Stories from the Mission Field | CGO Blog

Back in March of this year, we posted about our partnership with Christ Community Lutheran Church Leesburg and their child development center, Leesburg Open Arms (LOA). In this partnership, Concordia Gospel Outreach donated Bibles to LOA. These Bibles greatly blessed the children and teachers there, so when Pastor Garet Ellis reached out to us with an update on how the Word of God is moving through this congregation, we knew we had to share what your generous donations made possible.

I was extremely upset. I had been redirected home from a summer job after my first year of college. I was upset that I had not been able to do what I had set out to do—it was a job I had been praying about for months and months. I was angry and questioning why God would do this. Why would He make me prep for months, bring me out there for a week, only to send me back? For weeks, these questions covered my thoughts as I worked tirelessly at the summer job I’d had since mid-high school. I worked as much as I could, babysitting on the side to try and make up for the lost time on the job.

Back in February of this year, a study done by Barna research showed some very alarming numbers. One of the most concerning bits of data was that almost 50 percent of practicing Christians in the millennial generation agreed that it is wrong to share your faith with someone in hopes that they will someday share the same faith. In other words, they believe it is morally wrong to evangelize.

Planning a mission trip is a lot of work. I am not super experienced in this realm; I don’t have years and years of experience. But I have planned and led two mission trips for the church I went to in college (shout-out to the University Lutheran Chapel in Ann Arbor, MI—much love). The first trip I was a part of planning was to Houston, TX, in 2018 after Hurricane Harvey. We were part of the wonderful disaster response efforts with Heart for Texas, an LCMS-affiliated organization.