Paul and Terri Pritchard and their daughter, Tiffany were guests at Bethany Baptist Church, Sunday. The Pritchards are missionaries to Cape Verde Island off the coast of Africa, which is a Portuguese speaking nation. Paul and Terri both grew up in Brazil as missionary kids. So they spoke Portuguese from their youth. The Pritchards served several years in Brazil after their marriage and during the time that their children were small. Paul began to have a burden for other Portuguese-speaking people in the world.
Paul’s vision is to sow the “good seed” of God’s word and prepare national pastors to plant churches in all the Portuguese and French speaking nations of the world. There are some 300,000,000 Portuguese-speaking people in the world. There are eight nations where Portuguese is the official language.
Terri Pritchard sang a solo in the morning service. Tiffany sang with her mother, Terri in the afternoon service. Paul Pritchard spoke from Ephesians 6 on communicating to the needs of others when we have it in our power to do so. Sowing is necessary before reaping and if we want “good” for ourselves we must “do good.”
Salvation is not earned by doing good works for we are saved by faith, but good works are the outward proof of faith. God is good. We know that it is impossible for us to be perfectly “good.” We are only partakers in his goodness. It is our responsibility to pursue works that have eternal value.
What is the result of this outgrowth of the goodness of God in us? Galatians 5:22 refers to the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, and peace. In Matthew 5 Jesus speaks of loving enemies. We should not render evil for evil, but do good.
The people of God have been told to strengthen the hands of the poor, but it is easy to be callous to the suffering of people when it goes on every day. We have been ready to give help to earthquake and flood victims as the pictures of the devastation appear on the TV, but thousands of children in third world countries starve to death every day and where is the sense of urgency to help them?
You may not feel an urgency for souls or you may become weary in well doing, but if it is in your power to do good, do it.
