In 2001 Lester & Bessie McPeek from Jenkins, KY began “God’s Love from a Diaper Bag,” a ministry to young mothers struggling to provide diapers for their babies.  Now, nineteen years later, this ministry is still going strong and has grown beyond anything they could have thought or imagined. 

Along with diapers, this ministry provides now baby clothes, baby food, wipes, car seats and pretty much anything a parent might need for their baby.  They host baby showers for expectant mothers and teach lessons on how to care for the babies.  They partner with local health departments, hospitals, sheriff departments and even jails, to minister to families.

Early in their ministry Mrs. Bessie began to address the “Shaken Baby Syndrome” issue, using eggs and baby food jars to demonstrate.  She would put an egg in each of three baby food jars.  The white of the egg represented the membrane, the yoke represented the brain and the baby food jar the skull.  As she shook the first jar the yoke of the egg would separate into the membrane.  The egg in the second jar, when shaken a little harder, would separate a little more.  The egg in the third jar, when shaken violently, would look like scrambled eggs.  This allowed the parents to actually “see” the seriousness of shaking their babies.

Now, with the addition of two fairly new members to the “God’s Love from a Diaper Bag” team, Mrs. Bessie can demonstrate this problem even more realistically.  Miss Helen Arabella Grace, a “Shaken Baby” doll, is the size and weight of an actual baby, but with a clear head that allows the parents to look inside the brain.  When the doll is shaken, the head lights up in the part of the brain that is affected, allowing the parents see what happens when they shake their baby.  She shares with them how, when they get to the point of frustration, to deal with it in other, non-violent, ways even to the point of calling someone to help when they got to that point.  One lady with three young children said to her, “but Mrs. Bessie, I don’t have anyone to call” to which Mrs. Bessie replied, “then call me.” 

One night at 8:00 the lady called.  The children were crying, there was no milk or diapers, the boyfriend had been put in jail due to drugs and the lady was so distraught.  Mrs. Bessie went to the house, took milk and diapers, rocked the children, put them to bed and just sat with the lady until she calmed down.  The love of Jesus demonstrated. 

The other new “member” is Miss Patti, a “Drug” doll, representing a baby that is addicted to drugs.  The doll’s face grimaces as if in pain, her hands and feet are clutched, and her stomach is sunken in.  The doll tremors like she is going into DTs and she cries constantly.  This doll helps the families to see how using drugs will affect their babies.    

These two dolls are great tools is teaching families to care for their children, which is so important, but the McPeeks do not stop there.  Mrs. Bessie shares that “the plan of salvation is given to every person who attend any of our mission events or that we deal with on a daily basis.”  Over the past four years they have witnessed 81 persons praying to receive Christ as a result of their ministry and/or personal witnessing. 

Please pray for the McPeeks as they minister in their hometown of Jenkins and surrounding areas.  Pray for the babies and families they serve.  Pray for mission teams to work alongside them and pray for many more to come to Christ as a result of this ministry.

Contact the KBC Missions Mobilization office ([email protected]) to learn of ways to serve with this ministry.

The Great Commission was not given to a denomination or mission agency.  It was given to the local church.  Thus, churches send their own missionaries (Acts 13).  I am not saying that denominations and mission agencies have no role to play in the Great Commission. They play a vital role if our understanding is that of partnering for greater gospel impact.  After all, as Southern Baptists, we believe we can do more together.  Therefore, we champion cooperative missions. 

So, while we work with sending agencies such as the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the International Mission Board (IMB), our churches send missionaries in partnership with these organizations.  If churches are the senders, what exactly are we sending missionaries to do?  In recent years the IMB has helped us better crystallize the task of the missionary.

Many needs often compete for our attention when it comes to missions.  IMB mobilizer D. Ray Davis recognizes, “Let’s be honest, there are a lot of overwhelming needs around the world, and it’s easy to allow needs to dictate and define the work we do” (“Churches: Essential Partners in the Missionary Task”).  

To keep us focused on our God-given responsibility to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19-20), six components detail the missionary task. Whether through the missionary on the field or the partnering church, the mission should focus along these lines (Davis, “Churches”).  So, if you are the missionary on the field or the church partnering with the missionary, the mission is the same.  These six components of the missionary task include: entry, evangelism, discipleship, church formation, leadership development, and exit. I want to look at the first component in this blog.

1. Entry:  Finding and engaging a particular people group is the first component.  In short, as the IMB has described it, entry involves finding them, getting to them, and developing an ability to communicate with them. 

First, finding them involves researching the people group in order to learn culture, levels of evangelization among them, whether any translation of the Bible exists, and if other Great Commission Christians are present.

Second, getting to them requires exploring the political, economic, and religious environment.  Further, exploring access options is critical as most places with unreached people are unreached because they are hard to get to.  Most hard to reach places are hard to reach because missionaries are not welcome.  Thus, missionaries must acquire the necessary skills and resources to enter among a people group. 

Third, developing an ability to communicate with them involves skills that no doubt requires language and cultural learning.   Most hard to reach places will mean missionaries must learn another language besides English!

