My first experience in short-term missions began with four consecutive days of driving through Europe in a convoy of five beat-up Ford Transit vans. On day four, just a few hours from our destination, one of the vans broke down in the middle of a wheat field. We were living in the pre-cell-phone era, and there were no other cars on the road. So, our team leader made an executive decision: he instructed the 45 of us to encircle the van, lay our hands on it, and pray for the engine to run again! Although I’m convinced that God’s preferred method of fixing broken engines is through mechanics and their machines, that day God worked a miracle— our engine started.

“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples” (Psalms 77:14).

The signs and wonders of God continue to increase in our day. Across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, we are seeing something incomparably more amazing to a dead engine starting again; we are witnessing unprecedented numbers of individuals, dead in their sins, putting their trust in the living Christ!

When Jesus looked at his world fraught with war, injustice and instability, he didn’t say, “Open your eyes, the world’s a mess,” but, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They’re ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). Jesus also knew the harvest would be lost and wasted without harvesters to gather it in, so he commanded, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the field” (Mt. 9:38).

AFM’s mission is just this: to send harvesters into the field, to put “sandals on the ground” in areas where the visible and viable church still does not exist. During this Advent Season, I would like to warmly invite you to increase your involvement in the harvest with AFM. It is through people like you that AFM can place harvesters in the most difficult and least-reached countries. Thank you.

In Christ,
The Rev. Christopher Royer