FPO Update

As most of you know, we are at Field Personnel Orientation (FPO) just outside of Richmond, VA. We have been here for about a month and have another 3 ½ weeks to go. I say this to explain why I have not updated the blog is some time. This is a very busy but rewarding time of transition for us. Soon we will be in Malawi and after a month in Zambia, the blog updates should come in a timelier manner. I must make a disclaimer at this point. From my understanding we will have an Internet connection that approaches dial-up. From which direction I do not know. Hopefully, it will be from the faster side. If at all possible, we will be including photographs with my attempt at the written word.

This last week, one of our studies was on the persecuted church. This was such an awesome view of Christians that live in an oppressive society/country. The persecuted church is experiencing tremendous growth in many areas. This study has changed the way I pray for the persecuted. In the past, I have prayed that the persecution would be lifted from them, but this would probably affect their explosive growth. Instead, we should be praying for grace as they are persecuted. In the west, we Christians often pray that God will take away our burdens. The Christians in the persecuted church pray that God will give them strength to bare these burdens. According to scripture, persecution is the normal and freedom from persecution is the exception.

We also had an introduction to telling Bible stories. This will especially be helpful to us, as we will be serving in a country where most of the population is illiterate. Please don’t mistake illiterate with ignorant. We will be learning much from these people who simply don’t read. They are great storytellers and we will be training them to share the Gospel through Bible stories. In turn, they will teach others who will teach others. Southern Baptist Missionaries refer to this as T4T, Training for Trainers. We realize the task of reaching the entire world for Christ is a monumental task even for 5000+ missionaries. We did an exercise in class where two people from one table would train another table. Two people from the second table would train another table. This went on until the entire class was taught. Some teaching couples would have two or three generations of teachers. Others had as many as five generations. We were told that if we could have continued this for 35 generations the whole world would have been taught this little story. From this, you can see the value of training trainers.

If you would like to receive our news/prayer request letter, just drop us a line, I mean email and we will add you to the list. We try to send one out at least once a week at this point. You can reach us at: mailto:alrudd47@gmail.com
We would love to hear from you.

I love You, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:1-2