Churches can play a vital role in the entry level.  They assist by praying that missionaries gain legitimate ways to enter.  Churches can also be a means of providing legitimacy for the missionary’s presence among that people group.  To that aim, churches may partner in this phase through specific mercy needs or platforms, such as businesses or services provided.  

In order to reach the unreached, missionaries are sent by churches to enter among peoples and places that are unreached. Being intentional about entry and partnering carefully together, we can ensure that the gospel not only enters among the unreached but that it remains there.   

For the past 20 years women inmates across Kentucky have been shown the love of Jesus Christ through worship services and the Christ-centered teachings of Freedom Forever Ministries.  KY-MSC Missionary Lee Rust says they minister inside, behind the bars.  In addition to the worship services Lee and her volunteer team provides a 10-week Good Grief program and are reaching women who are often forgotten, with the Word of God.

“We see God transform lives right before our eyes,” Lee says.  “We get to know the women, share their heart and pain, and see God work through them.  We are His voice.  We are rewarded by seeing what He does, by seeing changed lives.”  Lee says it is not unusual to have women come up to her years later, ask if she remembers them and tell her how well they are now doing thanks to Freedom Forever Ministries.

Cheri, a former inmate who was incarcerated at the Western Kentucky Correctional Complex for three years, is more than happy to sing the praises of Freedom Forever Ministries.  She was very broken and really struggling while in prison, but said this ministry was “such a bright spot for the ladies in a really dark world we were living in.  They were such wonderful people, so loving and kind,” Cheri said.  “It encouraged my faith, kept me from lagging and from falling into the ways of prison life.  Once you came in, if you weren’t a believer I don’t know how you could go out and not be a believer, because you heard the Word in the message given by Lee each Wednesday, you heard the Word in the music and the seed was planted.  They were a soft place to land in a hard, hard world.  It was so nice to see a smiling face each week, to have somebody ask how you were doing, how your week was going.  They did their very best to take that extra minute here and there to be personal, interested and compassionate.  They were truly the hands and feet of Christ.”

Lee’s husband Eric and daughter Erica are also a part of the ministry.  Erica was not allowed to go into the prison until she turned 18.  Once she turned 18 however, Erica too joined in the ministry.  Cheri recalls Erica singing at the services, saying “she followed her parents’ servant hearts.”

Erica just recently married and, when choosing food for the wedding reception, reconnected with Cheri, who is now released from prison, has her life back together, and has her own business of making beer cheese.  Cheri said it was the first time she had seen this family since being released from prison and it was such an honor to meet on the “other side” and to “give back” to a family that had meant so much to her. 

Pray for Lee and Freedom Forever Ministries as they make a difference in the lives of many women when they are at their lowest.  To learn more about Freedom Forever Ministries go to https://freedomforeverministries.com/ or connect with them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/FreedomForeverMinistries/), where you will find a video of Cheri’s testimonial. 

If you or I were to write the script for the advancement of the gospel after Jesus’s death and resurrection, I dare say it would not unfold quite the same as it did in the book of Acts.  Perhaps we would have sent the disciples out on mission immediately after the resurrection or at least after Jesus’s ascension.  Jesus did not lay out a military strategy that called his early followers to “strike while the iron was hot.”  Rather, Jesus commanded them to wait until they were “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4, 8).  The advancement of the gospel would not rely upon the ingenuity of man, but upon the power of God.  In fact, Jesus promised the power of the Holy Spirit to carry the call of God to the world. 

As Bob Burton notes, “The book of Acts . . . begins with waiting and preparation.  For the first-century church, the measure of the effectiveness on the mission field was directly related to the measure of spiritual preparation—praying, waiting, and expecting” (The Spiritual DNA of a Church on Mission, 10).  He goes on to explain that the church does indeed explode with growth, but only after a time of preparation (10 days of prayer and fasting).  The urgency of the gospel moving mightily through Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the nations begins by preparation through prayer. By waiting and praying. 

Prayer is always instrumental in the expansion of the gospel in Acts.  Burton is correct that “there is always a direct connection between prayer and missions (The Spiritual DNA, 11).  For example, in Acts 3 Peter and John enter the temple area at the time of prayer and heal a man who is born lame.  As this event creates no small commotion, Peter uses it to preach the gospel to the gathered crowd.  This gathering then gains the attention of the religious leaders who arrest Peter and John for preaching Jesus.  In Acts 4 the apostles are threatened with death and then released with the understanding that they have been warned.  They immediately return to the church knowing what is at stake.

They report to the church what had happened and then begin to pray.  They pray not for deliverance from this threat or that Jesus would somehow ease their burden or change their calling.  No, they pray for God-given boldness (Acts 4:29).  As they pray, God physically shakes the room where they have gathered and fills them with the Holy Spirit. Thus, they continue speaking with boldness about the gospel of Jesus (Acts 4:31; 33). 

As we see, “preparation was the foundational missional principle for the church. It all began with a lifestyle of prayer, waiting, and expectation” (The Spiritual DNA, 11).  Oh, that the church would rediscover this principle.  What might God do with the church today that waits and prays?  What might He do with the church that pleads with God to move mightily in and through them by the filling of His Spirit?  He did it then; He can do it again.  If we can help your church in developing intentional prayer for the Great Commission, then please call on us at [email protected].