Colin and Zach arrived in the Philippines and have several praises in direct answer to specific prayers:

1. To go along with the good equipment sponsorship, God provided an additional and unexpected “no fee” third checked bag to Colin for the trip. More equipment could be carried and there was also room for a few clothes!
2. A potential tropical depression (or worse) did not develop its full potential and moved away from the areas to be visited just before the team’s arrival in the Philippines. Air turbulence predicted by the pilot to be very bad did not occur. In fact, things went so well that the flight arrived over 30 minutes ahead of schedule.
3. The team’s baggage all arrived and was located easily and then cleared customs without difficulty.
4. VVM Director Bayani located the team without difficulty in spite of a brownout that made the lighting inadequate. o The team has been able to meet with several Bible translators who are encouraged by the good results of VVM’s Church Mobilization Initiative, and are hopeful that Bible distribution efforts and film production will expand.

VVMI’s ministry partner, VIÑA, created “Deditos” to share the Good News of the Gospel with ethnic minority language groups in Guatemala.  On the other side of the globe, another VVMI ministry partner, Vernacular Video Ministry (VVM), was creating original Gospel-proclaiming films in remote tribal villages in the Philippines.  God, through VVMI, brought these two groups together.  They began to share a vision and goal of reaching children for Christ.  VIÑA shared, and VVM started the work of dubbing Deditos into multiple ethnic minority languages in the Philippines.

Through Abraham, and through VIÑA, all the nations will be blessed!

A dramatized Bible story using actual fingers as actors. We are a small non profit showcasing our videos on Vimeo. Anyone wanting to dub these videos into their own language, contact us and we’ll be glad to arrange it.
Una historia bíblica usando dedos como actores. Esta serie esta diseñada para ser doblado a idiomas autóctonas.

For more information on VVMI or any of our partners, please go to vvmi.org

VVMI Board Chair and dentist, Dr. Jim N and his wife, Mary, just returned from an exciting short-term trip serving as Mission Volunteers to Palawan Province, Philippines. They were blessed to be able to serve at 4 clinics with the first medical outreach partnership team to that area. Jim and Mary – the only non-Filipinos on the team – worked with 25 to 30 others that included members of VVM, DIADEM (a Filipino holistic ministry), and VVM-mobilized local churches. The team experienced many answers to prayer and report that a total of 3,257 contacts were made. We praise God for the following people that were served and for the spiritual commitments:

• General medical patients  1,909
• Dental patients- 437 for extractions and 52 for restorations
• Surgical- 237
• Eye glasses- 622;
• Eye Consultations- 79
• Prayed to receive Christ- 1,953
• Committed to Home Bible Study- 1,207
• Recommitted their life to Christ- 816
• Bible Distribution- 750

Please pray for the follow-up by local pastors and churches, which will include Bible studies, worship services, home visits and vernacular film showings.

All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations. Psalm 22:27-28

Charles H. Spurgeon comments on verse 27  in The Treasury of David,

In reading this verse one is struck with the Messiah’s missionary spirit. It is evidently his grand consolation that Jehovah will be known throughout all places of his dominion. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord.” Out from the inner circle of the present church the blessing is to spread in growing power until the remotest parts of the earth shall be ashamed of their idols, mindful of the true God, penitent for their offences, and unanimously earnest for reconciliation with Jehovah. Then shall false worship cease, “and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee,” O thou only living and true God. This hope which was the reward of Jesus is a stimulus to those who fight his battles.

It is well to mark the order of conversion as here set forth;

1.  they shall “remember”—this is reflection, like the prodigal who came unto himself;
2. “and turn unto Jehovah”—this is repentance, like Manasseh who left his idols
3. and “worship”—this is holy service, as Paul adored the Christ whom once he abhorred.

I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession. Psalm 2:7-8

In the Old Testament, we see picture after picture of the Messiah, the heir of David who will bring ultimate salvation, not only to His own people, but to the nations.  In Psalm 2 we see the picture of our sovereign God who laughs at the nations who rage against Him.   I also see a promise that God is in control, He WILL send His Son, and the nations WILL ultimately bow before Him.  The Apostle Paul looks forward to that;  in the opening verses of Romans we read,  

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,  which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,  concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh  and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,  including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

And Paul says in Philippians 2:9-11  

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Let’s pray that the nations will see Him and rejoice in His grace now!  Our missons prayer, “Make the nations Your heritage!”

Here is a post from Bible-daily.org from today.  This website encourages daily Bible reading, and this year will be reading with an emphasis on seeing the God of missions.  Follow along this year!

In Acts 1, Luke tells us that, “ In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.”  

What commands did Jesus give right before he ascended?  In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Here is our mandate for missions.  Jesus has commanded us to go, to make disciples and to teach. And He promises to be with us, and not only that, HE has all authority and says that is the REASON we can go confidently.  HE is sovereign!

Jesus asked the disciples to wait until the Holy Spirit came on them with power, and then to go.  Acts 1:8 “ He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 

• God is sovereign over all missions!
• God has given all authority to Jesus…ALL!
• God has given us the promised Holy Spirit and power for missions!
• He has promised to be with us in missions!
• We are to GO as He has commanded…missions!

