On Sunday, October 21st, 2001, Immanuel Lutheran Church held a Mission Festival. Deacon Marvin Kohlmeier, Kansas District Mission Developer, proclaimed Mission Message that morning, then led a Bible Study later. The following is his Mission Message. The following transcript is taken from an audiotape of his message. A few spelling or transcribing errors may be noticed.

Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I first of all would like to bring you special greetings this morning on behalf of World Mission by whom I am employed as a Mission Counselor and also the Kansas District to whom each weekend I have to opportunity to share in one of our 165 sister congregations mission information, mission inspiration and most important mission involving opportunities. Especially though, this morning I would like to bring to you greetings from our missionaries. In 160 countries, 70 countries that our LCMS is directly involved in and of course Guinea, West Africa-the country that the Kansas District has adopted and supported the last 4 years, Tim & Beth Heiney and their four children; Jon & Sharon Oettig and their three children; and more recently Tim & Heidi Norton and their brand new son, Phillip Luke Norton, born just a week ago. And then Dr. Kristen Schmaltz, who is a volunteer, who has just returned to take pediatrics exams and who will be returning to Guinea in the very near future, as a career medical missionary.

I would like to share with you this morning a mission story. It's a story about a professor from Yale University who won a Nobel Peace prize in physics and the university was so proud of him that they gave him one year to go tell his story. They gave him a chauffeur and a limousine and he went around the country and night after night gave that presentation. Finally, one night he told his chauffeur, "You know, I'm really getting tired of this. I give the same presentation night after night." The chauffeur turned and looked at him and said, "if you think you're tired of it, I'm have to sit and listen to you give that same story night after night. I got the thing memorized and could give it." The professor eyes lit up and he said "Why don't we switch tonight? I'll put my professor's robe on you tonight and you can tell the story. I'll put on your chauffeur's cap and stand in the back for support." And that's just what they did. The chauffeur got up and did a beautiful job telling the story word for word. Then he made a mistake. He said, "Now are there any questions?" Who would ask a question of a Nobel Peace prize winner in physics? But that night there was someone who not only asked a question but came up front and started drawing diagrams and formulas. The professor back there was really worried and wondering how he was going to get out of this. Then the chauffeur said, "You know, I have had a few good questions during my presentation but never one this simplistic. In fact, this is so simple, I'm just going to have my chauffeur come up here and answer it." Well, I too feel like that chauffeur as I travel hundreds of miles week after week and share in our congregations the story of missions and to educate the story of missions and to allow the Holy Spirit to inspire the story of missions. That exactly what God intended for each and every one of us -- the real mission message. That 's what God did for us. He chose each one of us through our baptisms' to be his missionaries. He calls us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth as our worship service this morning is devoted to. You see, God put His robe of righteousness over each one of us just as that professor did for that chauffeur. God put that robe of righteousness on us through His Son Jesus Christ. And He left us with that great commission-his very last words that He shared with his disciples before ascending -- what we know as the great commission. He said, "You will receive power as the Holy Spirit comes on you and you are to be my witnesses beginning in Jerusalem, right here at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Junction City, Kansas and in Geary county." He also said, "I want you to go to Judea, the Kansas District. And I also want you to go Samaria, the United States. And I want you to go to ends of the earth.

This morning, I would like to share my mission message in three parts. I call it the three "I's" of mission -- mission information, and then with the Holy Spirit's power, mission inspiration and then finally the most important part-mission involvement. What can I do? How can I serve my Lord to be a better witness? To be a better missionary? To help share the Gospel with those who haven't had a chance to hear?

