BGMC Change Agents Silicone Wristband

• Missionary Travels to Remote Madagascar
  

  A nation needing God

• BGMC Relay Walk for Living Water Raises $80,000
  

  Two dozen pastors walk across Arkansas to raise fund for BGMC

• New BGMC Product
  

  BGMC offers new product for activities and prizes.

• Kids in Japan Raise Funds for BGMC
  

  Kids in Okinawa, Japan, are raising funds for BGMC too!

• 2013 BGMC Calendar On Sale
  

  The calendar reflects the Change Agents theme, which kids are sure to love.

• BGMC Kids Send Christmas Gifts to Honduran Children
  

  Kids in Arkansas make a difference for kids in Honduras.

• Change Agents Offering Boxes Now Available
  

  2013 BGMC theme offering boxes FREE

• National BGMC Day-The Second Sunday in March
  

  Gear up for National BGMC Day!

• 2012 BGMC Giving Report
  

  National BGMC coordinator reports on 2012 giving.

• Buddy on African Safari
  

  Buddy helps missionaries provide water for southern Africa.

With This Ring

By Nate Lashway

Nate and Tammy Lashway are missionaries to Madagascar

The pastor and his wife were so gracious as we sat together in the cramped, wood-walled, single room they called home. Their three-month-old baby squirmed and fussed in the heat as the pastor's wife tried in vain to provide some relief to her small child. Their five-year-old daughter, Deborah, played a bit of "Hide and Seek" from my camera as she shyly peeked around the mosquito net hanging in the doorway leading outside.

This is a similar scene I have experienced many times since we have come to Madagascar. I love visiting pastors in their homes to hear their hearts and pray with them. What happened next, though, I was not expecting.

"We had to sell our wedding rings recently so we could pay the bills," replied the pastor.

His wife, a bit self-consciously, tried to hide her left hand but then she responded, "It's really okay; we still have each other." 

I was a little short on words at that announcement, yet one of the two pastors I was traveling with doing children's ministries training spoke up: "My wife and I had to sell our wedding rings a few years back to make ends meet. We have really struggled in our village too. The ministry is not easy." He then continued to talk to and encourage this pastor to press on in faith that God would help them as they tried to plant a strong church in the village where we sat that afternoon.

Church planting in Madagascar can be a very challenging process. Getting people to raise their hands to accept Jesus in a crusade is not the difficult part. Getting people to leave behind ancestor worship, pagan customs, witch doctors, and other such baggage makes disciple-making so hard. 

There are still huge parts of Madagascar with no Christian witness. Who will reach these people? It is our pastors who are on the frontlines, making sacrifices to advance the gospel.

Please continue to pray with us as we work with the hundreds of pastors in the Madagascar Assemblies of God to plant churches and disciple their believers. As I travel this island, my heart aches for the lost people and the unreached tribes. When I fly over isolated villages, I ask myself, How will they hear and who will go?

The harvest is ripe, but the fields are often difficult and treacherous. Yet someone must go.

I am glad to call these pastors my friends. I am glad I have an opportunity to work side by side with them as they develop new leaders and plant new works in outlying areas. Some of these pastors have given more than a wedding ring for the gospel. Some have given the lives of their spouses and children. The work is not easy, but each of these pastors is proud of be a part of the mission of God in Madagascar.