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MISSION MESSAGES

From the Fowlers

Crisalida No. 54 (Urb. Munoz Rivera)

Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00657

SO SEND I YOU ...(Jn. 20:21)

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One Sunday in our church we sang the missionary hymn, "SO SEND I YOU." Do you have it in your church hymnals? Before we finished singing I almost jumped out of the seat and shouted, "STOP!

^RpNGl!" I'm glad I didn't, because some there may have been blessed
and challenged by the song.

But 1wasannoyed and frustrated!

Do you know the song? Some of It goes like this:

So send I you to labor unrewarded;

To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown;

To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and suffering; So send I you to toil for Me alone. So send I you to loneliness and longing; With heart a'hungering for the loved and known.

Forsaking honne and kindred, friend and dear one.

So send I you to know My love alone.

So send I you to leave your life's ambition;

To die to dear desire, self-will resign;

To labor long, and love where men revile you; So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

Now, it may be true that sometimes God calls us to suffer. That'? scriptural. And I'm sure a lot of missionaries have experienced those things from man's point of view. The Fowler family is no exception
But I have a feeling that most missionaries don't feel that way.
We sure don't!

The self-pity evoked from those words is completely out of character with the security of trusting our faithful God to meet all our needs. We have never before felt so loved, so rewarded, so affirmed, so supported,,
so honored, so blessed, so prayed-for as we are now! And we just wantec every last one of you to knowthat! Leave mv life's ambition? On the contrary! I'm finding it here! Leave our friends and loved ones? Through your warm love for each of

us in our family, we have experienced personal affirmation we NEVER

dreamed of before our missionary days!

Labor unrewarded and unpaid? Not us! Aman from our church called \
us the other day and said that because we were loved and our ministry appreciated, several in the congregation had gotten together secretly and bought us a new car as a love gift. {We had only told God of our need foi
a car.) The next day, I picked up a 1979.Mercuj^jMLQH,wagon! Air

conditioning, all power, with every extra possible. Talk about suffering A
out here on the mission field!
Praise God! We are King's Kids! Oh, how faithful and kind He is to us!

CHRIST IS THE ANSWER

Almost sounds too pat, doesn't it! "Christ is the Answer!" I mimicked. "But I don't trust evangelism-by-aphorism." The fact that He's the answer doesn't help much until they can come up with the right question. That was before I saw hundreds upon hundreds here in the prisons in Puerto Rico who were SCREAMING the right question. "God, help me! What is there to live for? Doesn't anybody care?"
Christ is the answer.

Sounds trite? Like my guys in the prison tlierapy groups would say:

"Only to those who ain't got the guts to level. Faceit up, *Chico,' you're
hurtin' behind that mask!"

Christ has been the answer for guys like Israel Soto. He writes:
"I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1953 to drug-addicted parents who abandoned me when I was three years old. The janitor of our tene ment building found me, took me to the local police who located my

grandmother. At 11 years of age I was a drug-addict, alcoholic, school drop-out, and was resorting to robbery to support my heroin habit. Grandmother tried everything she knew to get me on the right path: punishment, psychologists, foster homes. Finally, recognizing that the problem was spiritual, but not having any relationship with The-One-WhoIs-The-AnswerJesus ChristGrandmother sent me to a spiritist "healer"

to solve my problem. Of course my situation got worse, until, because of my continued clashes with the law, a perceptive judge sent me to a re habilitation program in California. Two and a half years later I returned to Puerto Rico apparently cured of drug-addiction, but obviously still suffering from the cause of the addiction: a human-nature unyielded to
Jesus. I located my father and through his influence and friends started using cocaine and other drugs again. It wasn't long before I was back in prison with a 20-year sentence for drugs, ten years for robbery, and ten years for assault. Kicking my heroin habit "cold turkey" in jail and faced with 40 years behind bars, I recognized that the bottom had dropped out of what was left of my life.

