Revelation 7:9-10
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
This is the driving force in my life, a vision to see the nations worship Jesus together.
As a kid in Indiana, God transformed my heart and gave me a desire to know him and to spend my life serving him. So far the journey has taken me through the cornfields and cities of southeastern Ohio, the small beach towns of Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, Michigan, the Bible-publishing mecca that is Grand Rapids, Michigan, the front range of Denver, Colorado, and the Amish farmlands of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Along the way, God has given me the privilege of serving alongside people from many different “tribes”: white, black, Hispanic, Asian, liberal and conservative, Boomers, Xers, Millennials and Zs.
Taking communion and singing praise songs together with believers from Mexico, Jamaica, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ethiopia and more has grown my awe of the God who loves all these different cultures. He created people in his own image but it takes 7000+ different ethnolinguistic groups to even begin to express all that He is. Incredible!
Currently I am the Director of Serve Asia (U.S.), which is the short-term mission program of OMF International. I count it an incredible honor to journey with young and old people who are taking steps of faith to join God in his mission to reconcile the world back to himself. Together as a Fellowship, we are seeing fishing villages in Southeast Asia learn that Jesus is more than a prophet, small churches in Tokyo being strengthened, and university students in China hearing that Jesus was truly raised from the dead.
God is on the move!
Thanks for reading and considering the opportunity to join the prayer and support teams that make this work a reality.
-Matt
By the way, anchoring me and filling out my life are my incredible wife and four children. They are a source of joy and fun. But … they don’t like to be featured on the world wide web! So to honor their desires, I’ll just be writing about my own experiences.
Matt Whitacre 