My mother and her six children knelt down that Sunday afternoon to pray when suddenly our prayer was interrupted by a knock! An answer to prayer?

Just the day before we had gone to church on Sabbath morning, and my mom, a new Adventist, had felt strongly impressed to leave all her money in the offering plate to support a mission project. By the next afternoon, however, we discovered that we were temporarily out of food until Dad’s next pay day. 

My dad was a part of the Czechoslovak Communist party and wasn’t favorable to any religious influence in the home. Now that we were out of money and food, the only thing my mom could do was to pray and see what God would do, despite Dad’s displeasure.

As mom prayed that Sunday afternoon, we were interrupted by a knock at our apartment door. Two nurses from a nearby nursing home came to inquire if we would be interested in taking some leftovers.  They had seen mom walking with her large family, and having an overabundance of leftovers, they thought she might be able to use it. That day we made the first of many trips to the nursing home to collect leftovers. God truly provided!

Years later, I’m blessed to live and do ministry in the U.S., but I still see needs all around me. It seems that there are never enough resources for every ministry idea we hope to implement. Yet, God is faithful and has allowed us to accomplish so much!

Expanding the Impact

Four summers ago, our local conference ministry decided to launch a small project called Canvassing for Missions. The canvassing work in our field is itself missionary work — impacting both those who are contacted and those who take part in the ministry. Still, we sought to further expand our impact.  An idea developed to set aside one day in the summer to raise money for foreign missions. That day our student canvassers and the employees of the literature ministries department could donate that day’s earnings toward pre-selected overseas mission projects.

This idea was inspired by Ellen White: “The home missionary work will be farther advanced in every way when a more liberal, self-denying, self-sacrificing spirit is manifested for the prosperity of foreign missions; for the prosperity of the home work depends largely, under God, upon the reflex influence of the evangelical work done in countries afar off” (Testimonies to the Church, vol. 6, p. 27).

God did something very special for us during those one-day projects. The young people raised more money canvassing that day than on any other typical day — and they would point it out to me. They could see God’s intervention. It was truly a faith-building experience. And then there was the promise of the “reflex influence” — the work supported afar off was closely linked with the success of the work in our own territory. For that reason, we emphasized the need to support foreign missions with our young people.  It blessed us both alike!

This Year

This summer our young people have once again been able to contribute their day’s earnings toward foreign missions. And we’ve set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of the year. We want to extend the invitation to you, as well, to consider giving a day’s wages for foreign missions, whether it be to help us or donate in another way, such as through Adventist Mission, or the North American Division's tithe portal AdventistGiving. 

This year we want to help with the translation and printing of the book Steps to Christ in the Yakut, Kurdish, Kazakh, Crimean-Tatar, Tajik, and Farsi languages. We also have a request to help fund the translation of the missionary book of the year and Bible study guide for the Muslim community in the Kurmanji and Sorani languages.           

Another project we want to assist with is the restoration of the gravesite for the first Adventist pioneer to Asia, Abram LaRue, who also happened to be a literature evangelist.

— Kamil Metz is director of Literature Ministries for the Michigan Conference. Click here if you would like to join Michigan Conference young people in supporting their exciting mission projects.