Mark Gillmore: Welcome to the GoMission podcast. I’m Mark Gillmore, and I am sitting right now in the Brussels, Belgium airport, returning home after three weeks of amazing ministry in Cameroon, West Africa.
The Lord Jesus said as He was giving us the Great Commission in Matthew 28, He said, “Lo, I am with you always.” And really, it’s been our reality in these days to experience the presence of Jesus and really the joy of His heart as we have journeyed with Him to train people who are living and reaching out in the uttermost parts of the earth.
I was so privileged to join my African partner, Pastor Ernest, as we conducted two trainings, one in Bafoussam and another in Yaoundé, and impacted about 17 churches with key leaders as well as young believers. And God really met with us and guided each step. I know people were praying for us, and we just saw one of the smoothest trips.
Traveling is challenging in these days, and yet God had just opened the door, just step by step on the journey. It was June of 2015, on a Wednesday night out in a bush village in Cameroon that a young man who was a school teacher named Augustine came to inquire about Christ in the house of the African chief where we were staying. And that night he heard the Gospel and received Christ.
Now, six and a half years later, Augustine was present at our training. He continues to be the leader of his church in his village, and he was incredibly inspired and moved further ahead in our training here in 2022. It’s such a joy to see fruit six and a half years later from just a quiet Wednesday night in a bush village in Africa.
Well two days later after Augustine (back in 2015) received Christ, we were with him preaching the Gospel in his quarter of that village. So again, this is June of 2015, two days later, this man Augustine gathers his quarter together in a village schoolroom. We preached the Gospel to about a hundred people.
And that day many folks received Christ, over half the crowd. And as I was teaching in the second training session here just a few days ago, I showed a picture from that moment. One of the young menーMaldini is his nameーwas in that training conference just here, and he looked at that picture, and he said, “That’s me.
I was there.” And I asked him, “What happened to you that day? Did you receive Christ that day?” And he said, “Yes, I did.” And so here was another young man who was a boy then, and he was saved six and a half years ago. And now he was attending this training conference.
His life is in the hands of the Lord. He wants to serve Him. Again, fruit from just that moment that remains.
It was such a privilege, as well, personally, to reach out and to recognize the white harvest field,ーthe opportunity that’s in Africa. One day I’m at a bakery, and a man addresses me in English. I see him two days later, and I ask him, “Can I share with you a Bible study?” He said, “Sure.” So we met after work.
That afternoon, Cyril received Christ as his Savior. I asked him, “Do you know anyone else who needs to hear this message? Can we come to your house and you gather whoever, and we’ll share this with them.” He said, “Absolutely.” So we made an appointment for Sunday.
So that was a couple of days later. That Sunday, his wife, Alliance prepared a meal for us, and that day she received Christ with joy. He saidーCyril saidーthat it was a miracle that we met.
He has wanted to actually study the Bible, even thought of becoming a pastor, but he saw the corruption in the so-called church around him, and he refused to go that way. Well, now he’s met reality. He is so thrilled, both he and his wife, and we really have a vision that we will plant a new church with them in that quarter, that side of the town.
Just a joy to experience that kind of a divine appointment. Just a few days ago, we wereーin fact, actually it was just yesterdayーin the second conference, a very exciting step forward occurred for the training ministry. And I want to mention this to you and ask you to pray specifically for seven young men who have been commissioned to go on an evangelizing church planting mission for the next six weeks.
They’ll be working in three different teams in three different regions of Cameroon, one called the West Region, one the Central Region, and one the South Region. And I want to give you these seven mens’ names and ask you to pray specifically for them. Their names are Cornelius, Courage, Bashiru, Godwill, Stefen, Apex, and Joshua.
These seven menーalong with a couple others, tooーthey are going to be out asking God to use them to plant new churches in villages that some have had some opening already, some will be brand new, and they need the hand of God. They’re going to, no doubt, face satanic strongholds, and they need our prayers. So pray for these seven men.
I encourage you to write their names down, put it where you’re going to remember it, and pray for them daily. Pray that they would meet persons of peace. Pray that they would have the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Pray that they would walk with Jesus, enjoy Him in prayer and in the Word. Pray that they would be able to train new believers to study the Word of God for themselves, and then to continue to gather as groups that are going to become new churches. So this is incredible, what God is doing, and it was such a privilege to be there right for this training.
I just want to remind you that God is a sending God. In Genesis 12, He sent Abraham, the most unlikely man, to the unknown place. In Isaiah 53, we read about how He sent His own Son, the most loved one, to the unsafe place, where He died a sacrificial death for the people He was to reach, which is you and I.
In Romans 15, we see Paul recounting how he was sent to the unreached place, and God used him to reach a whole swath of Palestine, all the way up into Europe. And so God is a sending God. He sends us to the unknown place, to the unsafe place, to the unreached place.
And I want to encourage you with this thought: To be sent by God is to be loved by God, because you get to know His heart. Jesus said, “As my Father hath sent me, so I am sending you.” There are still unknown places in our world, still unsafe places, and still heartbreakingly unreached places. One to two billion souls do not have the opportunity to hear of Christ.
If you will go, God will go with you, and you will experience the joy of His presence. Would you volunteer your life? What about if you had an opportunity to go on a six-week church planting mission in some unreached region of the world?
If you’re interested in something like that.…wow, I’d love God to put something like that together. Send me an email. Let me know of your interest.
Maybe we could put something like that together with some of you and really experience Jesus in this very special way. Well, I want to remind you, remember the only way to live at peace in a world of turmoil and uncertainty is to stay on-mission with Jesus in His GoMission.
