Lottie Moon

Grace Harvest has always participated in the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and this year marks the 15^th year        of our giving to forging missions. The following is an    excerpt from the International Mission Board

Lottie served 39 years as a missionary, mostly in China’s Shantung province. She taught in a girls’ school and often made trips into China’s interior to share the good news with women and girls. Lottie Moon was passionate about people knowing Christ. It was in the year 1872 when she set sail for China; Lottie was 32 years old. She had turned down a marriage proposal and left her job, home, and family to follow God’s lead. Her path wasn’t typical for an educated woman from a wealthy Southern family. God had gripped her with the Chinese peoples’ need for a Savior.

For 39 years, Lottie labored, chiefly in Tengchow and P’ingtu. People feared and rejected her, but she refused to leave. The aroma of fresh-baked cookies drew people to her house. She adopted a traditional Chinese dress, and she learned China’s language and customs. Lottie didn’t just serve the people of China; she identified with them. Many eventually accepted her. And some accepted her Savior.

Lottie wrote letters home detailing China’s hunger for truth and the struggle of so few missionaries taking the gospel to the 472 million Chinese in her day. She also shared the urgent need for more workers and Southern Baptists to support them through prayer and giving. She once wrote home to the Foreign Mission Board, “Please say to the [new] missionaries they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial.”

Disease, turmoil, and lack of co-workers threatened to undo Lottie’s work. But she gave herself entirely to God, helping lay the foundation of what would become the modern Chinese church, one of the fastest-growing Christian movements in the world. Lottie Moon died at 72 — ill and in declining health after decades ministering to her beloved Chinese.

But her legacy lives on. And today, when gifts aren’t growing as quickly as the number of workers God is      calling to the field, her call for sacrificial giving rings with more urgency than ever.

Today’s China is a world of rapid change. It’s home to 1.4 billion individuals – one-fifth of the world’s population. Village dwellers flock to modern megacities with            exploding populations. And China holds its own in the world’s economy. It’s very different from the vast         farmland Lottie Moon entered in the 1800s. But one     thing hasn’t changed: China’s need for a Savior.

Every Christmas, we join in giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering that helps carry the gospel not just to China but all over the world. Our goal this year is $5,500. Please pray about what you can do to help reach that goal. When someone asks you what you want for       Christmas, tell them to give to the Lottie Moon offering  at GHBC.

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark