The Good News Rolls at Rachel Sims

Before Thanksgiving I paid a visit to my friends and fellow missionaries at the Rachel Sims Baptist Mission in the Irish Channel of New Orleans. I had been in the area working with a pastor on some outreach ideas so I dropped by and chatted a while with Larry Miguez and Linda Middlebrooks (I got to meet Larry's mother too, she's a card). I had arrived on one of those "real life" days, the ones you never read about in the Baptist press. Some things weren't going as well as hoped, one of their semester missionaries was having car trouble, plans for an upcoming event were becoming more and more last minute, and frustration had set in. By the way, we missionaries have lots of days like this. This is why we go on and on about how much we appreciate your prayers. Anyway, if there's one thing that missionaries do for one another, its to bare one another's burdens. Its considered uncouth for us to vent to others so we get things off our chest to one another. Its very therapeutic and helps us get over the hump. Larry and Linda did get over the hump. God is good that way. In fact, I spoke with Linda earlier this week and she had very good news to share. Several children and youth had accepted Christ as their savior through the ministries of Rachel Sims in the two weeks since we had last spoken. Linda was excited about discipling these new Christians and shared some great ideas for future evangelism efforts. We work through all the hardships and frustration when all the wheels fall off so we can get to days like this. Growing the Kingdom is what it is all about and the work of Rachel Sims Baptist Mission plays an important part here in the New Orleans area.