I would like to share with you just a few statistics to give the big picture of missions today. Just recently, the 6th billion person was born in this world. I heard it on Paul Harvey while travelling. He said, "I don't know where that person was born but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in China." Because you see, 1.4 billion out of the 6 billion people today live in China. That's 1 out of every 4 people in the world is Chinese. Of that 6 billion people, 4 billion are not Christians. 2 out over 3 people in the world today do not know our Lord and Savior. And they won't know Him unless we share the Gospel message as God's witnesses. 1 billion out of 6 billion haven't yet heard for the 1st time-they are what we called the "unreached people group". We still do not have to Gospel translated into their dialect or language. So I would like to share two verses with you this morning. The first is from John 3:16. We can quote that by heart. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life." And then from Romans 10:14 - "How then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" But so often we tend to think of that verse pertaining just to those missionaries sent; who have been sent overseas. We fail sometimes to recognize that each of us has been called in special ways by God to be a part of those missionaries who have crossed the seas. One of the ways I have heard it put is "we can't all cross the seas, but we can all see the cross." And when we see the cross, we are reminded of God sending His Son as a missionary to die on that cross. I had never thought of it as a mission context until I went to a mission retreat and had a pastor give a devotion of how God sent His Son from Heaven to earth, a foreign culture to be born a man, to grow up among us as a baby, to learn our language, to live with us, to relate with us and just like our missionaries to learn our language, just like our missionaries to suffer for us and like many of our missionaries to die for us. For God suffered his death innocently for the forgiveness of all our sins so that we might all have that hope of eternal life. But how will they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear unless someone preaches?

Missionaries are important to be sent not only to our own Jerusalem, but also to the ends of the earth. A lot of people in our society today feel like most of the people today have heard the Good News. Today we live in an age called the "information" age. We have the world wide web, the computer and we have an perspective that everybody has hear by now. But to help you put this in perspective a little bit, listen to these statistics. It took all of time from creation to 1804 for our world's population to reach the one billion people, almost to the beginning of our country in 1804. Then from 1804 to 1927 in just a little over a hundred years to reach 2 billion. Then from 1927 to 1960 less than 50 years to reach 3 billion; and then from 1960 to 2001 we doubled the world's population in 40 years from 3 billion to 6 billion. The last billion people was added in the last 12 years. It's growing even more rapidly and most of these people have not had the opportunity to hear the saving grace of Jesus Christ and they won't unless we are God's witnesses. I would like to share with you a mission story of my opportunity when I had the chance to go to Africa about 3 years ago with Pastor Patten. I had a chance to go to Guinea, the country our Kansas District adopted and be with our missionaries for three weeks and to travel right with them into the churches that had been planted and then we went to a mission retreat in Cote D'Ivoire, where the missionaries from all over west Africa came together. It was this retreat that the missionaries gave their debriefing or year review. They told these beautiful stories how the Gospel was reaching lives in all these countries. I'll never forget one of the stories a girl named Nicole Fourtier, 22 years old had graduated with a pre-med degree. She decided she wanted to be a medical doctor but she said, "first of all I want to go serve in a mission field and I want to go to a country where there is medical missions. She was sent to Kostavar to work with Dr. Bill Foster. She had only been there a week, when Dr. Foster called her in to see a very rare case. He said, "Nicole, I want you to see this rare case of beriles ulcer. But it actually had a name, a little 8 year old boy by the name of Deckley. Little Deckley really had no arm from his wrist to his elbow.

