By Staff

The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Week of Prayer for International Missions begins on December 2, 2012. It’s not too early to think about how you can support the work of nearly 5,000 IMB missionaries around the world.

Donations to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering allow missionaries to be freed to concentrate their time and efforts on engaging the unreached with the Gospel. Consider giving online.

Consider these other ways to support the work of missionaries:

1. Commit to pray. Commit to pray daily for the work of IMB missionaries and unreached people in South Asia. Sign-up for monthly prayer updates via email, including a day of prayer and fasting: southasianpeoples.imb.org.
2. Encourage a missionary. Do you know a missionary personally? Send him or her a note of encouragement by email during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. (Some workers live where the Internet is slow, so please be careful not to send e-mails with attachments over 1 MB in size unless you check with the worker first and he/she agrees).
3. Follow ASAP. Stay informed year-round about God’s work among South Asian peoples: Follow us on Facebook (South Asian Peoples) or Twitter (@imbsouthasia). Sign-up to receive monthly updates on the work in South Asia through an e-newsletter. Your contact information will not be given to third parties and you can unsubscribe at any time. To sign-up, please enter your information online: southasianpeoples.imb.org
4. Embrace the unreached. South Asian peoples make up the greatest concentration of lostness on earth. Some of those people are still unreached and unengaged (UUPG – unengaged unreached people groups). The Ends of the Earth describes peoples who have no known church planting work among them. Learn. Pray. Embrace. Start here: http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/embrace/.
5. Give a Bible. Make a donation to the South Asian Bible fund so that South Asians can read the Bible in their own languages.  ( Donate online.)
6. Adopt a country. Choose a South Asian country: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or the Maldives. Pray for this country everyday during the holidays. For guides on praying for each country and the ends of the earth, http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/resource/printables/.
7. Give 10 days. Who cares about South Asian peoples? More unreached people groups are among South Asian peoples than in all the rest of the world combined. From California to Calcutta, London to Lahore, God is calling people to share the Good News with a vast multitude still living without the knowledge of the Most High God. (http://willyoucare.org/)
8. Make a friend. Do you know South Asians who are away from their families? Include them to be part of your holiday dinners. Share your home and the story of Jesus.
9. Seek the Lord. During this season of gift-giving, ask God to show you how much He would have you give in offerings to support IMB mission work overseas. If your Southern Baptist church does not have offering envelopes available especially for this offering, you may specially designate your offering to “Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.” You are strongly encouraged to give your offering through your local church, but if you are unable to, you may also give online. ( Donate here.)
10. Give calories. Bake cookies for South Asian neighbors, co-workers or friends. Or gather nonperishable food items with your Sunday school or cell group for a refugee community near you.

10 Days of Sacrifice

The peoples of the world who are least reached with the Gospel? South Asians. They are, perhaps, the world’s greatest collision of spiritual and physical need. Yet, historically the global Church offers the least of its resources and time to this greatest need. What can you sacrifice for the sake of the lost?

Take the 10 days of sacrifice challenge.
It will make a difference in you and in the lives of South Asians. WillYouCare.org 

Order an ornament

These ornaments are more than just a great decoration for your Christmas tree. Display them in your church as you work toward your LMCO goal or give them as gifts. Order at IMB Resources.

Dear Southern Baptists:
Thank you for giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. It’s making a difference.

From: Southern Baptist missionaries all over South Asia

Dear Southern Baptists,
Because of your giving to Lottie Moon, I can recklessly pursue my calling of taking the Gospel to the nations, yet I do it with a constant security blanket because I never have to worry about where I’m going to lay my head at night, what would happen if I got sick or injured, or how I’m going to get from one place to another. All of it is taken care of, giving me the freedom to run hard and go to places where people have never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. I know that sometimes it’s difficult to give when you can’t see the end result, but I’m thankful for Southern Baptists who faithfully give to Lottie Moon. Because of their generosity, I have been blessed with the amazing experience of being present at that moment when someone hears the name of Jesus for the very first time.

Sincerely,
Stefani Varner,* serving the people of Mumbai, India

Dear Southern Baptists,
Philippians 1:3,5 says I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
Thank you for seeing the need in this world and responding. You have maintained 6 missionaries in a state of 60 million people where less than 1/10 of 1 percent are believers. You have enabled us to hold 25 lay evangelism trainings in the past year for 1025 people. You have provided 100,000 tracts to be handed out in a land where God’s word is not readily available. You provided a retreat, allowing a group of missionaries to meet, pray together, worship together, and just generally refill our cups. We are so thankful for your giving.

