Dear CCW family,
I recently ran across a Family Letter from 2016. It spoke to me about intentional travel, such as we are about to do again but in the opposite direction. As we drive to California, Oregon, Montana and back, I want us to remember and anticipate the guidance and interventions by God that I expressed in the letter below. Pam and I long for that. I’ll be speaking in various places, seeing friends and ministry associates, but also we want to be intentional about every day’s opportunities. Who knows what God has planned? Please pray for us, and those back home, and team members engaged in other places, all significant in the mind of God.
September, 2016
We were sitting in a gazebo in a beautiful park close to the port at Portland, Maine. A couple was sitting their quietly with a bed roll and small bag. The woman was wrapped in a blanket. She sat still, staring toward the water. He tried to tenderly talk with her, but she seemed to be in a reflective mood.
Pam and I began rehearsing Hebrews 10 aloud, a passage we are attempting to memorize on our trip. We wanted them to hear. Then I purposefully asked Pam if I could read an email account of a young lady who had been a roommate of a young adult woman in our church. Pam had already read part of it earlier, but this really wasn’t for her.
As I read the intense story of how this Asian woman recently connected with rural girls in the big city where she had found a job overseas, girls who were essentially enslaved as factory workers in their Communist homeland, and who had been abused in every way, I could see the interest on the woman’s part across the gazebo. She continued to stare at the water, but she was tuned in.
The story of our friend’s roommate touched us. She told how she had encountered these country girls, visited their crowded apartment, and shared Christ with them on multiple occasions. Then the police came and interrogated them all. But God had done his work in these girls’ lives, and some of them were beautifully converted with sobbing and genuine hope in Christ. These newborn girls would have no future questions about the cost of following Christ, for our friend’s friend spent 18 days in jail after this evening to demonstrate it. But she was glowing with praise to God. And found the jail experience to be closer to heaven.
I haven’t done her account justice, but you can know it was a stirring story made all the more poignant because we had prayed for this Asian Christian across the ocean, and we knew that her story could reach a couple across the gazebo, if God willed.
The pensive lady, in a deep Tennessee accent, said “That was beautiful.” It had moved her as well. We found out that this couple wasn’t camping, but were homeless. They had been on the road for a year. They had been introduced to Christ earlier. The woman, especially, gave strong testimony to her love for Him. It was believable. The man was less convincing, but not uninformed nor hardened. They were genuinely interested in all we could say about Christ. They asked for nothing as we left. The homeless woman hugged Pam and said, “I love you.” I’ve dealt with hundreds of homeless people: there was no pretense in this woman.
We went to the car after goodbyes. Pam sorted through some food we had and took it back up to them. When she returned, I went back with some evangelistic literature I had written. It was all good and all of God.
There are lessons here. First, we have to remember that being on vacation doesn’t mean we take a vacation from the Lordship of Christ. We must remain on call for God to use us. But the most striking lesson is that life lived with abandon toward God, as proven by the Asian Christian lady, may have many ripples of effect unknown to us. And that is the word we all need to hear.
Thanks for your help in the gospel work that we do. Please pray for Steve Burchett and Selamab Assefa on our team who leave for Ethiopia soon [in 2016]. And pray for the rest of us who sow gospel seed daily.
With joy,
Jim Elliff
Back to Now, 2025
Jim Elliff
Not only are Pam and I traveling, but Steve and Marco are also. Here is what is happening with them. Your prayers are needed.
Steve Burchett
I’m looking forward to ministry in Chillicothe, Missouri, in August (taking some family and a few church members), and then Marco and I will be teaching together in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in September. Toward the end of September, I’m speaking at a FIRE regional conference in Rogers, Arkansas. Also, please check out my new book at our website if you haven’t — The Most Powerful Words: A Primer on the Public Reading of Scripture.
Marco Scouvert
Conversations with our Ugandan brother have clarified that I should speak evangelistically in the church meetings and men’s conference since most attending are not believers. Our intensive with pastors will focus on several practical church matters. Pray for the Spirit to irresistibly draw people to Christ and cause these leaders to follow Jesus’ word in their churches. For September’s trip with Steve, I’ll teach and dialogue on evangelism with the church. And I am speaking a few times at a nearby church in their Sunday morning meetings, as they are without a pastor at the moment.
With Joy,
Jim, Steve and Marco