Reaching Italians with the Gospel is a great honor, but it requires clear vision, perseverance and long-term commitment. Those who know Italy to be a missionary field refer to it as the graveyard of missions. Very sad, but reality is less than 1% are evangelical. Catholicism dominates the land yet few live out the catholic faith anyway. Evangelicals like you and me are considered a cult. In Italy no one knows what an evangelical is. Just a few days ago we informed folks at the pizza shop that we were evangelical misisonaries and they assumed we were mormons... We have now been missionaries in Italy serving zealously for over ten years. By God's grace alone we have evangelized more than we can count and we have seen the Lord save a number of individuals and families. We have been personally involved in two church plants while at current we are spending ourselves for Jesus to form a third.
This current season is one of great joy but also hard work as we are sacrificing our lives and laying more foundations. We are laying the foundation for a new church plant in the city of Venezia Mestre in North Italy, that will, Lord willing, continue to increase and reach out to more and more Italians for years to come. We are also laying a foundation for PMc to welcome into Italy more missionaries: short-term, interns and long-term. In a very real sense we are pioneer missionaries getting in and doing the hard and dirty work in order to set up camp and make it easier for more missionaries to hit the ground running and make more impact for the Kingdom; all for God's glory.
To have the impact that Jesus has called us to now requires that we trust Him for more funds. For this we are praying to see new individuals and churches to come alongside of us. PMc is currently operating at about 70% which means we are in need of a 30% increase.
The PMc ministry belongs to the Lord and is for His glory alone. The door for the Gospel in Italy is open wide and by His grace we are evangelizing the lost daily that they may know the true Gospel, which has till now been hidden from them. In this way they are able to put their trust in Christ alone for salvation; knowing that they indeed need salvation. We are following up with people and making an active presence in their lives with the Gospel. We are planting another church which will in the future, Lord willing, have Italian men trained and equipped to be the pastors. In addition to this we are creating avenues for involvement from the brethren in the US to come play a personal role in God's work in Italy. We are also commited to equipping the next generation of missionaries in the Lord's harvest in Italy.
To this end we warmly invite you to prayerfully consider becoming a monthly financial partner with Practical Missions Cohort. You may not be able to come but your giving enables us to go and keep reaching Italians together. Our monthly partners are quite literally the backbone of this ministry and we praise God for their participation in this work of God. They are daily in our prayers. It is only with their partnership that we have been able to do so much.
If you have any questions as to how to become a PMc monthly partner please do not hesitate to respond to this email or visit this link: practicalmissions.org/donate.
If you become a PMc monthly partner we will send you a PMc t-shirt and you will be prayed for daily <img height="22" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5e9922_f08e343127774efe8d9971ba20f4b6e6.png_256" width="22">
Thank you and God bless you!
Jesse & Jeryvee and Cornelius and all at PMc
