I can imagine that you are like me in this: You go off to conference where you participate, listen and learn (in my case, a BAM conference). You fly home exhausted, and your spouse picks you up. I ask her about her four days at home, and she asks me about mine! But mine is about business – missional business; it is about foreign cultures; it is about disciple-making in hard places; it is about people – very different people.
I am excited – I have enough encouragement to get me up and serving for another year. How can I communicate it all- in five minutes or less? To my wife and in this blog? Let me try.
- Imagine a region of ten million people with zero Christians, zero churches, zero missionaries.
- Imagine that historically, the dominant industry here is growing specialized nuts.
- Imagine extreme poverty developing in the last ten years due to antiquated technology, corrupt international buyers, and a fleeing younger generation.
- Imagine a family with Jay, trained and experienced in specialty nut technology in the USA, and together with his spouse. dedicated to making disciples, living cross-culturally, and raising a family in a hard country.
- Imagine this family of five living in the country for five years, learning the language, and loving God’s call in their lives despite lots of challenges.
- Imagine the government recognizing the potential for having this expertise available and granting them visas to live in the nut growing region.
- Imagine that Jay also has a wiring for business and a willingness to learn more.
- Imagine God giving them an innovative approach for a profit-making business, which is creating lots of jobs and rejuvenating the dying specialty nut industry.
- Imagine God giving them a spirit of peace, the wisdom to know how to serve and bless the people, and the knowledge of how to create readiness in their hearts.
- Imagine being able to see “eternity in their hearts” (Eccl. 3:11) so that numerous Islamic people (employees, customers, neighbors), are asking to study the Bible.
- Imagine IBEC having a niche in this as we coach Jay in his capital development vision.
- Imagine that you too can partner financially with Jay and the team! Yes, you can – contact us at Robert.bush@ibecventures.com
- Imagine – OK – great job! Yet, you don’t have to imagine any more – this is reality! This is what gets me up in the morning – and this is just one story of many others like it.
We all can thank God this Thanksgiving season.
Larry W. Sharp, BAM Support Specialist, IBEC Ventures
Larry.Sharp@ibecventures.com