weeks and are surviving on moldy Rice Krispies and milk gone bad. In spite of this, however, there is a sense of community spirit within the schemes. With families living there for generations, they see each other as “their own people.” Crime is bad, but only done to strangers, therefore residents of the schemes leave their doors unlocked and trust each other.

The leaders of 20schemes live in the communities they serve, are not afraid to talk about sin, and emphasize forming a church family. Because many schemers speak about losing friends when they become Christians, this makes church community even more vitally important. 20schemes also has a two-year training program for interns, many of who are residents of the schemes. Some, however, come from different classes and even different parts of the world as well. 20schemes concentrates its efforts on gospel presentation. It is “only a realization of our sin before a holy God that sets us on the road to change,” McConnell says. “Handouts are a detour.”

Courtney Lott is the editorial assistant at Good News. For more information, check out world.wng.org.

Our Core Mission

by Steve | Sep 3, 2019 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September-October 2019

By Reed Hoppe –

It has been a rough season in The United Methodist Church. Infighting and factions seem to receive more news coverage than the programs we created to spread the gospel, relieve poverty, help victims of natural disasters, and minister to hurting people.

When I become overwhelmed with the uncertainty of the future, I go back to our core mission: The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

I think of the fourth- and fifth-grade students I teach in Sunday school, and the questions they ask as they explore faith in Jesus. I think of the people in our local church who are being discipled and growing in faith. And I think of TMS Global’s cross-cultural workers who humble and inspire me. They relate stories back to their supporters about the ways they see transformation as Jesus works in the lives of people.

For example, Arthur and Mary Alice Ivey have served in Peru for 17 years. When their three children lived and served with them, the Iveys would frequent a restaurant in Huancayo. 

Willy served as a waiter in the restaurant. He would often wait on the Iveys and noted how happy they were and how much they laughed together. After watching them for several months, Willy pulled Arthur aside and wanted to know why his family was different from most families Willy knew.

Arthur shared the gospel with Willy, and he put his trust in Jesus. Willy was already attending Alcoholics Anonymous, but after coming to faith, he was completely freed of his addiction to alcohol. As Willy grew in faith, he became more and more involved in the Iveys’ ministries. Willy attended a discipleship group and learned more about Jesus and what it means to follow him. He began volunteering with short-term medical teams that traveled from the United States to serve under-reached areas in Peru.

Willy’s family noticed a tremendous change in him and became curious about his new faith. His wife, Margot, and his daughters, Nicole and Jhomara, began attending the Iveys’ weekly discipleship group. The Iveys shared the gospel with Margot, and she put her faith in Jesus. Willy learned how to share his faith in Christ through participating in the Iveys’ ministries and led his two daughters to faith. He also led his parents, in-laws, and several other family members to put their trust in Jesus.

Willy led his son, Matias, to faith, but Matias engaged in a time of rebellion for several years. He started going to pagan festivals, drinking, and experimenting with drugs. Matias eventually dropped out of school.

The Iveys and Willy spent a lot of time in prayer for Matias, and he eventually turned back to the Lord. Matias returned to school and is doing very well. He was recently baptized by Arthur and is growing rapidly in his faith.

“God has done marvelous things in the lives of this family,” said Mary Alice. “More than a dozen people have come to know Jesus as Lord through Willy sharing his faith with them.”

It’s easy to get distracted from accomplishing our core mission. I can become so focused on serving my family that I spend much more time doing chores for them than spending time with them. In the same way, we can become so involved in the politics of church that we cease to be the church in our neighborhoods, communities, and the world.

Willy invested his time and energy into sharing the gospel with his family. People came to faith through Willy’s witness, and he and the Iveys are discipling these new believers in their walk with Jesus.

Whatever the future holds for The United Methodist Church, the commission of Jesus will not change. May we look for ways to love God, love people, and make disciples despite the circumstances in which we find ourselves. 

Reed Hoppe serves as the associate director of marketing for TMS Global (www.TMS-Global.org).