Sincerely,
Roberta Kinder,* serving the people of India

Dear Southern Baptists,
We are so thankful for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering because it enables us to take the Gospel to places where it has never been. We are supported and kept on the field by the generous donations of believers in our local churches. If it were not for the LMCO many lost people would never hear about Jesus. In our country there are less than one percent believers in Jesus Christ. The rest of the 20 million people are lost. They worship a false idol that will never give them eternal life. How can they believe if they haven’t heard? How can they hear unless someone tells them? The LMCO gives us the honor of doing just that. To tell a lost and dying world of the saving Grace of Jesus Christ, so they will have the opportunity to put their faith and hope in Him.

Sincerely,
Vincent Chevalier,* serving the people of Sri Lanka

Dear Southern Baptists,
Thank you for your giving through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Because of your giving, we have been able to train people like M. She is faithfully taking the Gospel to an unreached and unengaged people group called the Pod. She has a group of 50, four of whom are baptized believers, with the rest being seekers. Her husband is not yet a believer. Then there is A, who is participating in a church planting training and has started a new group among another UUPG called the Sadgop. But there are many others involved in the training as well, who are working with other unreached people groups.

Sincerely,
Lonnie and Danette Tepper,* serving the people of Kolkata, India

Dear Southern Baptists,
Thank you for giving sacrificially. We are so grateful to God and to you for how generously you have given. Because of your gifts we are able live and share His love in a mega-city packed with millions of people who have never heard the gospel. We are also able to train and equip local believers and churches how to multiply the gospel. Thank you for your partnership in fulfilling the great commission.

Sincerely,
Keelie Rocks,* serving the people of Delhi, India
Dear Southern Baptists,
As you know, over the last few years the American economy has been struggling. You, however, have continued to give, and we thank you! Using funds provided by you, we have continued to train believers in Bihar, India to reach their own people and to plant healthy churches. As a result of the Lord moving in Bihar and your generous giving, we have seen 1604 professions of faith, 1053 baptisms, and 236 church starts in the last 3 years. Long considered one of the most difficult places to reach with the Gospel, this movement of God represents a 411% increase over the previous three years. Clearly, God is moving like never before in Bihar. Thank you so much for your generous support, without which we would not have been able to equip these local believers and church planters. We praise God and thank Him for the generosity of Southern Baptists, just like you, who have responded in obedience to help reach the ends of the earth.

Sincerely,
Elvin Trueb,* serving the people of India

Dear Southern Baptists,
Because of your gifts, I was able to teach 22 recent high caste Brahmin Hindu background believers who came for a day of scripture training and encouragement. We gave them Kannada books of doctrine, tracts in Kannada, and DVDs of the Jesus film in Kannada. Your steady gifts helped us provide those things for them and to fund this training. They will evangelize and influence the highest castes of Hindus. Those dear Brahmin friends were not pastors or church workers. They were mostly new believers who wanted to know the Bible and to know how to explain their faith to their high caste families and associates. Because you give through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Cooperative Program, God is at work in South Asia.

Sincerely,
Donald McKinney,* serving the people of India
Dear Southern Baptists,
During this Thanksgiving season, there is so much for which we are thankful as we live in South Asia amidst material and spiritual poverty. Being part of IMB’s Master’s Program, we are thankful that our retirement years are being spent in active service for the Lord. Because Southern Baptists give so generously to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, we have been privileged to serve for almost 3 years. As support personnel (logistics coordinators and company guesthouse managers), we are helping shine the Light, piercing the darkness that overshadows the greatest concentration of lostness in the world! We thank God for prayerful financial support from America which makes our ministry possible!

Sincerely,
Grady & Josette Lindem,* serving the people of Bangladesh

—30—
*Name changed.

By Sidney Cargill*

Along with the smell of evergreen trees and peppermint, cinnamon would have to be one of the most common scents of Christmas. BBC News Online notes, “While Sri Lanka’s most famous export is tea, historically the most important has been cinnamon. In fact, so strong is the link between cinnamon and Sri Lanka that the botanical name of the spice – Cinnamomum zeylanicum – is derived from the island’s former name, Ceylon. Every morning cinnamon peelers go to the fields to collect branches to be stripped for bark. The plant grows as a bush. It’s hot, hard work.

Today, experts say that Sri Lanka is one of the world’s leading exporters of cinnamon, producing about four-fifths of international output as well as most of the choicest grades from the sweetly scented inner bark of the cinnamon tree.”

