Are you involved in making disciples and sharing Christ with others through missions education? People like Cindy Walker cannot imagine their lives without it. She grew up with WMU as part of her life—she started out as a Sunbeam, then became a GA, taught GAs, and now teaches Acteens, WMU’s missions education curriculum for youth girls.
Learning and teaching about missions for years gave Cindy a passion to reach the lost all over the world. Her eyes were opened to the fact that the world was far more than her community, and she wanted the world to know about Jesus.
In the last ten years, Cindy has gone on eighteen mission trips to Nicaragua, often taking Acteens with her. She has been able to teach God’s love to these girls and help them put that love into action in their hometowns and across the world.
Cindy’s teams have been able to work with the Emmanuel Home of Protection in Nicaragua, which serves victims of sexual abuse and trafficking. Unfortunately, in October 2017, Tropical Storm Nate caused almost insurmountable damage to the safe house.
“Poverty is rampant. Hopelessness is evident everywhere you look,” Cindy explained. But she also noted she had heard story after story of people in the area who had come to know Christ because someone from the safe house reached out to them and met their physical needs then shared the gospel with them. The home “is a beacon of hope and light in a dark area of our hemisphere,” she said.
At Emmanuel Home of Protection, missionaries provide girls from birth to age 18 with a formal education and training in life and job skills. The staff offers psychological, emotional, and spiritual care to the girls introducing them to the unconditional love of Jesus. “That’s why it’s vital to keep the ministry up and running at full speed,” Cindy said. “Anything we can do to help these missionaries minister in this community is wonderful.”
The WMU Foundation sent a $2,500 HEART Fund grant to help them rebuild and recover as quickly as possible. The grant will help replace roofs, windows, walls, and doors at the safe house. Cindy’s involvement with WMU through the years helped her be a voice for a small organization in Nicaragua that might have otherwise been overlooked. Because someone chose to teach her the importance of making disciples and helping others through missions education and her own dedication to reaching the lost in Nicaragua, the lives of girls have been changed both physically and spiritually.
Several of Cindy’s former GAs are now missionaries and others have girls who Cindy teaches now. “I’ve had the opportunity to serve another generation. The mothers who grew up in these missions programs see how missions education influenced them, and they want to emphasize that to their children. It’s been such a blessing.”
Cindy was discipled through missions education as a young child and discipled countless others as well. Because she was invested in and invested in others, lives have been changed around the world. How has Christ changed your life through missions education? How are you making disciples because of the investment someone else poured into your life?