Pacific Southwest District Schools
Hope and Care Outreach (HCO) is the unified mission project ("Hearts for Jesus") chosen for PSD schools this 2022-23 School Year. Money being raised will send impoverished Liberian students to Lutheran schools next year. This is the story of how God blessed one Liberian student through a PSD school!
Hope Lutheran, Glendora, CA, is focusing all its offerings and prayer on HCO. Each student received photo prayer cards from Linda Kurtz, Executive Director of HCO. Every class was given a picture of one child to pray for from St. Joseph's and other Lutheran schools in Liberia.
The school asked HCO to lead a chapel, and Pastor John Juedes from Messiah Lutheran in Highland, CA, represented HCO and led chapel. His message helped the students focus their prayers generally and specifically for the students on their prayer cards. Principal Brenda Nguyen states, “As the 6th-grade religion teacher, I witnessed the six graders praying for George, the student whose card this class was given, every religion period, without fail.”
Earlier this year the class asked if they could write George some letters of encouragement which included artwork and Bible verses. Linda assisted in getting these cards to a pastor's wife, who would carry them to George at his school. When Brenda reached out to Linda about these letters, Linda was concerned over the issues it would create as Africa is a very community-, relationship-oriented culture. HCO has a strict policy of not showing favoritism to any child to avoid conflict. But, Linda felt God nudge her to not get in the way. She states, “I believe very strongly in prayer…, but I didn’t think I would actually see the direct blessing of those prayers this side of eternity.”
It turns out George is in desperate need of encouragement. God prodded the 6th-grade students at Hope Lutheran for a reason. The pastor at St. Joseph's shared that one of George’s brothers recently passed away, and another is suffering mentally. Linda was able to send the students at Hope another picture of George and his father - they noticed the sadness in both their eyes. A few student's eyes welled up with tears when they heard of George's most recent trials and realized they had answered God’s call to pray for a stranger! George, wearing a uniform, just like them, was going through extreme pain that most children at Hope Lutheran have not experienced.
The students continue to pray daily that George will carry through with his studies, but, more importantly, stay near to Christ. Brenda was able to talk with the students about how this one truth is more important than the sorrows and joys of this earth.
The Lord truly knew how desperately George and his family needed to hear these whispers of God’s love from the “mouths of babes” 10,000 miles away. God used Hope Lutheran, Glendora, to share His healing love with George and his family.
Enable more stories of transformed lives through Jesus
Untold thousands are still in darkness, lost like “sheep that have gone astray”. But this is exactly the mission our Lord has created His Church for – reaching the lost for Jesus’ sake in as many ways as necessary. This is the purpose for which our 300 churches and 150 schools were founded in their many contexts. And “the fields are ripe for the harvest” right now!
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