Praise and Prayer from the Perkins

Dear Faithful Partners,

Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days That is another way of saying that you cannot out give God. You will reap if you sow.

About 10 years ago an older pastor encouraged me to look out for younger pastors. He said that they were often doing it tough and going through difficult things in their churches. Not long after that I met Scott, a young pastor who sure enough was dealing with some difficult situations and people in his church. I invited him to coffee one day and we became friends. I met with him regularly to encourage and to be a mentor.

The problems didn't go away and finally Scott resigned the pastorate of that church. He and his family started attending our church. He found a job working as a school counselor. After about a year and a half they moved about 5 hours north of us to be closer to family. That was four years ago.

Last March Scott phoned and explained that he felt led to get back into full time Christian ministry. He had put my name down as a reference for his application to become a senior pastor of a country church. I told him that we were looking for an associate pastor but could only afford to pay a four day a week salary. We prayed and talked with our leadership here. Scott and his family prayed as well and everyone felt real peace that this was God's plan. Our church voted almost unanimously to invite him to join us on the staff here.

Scott and his family (six children) moved to Canberra last November and have been a tremendous help in carrying the load. God has blessed our church with new people and larger offerings and so it looks like we can put him on full time salary soon.

God is so good to bless any act of love and bring about a great harvest in return. This encourages me to keep reaching out to people who are going through difficult times. God will always richly reward our labor of love.

The old saying is true, "You cannot out give God"!

Your grateful missionaries to Australia,

Randy and Linda Perkins
Canberra, Australia