New Ministry Opportunity

   With our transition to South America Mission and our move to Pucallpa, our ministry is going to change quite a bit. Brenda is getting involved in the crisis preganacy center and also has interest in studying. I am still going to be focused on construction of the SAM Center but there are going to be smaller projects that we will have the opportunity to be involved with. We both have interest in local church involvement in some way, maybe leading a small group study, and we have interest in learning more about SAM's indigenous center to see if there is a way we could minister to the people there. Today I wanted to share with you about a ministry idea I have had for a couple years but it seems more likely to be a fit here in Pucallpa than it has before.
   As many of you know, I have been involved in competition archery in the past and have taught archery at a local high school in Guelph and at a children's summer camp. I have heard about a ministry that is available to run in churches that uses archery to reach people with the gospel. I am currently trying to figure out if that ministry is something that I would want to incorporate into mine or just use some of their ideas and customize it to fit the culture here. The latter is the way I thinking of going.
   I have talked with several people who are interested in the ministry including school directors, camp directors and tribal leaders. The way I can see it working is I would buy the needed equipment with ministry funds and write my own curriculum that would link the sport of archery with real life, Biblical truths to help relay the message of the gospel to the young people involved.
I would then travel around to local schools,

I would run an extended program at a local camp here in Pucallpa,

and I would offer to go to tribal villages who are interested in renewing the interest of the young people in their communites in the use of bow and arrow as part of their heritage.

 

All of these opportunities and more would open up several ways to share the gospel with people who need to hear it.
   Some of you may be saying "Why archery?", "what does it have to do with the gospel?" or "What if the kids are not althletic?" The answer is that archery can be related to Biblical truths in many ways. For example the first thing taught in archery when it comes to actually shooting is that you need a good stance, a firm base. That is true too in our Christian lives, we need a good base or firm foundation in our faith to be able to share the gospel. Archery also takes a great deal of responsibility to ensure safety. That resposibility can be useful in many other areas of your life. As far as the kids being athlethic or not, the fact is that archery is a sport where it doesn't pay to be fast, you don't need to be strong and many kids can excel at archery even if they have don't do well in other sports. It is an activity that can include the entire family as well which goes well with what the Bible teaches us.
  So as you can see this could be a ministry that opens up many opportunities for me. I would not actually buy the equipment until we were back in Canada in June but you could be praying about it today.