The mission field in the U.S. is screaming! There is such a huge need for Jesus in our communities. The mission fields your church might be flying over are the apartment complexes and the low-income housing down the street from your church.
Don’t get me wrong. I highly support foreign missions. I think we should be going out into all the world and “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19b).
However, I also believe that part of that world are the single parents and their children in all of our communities.
A couple of Saturdays ago, our church mission team held a garage sale to help send members of our church on a mission trip in another country. While they were preparing for the garage sale, one of our single moms was discovering that she had lost everything she had.
This single mom had made some bad decisions in her life before she came to know Jesus Christ as her Savior. I won’t tell her story because it is her story to tell, and one day, she will be ready to give her testimony. Just believe me when I say this single mom of two little girls is going to have one powerful testimony.
My single mom friend rents a room with a local family. Because she only has one room, she keeps everything she doesn’t need at the moment in a storage unit. On the Monday before the garage sale, she went to her storage unit only to find that someone had broken the lock and stolen every single item in the storage unit. There was nothing left—no clothes, school backpacks, not even the boogie boards her little girls used last summer.
Of course, she was devastated. She was just about ready to give up. I contacted the people who had been in our Single & Parenting group, and they all began praying for her and texting her encouraging messages.
When the mission team heard about our single parent, they called me and said, “Come up here and pick out some dishes and things you think that single mom will need.”
We were able to find dishes, glasses, bowls, can openers, and many other household items she would need when setting up her own household. Then they said,
“Call her, and tell her to come here on Saturday at noon, and she can have anything left over.”
Wow! It was at this point I realized,
“Here is a church that is flying to the mission field, but they are remembering the mission field right here.”
When Saturday came, we loaded up her little car with just about everything you could imagine. One of the men even brought a trailer and delivered a computer desk for her.
In a funny note to the story, the little girls were watching wide-eyed as their mom was collecting things when one of the girls was overheard saying,
“Look at all this stuff my mom is buying for us!”
She and her sister were in awe. Mom was ecstatic and so grateful. As a matter of fact, she was afraid she was taking too much stuff until we explained that everything left was going to a local thrift shop.
This show of Christian love will not be lost on those two little girls as they grow up. It won’t be lost on the other single parents in our group. And it won’t be lost on the people in our church who contributed to help out a single mom family in our community.
Thank you, Jesus.
The title of this blog, “Are you flying over mission fields to get to the mission fields?”, comes from The Hidden Mission Field by Theresa McKenna. A book worth the read.
What is your church doing to reach the single-parent families in your community?
This article is updated and adapted from an article originally published on the Kids & Divorce blog on November 14, 2013.
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Thanks, Linda! So true!
So many churches focus on missions outside the US, when people within a mile from our churches are lost and in need. Missionaries ARE coming to the US from other countries. The missions part of this summer’s VBS verified that with the couple that came from Africa to the US to seek the lost and encourage the saints.
Blessings, my friends & thanks for sharing. I appreciate your blog!
Joyce Grimes
Thanks Joyce. Appreciate your friendship!
Beautiful post – great to help me re-focus, as I was a divorced mom for five years. The Lord provided, to be sure, but there were some very lean times.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Linda Jacobs for your heart for Single and Parenting.
Its a great Joy when God uses us to bring His people back to be what God wants of us. You are our Joy and Hope in the Lord in ministering to single Moms.
Pastor Obong that means so much coming from you. I highly respect your ministry in Africa. Thank you