"One day in the prison, I was wandering around trying to escape the smelly, crowded dormitory for a while when one of the "hallelujahs" (Christians) invited me to a service they were getting together. I went for lack of something else to do. During the preaching of God's word, I felt
God's conviction of my sin, responded to the invitation and commited my shameful life to Christ. Right there He washed me clean with the blood He shed for me on Calvary. He called me into the full-time ministry of

evangelism and later released me on parole to the Teen Challenge program. Today, my mother has also found the Lord; I have a Christian wife and
two beautiful little girls. During every minute of these last five and a half years as a new man I have been aware that 'If anyone is in Christ he is a
new creature.' (II Cor. 5:17)"

HEALED OF DIABETES

In our last newsletter, I shared something of the faith and ministry of

Miguel Ferrao, an inmate who ministers to the psychiatric prisoners here in the penitentiary In Puerto Rico. When I told him that I was going to write to you about him and asked if he had something specific to share with you, he said that he wanted to affirm to you how faithful God is in answering prayer. Some of his favor
ite scriptures are:

"Truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;

because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
(Jn. 14:12-14)

"...all things for which you pray and ask believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you."
(Mk. 11:24)

"...if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is In heaven."
(Mt. 18:19)

For many years Miguel has been a diabetic. Doctors told him that he would have to take insulin regularly all his life, which he has done faith fully. Well, until this last March, that is. Since his baptism in the prison in January, he has been hungering for the Word of God..and BELIEVING IT. Especially those many verses that refer to Jesus healing every infirm ity and disease. Knowing that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8) and claiming the promises in the Word for his healing, Miguel began trusting Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to take away our dis eases as well as our sins, as it explains in Matthew 8:17. By March, he
noticed that the insulin seemed to be doing him more harm than good, so he went to the doctor in the prison for a check-up. The tests for dia betes came back negative! God had healed him! Dr. Jorge Crespo here at the prison could not believe the tests so sent Miguel outside the prison to other doctors for further tests. Miguel has been keeping records of doctors' names, dates, copies of test records and now has medical, scien tific proof that God means what he says in Isaiah 53:4, "He Himself took our infirmities and carried our diseases." God has blessed Miguel with a gift of faith. If you would like to have some of it, he told me to tell you there is enough to go around. It comes from hearing the Word of Christ

(Rom. 10:17). If any of you would like to write to Miguel, you would both (he and you) be blessed by it, as he speaks a little English. Miguel A. Roman Ferrao
Institucion Regional De Bayamon

Box 307 (Mod, D-1 -C, bajo)

Bayamon, Puerto Rico 00619

. . God shows his love for us in that while

we were yet sinners

Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

c
\ 'THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE" (Jn. 8:32) Through some counseling I've been doing in a local Salvation Army
home for alcoholics, I've been blessed with some new brothers in Christ

whose needs are every bit as great and whose conversions are just as dramatic to me as those in my regular ministry, the prisons. t)ne of them in particular. Bill Hopson, has been teaching me as much
about discipleship as I have been teaching him. Hewas one of several that we baptized in our coffin-baptistry on wheels in our garage one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. Shortly thereafter he confessed to me that he had been running from the law, and that now as a Christian he could do no less than turn himself in and trust the Lord for the consequences. As we prayed about it together, the scripture that kept coming to my

""mind was John 8:32, "...the truth shall make you free." "Yes," he affirmed, "I've got to tell the whole truth about this matter,
confess my guilt, and let the Lord do with me whatever Hewills." Armed with that confidence in Jesus' justice and a real joy in finally being "set free" from the burden he was hiding from, we walked together Iinto the F.B.I, office. Bill was told to go back home and go to work (he ; had quit his job that morning expecting to be put immediately in jail) and

s^wait for further word from the District Attorney. "Probably something
%an be worked out," he was told. "Anybody who turns himself in because if his faith sounds like he's rehabilitated already."

We still don't know the outcome. Please pray for Bill, for he might nave to spend time in prison even yet. 'That's O.K.," he says, "If God wants to give me a prison ministry instead of another kind. He loves me
and I trust Him."

WE'RE COMING YOUR WAY!

Next summer (June and July) we^l be in the statesand wouldlike very

much to see you and share with your church. Because eight weeks isob viously not enough time to share adequately with every congregation with whom we'd like to spend some time, we are planning to respond tt pastors' ministry invitations on a first come, first served basis.
Needs:

TransportationAnybody know of a carthat would beavailablt June and July? Orperhaps even a recreational vehicle (traile
or van) in which our family could live while we travel fron
one end of the U.S. to the other.

The right places to ministerChurches, schools, clubs, home groups, wherever God leads, I'm eager to give testimony ^
Christ's power to liberate, heal, forgive and transform^ Plane tickets from here to there for our family of six.
doing among you.

We are looking forward to seeing you and sharing with you what God i

Greetings at this Christmas time. We rejoice in the Birth ofourLordJe

and Praise God for giving Jesus that we might have life and have-

abundantly. Have a very blessed Christmas because of the Love ofJe

Love,

Bruce, Judy, Curtis, Christy, Craig and Cathy