Stir the Gift, Fan the Flame
Letter from the Editor
2 Timothy 1:6–7
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
When my son Ronnie was about ten, we headed on a three-day adventure canoeing and camping down the Vltava River in the Czech Republic. The days were nice and warm, but the evenings went below freezing. This was pretty typical in southern Czech during the summers, but not being too “outdoorsy,” we didn’t have the right equipment.
That first night we froze, but I came prepared with all the things to start a fire. It took a long time for us to scavenge enough wood to even start a small fire. We assumed, in the woods, there would be plenty. What we hadn’t anticipated was that all the other campers would have picked the nearby forest clean of fallen trees. So not only did we have little wood to fuel the fire, we also used up what we had to start the fire.
That first day was miserable, but as the morning went on, we finally warmed up and headed down river. This time we were more prepared. We stopped along the banks at various times picking up wood and had plenty for what would make a nice fire the next cool morning. But all the stopping meant we didn’t make the campground where there was a store and so we didn’t have matches and kindling. I tried not to make it a big deal for my ten-year-old son, but I dreaded waking up cold the next morning, particularly when we had stacks of nice, dry wood.
As we awoke to the sounds of other campers heading out, the campsite right beside us became vacant. I remembered the sound of their huge bonfire crackling the night before, so hot, I thought it might burn up our tent. But then I wondered if, by chance, there were any remaining embers of that bonfire. Ronnie stayed warm in his sleeping bag while I gathered some of my dry wood and began to dig into the burnt ashes. I used my paper plate to see if anything would flare up and after a few minutes of effort, there it was, a piece of wood that showed signs of still burning. As I fanned it, the ember smoked, then turned red, then it grew hotter and hotter until I had a small flame. As I put the small twigs on it, with a little more effort, the flame grew, until eventually the flame fully caught and I could stop fanning it and put the bigger logs on until we too had our own huge bonfire, crackling and hissing, and bringing us much needed relief from the cold.
I thought about that day as we planned for this edition of the Reaper – how over the years God has used the ministry of Source of Light, and how occasionally, as the leadership passed away in an area, or for a variety of other reasons, the fire of the SLM ministry has slowed to what seemed like ashes in some places.
Yet, later on, we find the embers of the ministry stirred up by a need, and then God begins to “stir” in the lives of gifted men and women the gift of serving that He has entrusted to them. And He is using them, with a little bit of effort, to restart the flame of the SLM ministry where it once burned as embers into a blaze once again.
In recent months, I have seen this happen and have been on the front line watching and stirring the gift of gifted people who God is using to fan the flames, which we pray will become a bonfire of the Gospel, making disciples of all nations.
In this edition of the Reaper, we will talk of fanning the flames of the Associate Schools of SLM. Over 7,000 exist worldwide. These schools independently (though subsidized by SLM donors through a special cost for lessons) operate their discipleship ministries and often find themselves needing help and training, and maybe sometimes just some encouragement.
Recently we received an email from a school saying, “I started this ADS in 2009, but it has been very slow in getting off the ground.” Certainly, he sounds discouraged, which is exactly why we had prayed for many years for someone to come to SLM to give attention specifically to the ADSs. We praise God that he brought to us Rowley Hayner who has been working diligently to become a resource for ADSs. You can read his story a few pages back in this issue.
You will also read about Guyana and a communist country in the far east that have both seen significant use of our evangelistic and discipleship materials for decades, but in recent years have seen some of the “heat” of the flame die down. We are thankful that God has provided gifted and trained leadership to rekindle the flames in both of these countries so that we can resume the mission of Source of Light International by “bringing people of every nation, language, and ethnicity into a mature relationship with Jesus Christ and into fellowship with a local church family.”
We hope and pray this Reaper will be an encouragement to you and that you will use it as a reminder to pray for SLM and its missionaries and mission around the globe!
