Thirty years ago today, on April 27, 1994, New Wineskins Missionary Network (formerly ECMC, Episcopal Church Missionary Community) held its first Global Mission Conference.…

In 2007, my wife, Carol, and I joined another couple from Christ Church Anglican, Savannah to attend the New Wineskins Conference. The Lord used the first two talks by Bishop Derek Eaton and Bishop Rennis Ponniah, which by “accident” both focused on the call of Abraham in Geneses 12:1, to confirm a call to Carol and me to sell our business and get ready to do full time mission work.

As Christians, we are all called to be mission-minded, seeing ourselves as everyday missionaries wherever we happen to live and at whatever life stage we happen to be.

Strolling along the beautiful water behind her picturesque Savannah home one evening, Carol Rogers Smith had an encounter with Christ. She knew in that quiet moment God had called her to serve His people.

It was a blazing hot day, our second clinic day in the village of Ntooma. The Gospel tent was buzzing with activity as our Ugandan evangelism and prayer teams were ministering to the clinic patients. Dr. Chris Keenan, the team dentist, led a ninety-year-old man over to our area. Chris explained that the man had a terminal tumor in his throat and that even back in the US there was nothing that could be done medically to save him. Chris, himself a strong Christian, knew that the best we could do was offer him the Gospel and prayer ministry. Chris also told me that the aged man had been candidly told the seriousness of his condition.