Mission Prayer Partners

We walked home from the park under a canopy of trees and a mottled sky. The late afternoon quiet pierced by the soft clicking of our dog’s paws on concrete as he walked along side us. “My family, and for Duke, and...” our seven year old daughter Stephanie began to answer without hesitation and with ensuing, exacting detail, in response to our inquiry into what she was most thankful for. “Nintendo Game Cube,” was her equally quick response, when asked what she thought her brothers were most thankful for.

We may never know what our sons are truly thankful for, aside from well, for everything we have, that we might not have.” They aren’t predisposed to engaging in lengthy discussion on any topic that doesn’t in some way pertain to Game Cube computer game strategy. Yet, what we can all undeniably be grateful for as members of Holy Trinity is that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Division for Global Mission, continues to do God’s work throughout the world.

We can be grateful that at any time of the day or night, 309 international ELCA Mission personnel working in affiliation with 70 companion churches located in 49 countries from Bolivia to Bangladesh, Tanzania to Thailand and beyond, are somewhere in the world, striving to spread the good news of the Gospel and affecting countless lives.

As we reflect on the many blessings that have been given to us all by a most gracious God, please join with our family in taking a break from the Nintendo Game Cubes before us, to pray for the entire ELCA Division for Global Mission, for its Executive Director Rev. Rafael Padilla, and for all its missionaries tirelessly working throughout the world. — Gary and Sherrie Bague and Family