Would you like to be involved with missions this month in a very practical way?  VVMI has two trips to the Philippines this month of January, and while it is probably too late for you to go this month, you can give toward a strategic project that the teams will  be bringing over.  This project is an iMac computer system that will be used to produce God-glorifying, Gospel videos for unreached peoples in northern Luzon.  We are especially excited that some new children’s videos, “Deditos”, will be dubbed into more than a dozen languages in 2010.

To give toward this iMac project, send your donation to VVMI, PO Box 37, Austin, MN 55912 or by going to GiveMN.org and clicking on the Vernacular Video Mission International page and following the donation link.

Isaiah 66:18-19  “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory,  and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.

Recently I was struck by a comment made by John Piper concerning the missions commitment of the local church and its relation to the name and glory of God. His words were:  “If you say that you love the glory of God, the test of your authenticity is whether you love the spread of that glory among all the peoples of the world.”  That statement hit me like a truck! It was a wake up call. How can I, as a preacher of the Word of God, say I am passionately committed to the glory of God in all I do and yet not be passionately committed to spreading that glory in the world? I would pose the same question to you.

To read the rest of the article, click here:

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
7 And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.

John Piper comments on this passage:

We have always believed at Bethlehem that a great and indispensable motivation in world missions is HOPE. By hope I mean the confidence that we are engaged in a cause that will triumph in the end.

• No life laid down in the cause of world evangelization is laid down in vain.
• No dollar given is in vain.
• No sermon preached is in vain.
• No prayer offered is in vain.
• No candle of gospel light is ever lit in vain.

Our energy and sacrifice and focus is sustained by HOPE—the confidence that God’s kingdom will triumph in the world.

This passage in Isaiah is a picture of that hope. Don’t worry that you can’t answer all the timing questions and all the detail questions about how the triumph of God will eventually come. This text doesn’t answer all our questions about the end. What Old Testament prophets do again and again is give us a picture of the final day of victory—from one angle and then from another angle. Each time the aim is that we take heart, give God the glory, and press on in hope-filled allegiance to Christ and hope-filled missions…

….So the picture Isaiah gives us is one of all nations turned to God in worship, a great banquet for all the peoples, the removal of all suffering and grief and reproach from the nations who have become his people, and the final putting away of death forever. This triumph is sure because God is doing it. As verse 1 says, he planned it long ago and he is working wonders to bring it to pass. Therefore we can be certain of it. Not one life spent in the cause of world evangelization is spent in vain. Not one prayer or one dollar or one sermon or one letter of encouragement mailed or one little light shining in some dark place—nothing in the cause of the advancing kingdom is in vain. The triumph is sure.

Passover and Missions

September 7, 2009 by pamlarson | Edit 

What did Jesus mean that the passover would be fulfilled in the kingdom of God? “I shall not eat it until it (the passover) is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [Luke 22:16] 

I thought the passover was fulfilled in the death of Jesus our final passover lamb. Remember the passover was the yearly celebration of the time in Egypt when God sent an angel of death who passed over homes where blood from a slain lamb was on the door post. It was a celebration of past deliverance from Egypt and of future deliverance when Messiah comes.

In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul calls Christ our Passover Lamb. In other words God will save anyone from judgment who banks his hope on the blood of Jesus. So I thought the passover was fulfilled at Calvary when the Lamb of God was slain to deliver us from death.

But in verse 16 Jesus says the passover will be fulfilled in the kingdom. What does he mean? Just like last week, John’s glimpse of the kingdom gives the answer. In Revelation 5:9–10 John says that the 24 elders sang to Christ the Lamb, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom.”

A Ransom from Every Tribe and Tongue and Nation 

Here’s the key. Jesus the Passover Lamb was slain to ransom people from every tribe and tongue and nation. So the Passover can’t be fulfilled until all those peoples are reached and the ransomed are gathered in and the kingdom is established.

I have been moved afresh by this picture of Jesus on the night before his death setting before himself the joy of his coming kingdom, telling his disciples that what he is signifying tonight in the meal and accomplishing tomorrow on the cross will one day be fulfilled in the kingdom—a kingdom of people ransomed from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. Then he adds this: I’m not going to eat it till that day comes. You eat it to remember me and keep your hope strong and empower yourselves for mission. But I am going to wait until I can eat it new with you and with all the ransomed that you will gather from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.

Isaiah 12:3-5  With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 And you will say in that day:

“Give thanks to the Lord,
 call upon his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples,
proclaim that his name is exalted.

5 “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be made known in all the earth.

Missions flows from JOY in God, the Source of Living Water and eternal life, according to Isaiah, and RESULTS in more  JOY in God, as it is spread!    Here we see that those who have found their joy and satisfaction in God, in Jesus Christ, will be the kind of people that:

1. Give thanks to God
2. Call on His name (trust in His character, His reputation, His reknown)
3. Tell  of what He has done, and in doing so, exalt (lift up) His name (His character, His reputation, His reknown)–and they not only tell, they SING for joy!

Who do they tell?  Where do they sing?  Why do they do this? 

Among the peoples, in all the earth, for the joy and glory of God…MISSIONS!