Just bone with a little bit of bloody tissue attached. Most of the flesh had been eaten away by this terrible disease. Dr. Foster bandaged his arm and gave him antibiotics and then released him. Then Nicole came back in and said, " Dr. Foster, what's going to happen to Deckley? He said, "I'm sorry, Nicole but it's not good. This is a terrible disease that just keeps cycling. It will get a little better after today and then it will get worse and he'll come back and we will treat it again and then it will get worse and eventually he will die from this." Nicole just didn't say "isn't that too bad." Nicole couldn't sleep at nights. She kept praying about "isn't there something I could do?" Finally, after a week of not being able to sleep and not being able to get Deckley's big brown, scared eyes out of her head and her heart, she got up in the middle of the night and went over to the clinic. She found the box with the names of the patients and she found little Deckley's name and the name of his village. She went and found a national worker and said, "Could you take me there?" She said they drove for three hours and then they walked two hours through the bush before they found his village. When they got there, she asked if there was a little boy by the name of Deckley that lived there. Pretty soon, his grandparents brought him out of the hut. His mother had already died of snake bite and his dad had died of another disease. Nicole explained to the grandparents that she would like to take him to Abinshaw, the capitol city to a research hospital to see if there wasn't something they might be able to do for his arm. Of course, the grandparents were excited but because he was only eight, they thought they needed to send his uncle along. Along the way down, she shared how she made friends with this little boy. She taught him how to make a paper airplane, how to write his name for the first time, they had a Hershey candy bar, they stopped for ice cream. Finally, they got to the hospital and she took him into the doctor and he examined him and when he came out she said, "Doctor, is there something you can do?" He said, "I'm sorry, Nicole, I don't think there is." Nicole just started crying after she had built this little boy's hopes up and his grandparents. The doctor saw that love in her heart and he said, "Wait a minute, come into my office. It happens to be that I am a research doctor and my research is beriles ulcer. I could use one more eight year old boy for my research." Nicole just started crying again. Then, she went back to the village to tell the grandparents he wasn't coming back. That's where the real miracle begins. When she went back to that village and shared with the grandparents and villagers that there was a good chance that little Deckley would be cured, the village chief was so moved by her love and her compassion, he called all the people in that village together and had them sit down under a big tree in the center of that village and he had Nicole stand up. He told his people, he said, "Many people have come to our village in the past to share Christianity and Jesus with us but no one ever demonstrated this type of love. We want to know more about Jesus." Nicole once again started crying. She went back to the mission site. They sent their pastors and their retreat Bible study teams out week after week. Today, they are worshipping in a Lutheran church just like this. They don't have padded pews-they have wooden planks that Nicole helped pay for out of her pocket. She helped pay for that uncle to stay with Deckley at that hospital. She helped pay for the nails to build that church. You see, Nicole answered God's call "Here I am Lord, send Me. Here am I Lord, use me, use my gifts." This is how God has called each and every one of us in special ways with special gifts.

That brings us to the third and most important part of the mission message this morning-mission information and mission inspiration by the Holy Spirit leads to mission involvement. Martin Luther put it this way, "Our walk with Christ is a three stage walk-head, heart and hands." That's awareness, comprehension and the Word allows the Holy Spirit   to convict and to inspire our hearts to say, "Here I am Lord, use my gifts, allow me to be one of your witnesses. As a teacher for 30 years, I remember a teacher asking a student one day, this question, "What do you think the world's greatest problem is, ignorance or apathy?" The student replied, "I don't know and I don't care." There's a little humor in that answer and there's also some sadness. Because when we don't know, we don't care. We are apathetic. It is important to be involved in mission, to learn about mission so that we can tell others, so that we can be involved in prayer life. The most important thing that our missionaries each year when I go to St. Louis and spend two weeks with our new volunteers ask me to do, is always to share the importance of prayer in the lives of our families. Becoming prayer partners and prayer warriors for our missionaries. Because in the mission field, every day is survival. In our country, we don't have a perspective. That's why one of the greatest things you can do, is pray about the opportunity to do a mission trip. Maybe it's a one week trip to Alaska to teach V.B.S. to little native American children who have never had a chance to hear. Maybe it's a chance to go on a Lutheran Hour Ministries service to nations program for two weeks. Each summer, they pick five or six different projects around the world and many people have become involved. Maybe it's opportunity to be involved in a medical mission to go to Kostistan or Kyrgystan on a medical mobile unit as a doctor or nurse or optometrist. Maybe it's an opportunity to do a servant event right in your local community. These mission opportunities are always defining moments. They are always life-changing experiences. I had that opportunity in 1994 setting right where you are, on a mission Sunday have a pastor from Auburn, Nebraska come and share about this little village in Silvakia and how he had helped rebuild that school after 75 years of Communism. My oldest daughter and I had an opportunity to go and share two weeks in that country with ten teenagers from Norfolk, Nebraska to help rebuild a school that had been taken away and almost been destroyed and return it to a beautiful Lutheran school.