Some time ago, we wrote about Vikash*, a cinnamon peeler from Sri Lanka. Vikash hosted a small group in his home. A pastor came weekly to preach a message. 

Vikash, a dirt-poor, tea-estate worker, went to training and became passionate about sharing his faith with others! One of those was his brother-in-law who cut Vikash’s throat in an argument. Instead of having him arrested, Vikash publicly forgave him!  God used this to soften hearts! 

Vikash called his group to 3 days of praying and fasting.  His Buddhist father-in-law made a drum to use in worship.  This unbeliever cut down a tree, hollowed out the wood, and bought leather for the top. 

As Greg*, my husband, hiked up the mountain to join them, he could hear the sound of a drum beating and the voices of passionate worshipers singing.  Sitting on the floor playing his homemade drum was Vikash’s father-in-law, now a brother in the Lord!

As you savor the aroma of cinnamon this month, please remember to pray for the millions of lost Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Catholics that call this island home.

Pray for the cinnamon peeler, Vikash and other believers to live lives worthy of the calling that they might be the aroma of Christ to those around them.

Pray also for believers to seize the opportunity of this holiday month to reach out to lost family members and friends to share the greatest news ever—that the King of kings left the glory of heaven to come to earth to die for man’s sin that we might be in relationship with Him! Praise His Name!!

-30-

Name changed*

Sidney Cargill is a cross-cultural worker among South Asian peoples.

By: Maggie Hardison*

Last Christmas my husband and the husband from a family in our city, along with two national partners purchased inexpensive blankets, put them in their backpacks and rode around the city on their scooters at night.

Their main goal was to talk to people and tell them about the meaning of Christmas. Then, if they noticed that the people needed a blanket they would present them with a new warm blanket saying it was a free gift and wished them a Merry Christmas. They did this in secret and at different spots around the city because they didn’t want to be mobbed by people just wanting a free blanket.

Blanket drops have been done before in our city but this was the first time it was done “on a smaller, more private scale,” where one-on-one conversations could actually take place this way it was more personal because people really listened to what they had to say. For one thing, they did not expect to receive any thing, just talking to the foreigner and his translator.

It’s important for Christians to reach out during the holidays because a lot of people know about baby Jesus or the Jesus that hangs on the cross but they don’t know about Jesus. They don’t see Christians being Christ like. By reaching out – especially in a small private way that doesn’t draw attention, people see more of the true love of Christ and are willing to listen to why the baby in the manager and the man on the cross are so important, especially to them.

Pray that the warmth of the blankets will open their hearts and minds to receiving the warm of Christ’s love.

-30-

*Name changed.

Maggie Hardison is a cross-cultural worker among South Asian peoples

By Margot Gladding*

Candles, lights, wreaths of flowers, soft music playing, and treats filled with cinnamon and cloves. Yes, it was definitely Christmas—but with a twist.

This Christmas, we were all sitting on the floor on mats. Some of the soft music playing in the background was in South Asian languages, played with instruments never heard on traditional American Christmas albums. The wonderful Christmas sweets were egg-less for our vegetarian friends. This Christmas, we didn’t just light one candle on the advent wreath each week and read one verse from the Bible. We did it all at once, with our neighbors joining us to make it special.

As we lit each candle, my husband told a part of the Christmas story, beginning many years before when God’s people realized that they needed a savior, and they began waiting and hoping for him to come. Then, he told of the Savior’s first coming—the traditional story of angels and prophets rejoicing in his arrival. Then he continued…because we’re all still waiting…for him to come again. He told of the second coming when our Savior will come as a victorious warrior to wipe away every tear and tear down every evil stronghold.

They got it. Lights in the form of oil lamps, wreaths of flowers, soft music, sweets, and sitting on floors to worship and tell stories all make sense to our South Asian friends. That’s how they worship, and that’s how they celebrate important occasions. And they hope too. They are hoping for their god to come back as a victorious warrior to save them from the evil of the world. And deep down, they are hoping that someone would save them now—from their every day fears and hurts and pain.

As they left, each friend thanked us in turn for sharing our celebration with them. Some said that they had never understood the meaning of Christmas before that night—they had thought it was just about our God’s birth. No one surrendered their lives to Jesus that night, but we became part of the community—sharing our festivals with our neighbors—and sharing in a way that made sense and appealed to them. And now, we still do things together, sharing life with each other. As we share life, we have gained access to be able to share the Source of all life with them.

The best way to pray for us during the holidays is that this would be an open door into the community and into finding people who are interested in hearing more.

-30-

*Name changed.

Margot Gladding is a cross-cultural worker among South Asian peoples.