American Missionary Fellowship

A Prayer for Destiny

I had been praying for Destiny to come to know Jesus as her Savior all year. She was seven years old and loved to study God’s Word with me, but I realized that she just couldn’t quite grasp the concept of sin. So I continued to pray for her. Then one day, later on in the year, we were sitting together, starting to read through a Mailbox Club course. By this time, she was doing a good job of reading it on her own. I only had to help her with a few of the big words. As she began to read, I felt the Holy Spirit tug at my heart. I knew that the time had come. . .

Going the Distance for VBS

When Frank and Linda Distad arrived in northwestern Wisconsin as AMF missionaries in 1987, Vacation Bible School (VBS) was the highlight of the summer for many kids. The retiring missionary from that field, Clarence Ecker, had been leading four Vacation Bible Schools in the area, and the Distads continued what he had started. They patterned their Vacation Bible Schools after those of a couple in Michigan who led VBS by traveling to several churches, including the one Frank had pastored. “I liked their style,” Frank says of this couple…

Daniel, praise and worship leader at Iglesia Cristiana Internacional in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Bryan, a devotee of the Mexican “Santa Muerte” (“Saint Death”) cult, worked together last summer, maintaining fish ponds at the mansions in Jackson.  Bryan had abandoned his wife and six-month-old son in Mexico amid strife and family violence related to drug and alcohol use

Going “home” brought back many memories, not all pleasant. The many good memories cover a period of six years and include a lot of people from one church. Each time I returned “home” I would express in public my appreciation for this church and the part it played in my life. I would also try to remember to thank those individuals we visited for the specific roles they had in my life. Not many of them are left, but this time, we visited with Jean Stover, now 82 years old. She and her husband, Herb, had made sure I had a ride to church.

Last week as I was assisting one of the residents with her nightly routine, she commented on my patience. In reply I said, “Oh, I get that from my Father.”

In turn, she replied, “My father was a patient man, as well, on the outside, but he boiled on the inside.”

To that, I replied, “Oh, I didn’t mean my earthly father. I was speaking of my Heavenly Father.”