I'm going to share a lot more about this, this morning in Bible class. I don't want to just invite you this morning, I want to beg you. If you haven't been to Bible class or Sunday School lately, come down and you'll get a chance to see a video that I took while I was in Africa and went into a village that had only been evangelized three weeks before President Patten and I got to visit that village. You are going to see an entire village come to Christ and you are going to see the sights and sounds of Africa. They predict in the next ten years, Africa will become the most Christian continent in the world. There are more Lutheran in Africa today than there is in all of North America. Because we are able today with beautiful things of technology, we can take the television, VCR, generator and the Jesus film and go into any village today and share the Good News in their dialect and in their language. And once again the verse shares with us, "How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear unless someone preaches to them? Also this morning, an opportunity that I want to share with you and for you to pray about and I would like you to take that out of your worship service this morning, is a little brochure on Guinea. Each year we have a family in our Kansas district who produces 30,000 of these and we use these on Pentecost Sunday to help support the $75,000 a year pledge that our District has made to adopt this country. This is story of missionaries that are in this country and I would like to have you take that home and put it somewhere where you can use with your devotions so that you can on a regular basis pray for our missionaries and hold them up in your prayers. I would like especially today share with you the one there in on the bottom of the right hand corner, Dr. Kristen Schmaltz. Dr. Schmaltz was just back for our professional church worker's conference in Hutchinson. She gave four sectionals on her year being a volunteer, of working in Cote D'Ivoire for seven months and then going into Liberia where the civil war has been going on for ten years and being in a refugee hospital and every day seeing hundreds of thousands of young children mal-nourished, suffering from tropical diseases and malaria-all of these terrible diseases that they have no treatment for and to be able to share and demonstrate God's love as she was also able to proclaim it. Dr. Schmaltz wants to go back as a career missionary. But there isn't money in the budget in this fiscal year to support Dr. Schmaltz. We need special families that would be willing to pledge to pray for her and financial support her with a small monthly gift. I like to share if your family could make a financial gift of $10 a month, in a year that would amount to $120. If 50 families were do that, that would raise $6000 to support a missionary above and beyond your budget, outside of your budget, not competing with anything else that you are doing. But it would be enhancing and supporting what you are doing, witnessing to the ends of the earth. If your family could give a minimum of a $25 gift a month, in a year that would be just $300. Just ten families would raise $3000 to support a missionary.

Today this is how we support missions. For 30 years, we supported it through weekly offerings. Our world budget was $10 million, 9.5 million came through our weekly offerings, 95% of it. But then in 1989, the Berlin wall fell. All those countries in Eastern Europe and Communism fell and suddenly the doors opened up after 75 years of Communism and for people where our missionaries had come from and our forefathers where simply owning a Bible or publicly confessing their faith, people were put to death. Suddenly all those doors were opened back up again. We got the opportunity to carry the Gospel back in. But it was expensive-it cost about $75,000 a year to keep a career missionary in the mission field. Our budget grew from $10 million to $28 million and today our weekly offerings only bring in about $7 million or 25% of our total world mission budget for a year. 75% of our budget comes from families that say "Here I am Lord, send me! I can't cross the seas but I can help send someone, I can pray for someone! I can become personally involved. Missions can become more than a line item in the budget. It can become a beautiful relationship with a missionary and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through that missionary. In the next several weeks, you are going to have the opportunity to take this home, to pray about this and learn more about Dr. Schmaltz. We will have a video on her that you will be able to share. I pray from us on her. Then in a few Sundays, you will have an opportunity for those of you who would like to become a prayer partner or a financial partner or both, to bring your pledges forward in a special Consecration Sunday. We call this "together in mission" where a sending church adopts a missionary and the missionary adopts the sending church. Then when they return home on their furlough or home leave, they come visit you and to share some of those stories with you like I did this morning personally from that missionary. It's one of the most beautiful relationships that a congregation can become involved in. I ask you to pray about that. I would like for you to turn in your worship service to the very back page, page 16 and pray with me this mission prayer that says "A Mission Prayer to Pray at Home." Let's pray this together please.

"Dear Lord, You know me-my gifts, my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears. Without You, I can do nothing. Help me to trust in You. Show me how You want me to be involved in Your mission-as a witness to You in my family, my community, and even to the ends of the earth. Put Your saving Word in my heart and on my lips, so that I may tell others about You. Give me the courage and joy I need to step forward in trust, knowing that You are supporting and guiding me. In Jesus' name and for His sake I pray. Amen."