The Mission Foundation

May 30, 2014

Dear friends,

I give thanks to our Lord for His great Hand of blessing on the weekly Louisiana Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast.  We saw far greater weekly participation than we have ever seen before!   This was, as I have mentioned before, my 21^st year at the Louisiana State Capitol and the 15^th year of the breakfast!

On May 20^th, we held our annual reunion breakfast, and we were very happy that several of our former representatives and senators were able to be with us.  What a great morning!  The room was so full that the staff had to open the doors and set up extra tables in the adjacent area, and we were blessed by our Lord to experience wonderful warmth and fervency in our fellowship, our meditation on the Word, and our prayers.  Again, we give thanks to our Savior! 

I would like to include a few notes (with slight modifications) from my reunion morning message:  “Living in Preparation to Say My Last Prayer.”

“God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do.”  September 10, 1935, 4:10 a.m.  These were the very last words that came from his lips. –  Governor Huey P. Long, age 42.

“I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave Me to do.” – These words were included in His prayer on the night before His death. – Jesus our Lord, age 33.

It is quite possible that you will know when you are saying your last prayer to God.  If so, what will it be? 

God has given you a work to accomplish:  He has given you a purpose.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV)  Love God!  And love every man, woman, and child around you! 

God has perfectly designed you to carry out this great purpose in a manner that is unique to you. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them.”  (Eph. 2:10)  You are His “workmanship,” His poiema – His personal work of art!  The Apostle Paul says that God hand-made you for certain works that He prepared for you before the foundation of the world.  David prays, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made, . . . in your book were written . . . the days that were ordained for me.” (Ps. 139:14, 16) – “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking.” – George McDonald  

You will accomplish your work by following the example of Jesus who lived every day for the purpose to which His Father had called Him. 

• Each day do only those things that you know are pleasing to your Father:  “And He who sent me is with Me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” (John 8:29)
• Each day seek to know and do your Father’s will:  “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38)

• Each day observe what God is doing so that you might participate with Him:  Jesus said that He as the Son of God does “only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that He Himself is doing.” (John 5:19)
• Each day maintain a sense of urgency, knowing that your days are limited:  “We must work the works of Him Who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no man can work.” (John 9:4)

Every day you are making decisions.  Let every decision you make be guided by the purpose for which Jesus  lived, the same purpose for which He has called you to live:  Love God!  Love people!  Do this, my friend, and you will be prepared to say your last prayer to God!  Though you cannot live perfectly, as Jesus did, you will be able to say, “By Your grace, I sought to honor You by accomplishing all that You gave me to do.” 

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support of us in our work.  We are truly grateful. 

Your brother and sister in the Savior,

Rod and Bec

The Mission Foundation

P. O. Box 46358

Baton Rouge, LA 70895

May 7, 2014

Dear friends,

Some of you may have wondered what happened with regard to our April letter.  I am sorry that, in the midst of an extremely demanding season of ministry, my monthly correspondence with you has been delayed.      

April and early May have been blessed days of labor.  Bec and I give thanks to God for His workings through The Gathering of Men and Monday Morning for Men (Ruston) and for my recent opportunity to speak to the LA State Association of YMCA Directors and at a men’s retreat at Calvary Baptist Church.  I plan to write about some of these things later this month, but in this letter, I would like to focus on one special event at the Louisiana State Senate. 

Yesterday the Senate held their annual “Military Family Day” in remembrance of eleven of our soldiers who have died during the past year.  It was a beautiful ceremony that included presentations by the Baton Rouge Bagpipes and Drums and the LA National Guard Color Guard.  Very meaningful words of remembrance were given for each fallen soldier, and there were times of silent prayer and moments of comfort for the families.  It was very moving to see every member of the Senate coming to the front to offer personal words to the members of each family.  I must emphasize that there were words of reflection on the life of each soldier as his picture was shown before us, and expressions of comfort were offered to each family.  It was a lovingly and appropriately extended time of communicating respectful gratitude and of coming alongside the grieving. 

It was my honor to have been invited to present the opening prayer.  Before the ceremony began, I spent a brief moment with each of the family members.  As I moved from one to the next there in the Senate gallery, their eyes and their voices disclosed the greatness of the sorrow they carried in their hearts.  Their loved ones had paid the ultimate price for our freedom and for the freedom of others in this world.  As I write, I am remembering the weighty grief in the eye of a young widow; I am hearing a father’s voice muted by sadness as he spoke to me; and I am seeing the mourning on a mother’s face as she reached out to shake my hand.  What great loss.   

But at the end of the “Military Family Day,” recognition was also given to a living heroin! – WWII U.S. Navy Wave, Mrs. Dorothy Bauer, mother of Mr. Keith Bauer, one of our Senate guards.  Mrs. Bauer, who was a nurse and one of only 300 women trained to be a part of a flight crew, flew over 100 hours a month, often flying great distances over the Atlantic and Pacific with our wounded soldiers.   As Mrs. Bauer, who had her 90^th birthday in April, stood with her son Keith at the front of the chamber, and the words of her commendation were ended, the members of the Senate, and all others present, stood in applause!

May God help us to continually and gratefully remember our fallen soldiers and their families.  And may God remind us to regularly express our sincere appreciation to those who have served in our military in any capacity. 

Also, may God enable us to be faithful in prayer.  Please pray for the grieving families not only here in Louisiana but all over our nation, and please pray for our soldiers, both those on active duty and those who have served us in the past, some of whom bear great emotional and physical burdens. 

In closing, we want to say again that we give thanks to God for you.   Thank you for all of your prayers, your words of encouragement, and your support of us in our work. 

                                                                                    In the love of our Savior,

                                                                                    Rod and Bec 

The Mission Foundation

March 28, 2014

Our dear friends, we’re off to a great start in my 21^st year at the Louisiana State Capitol!  I give thanks to our Lord that I was asked to lead in a prayer for unity at the Louisiana Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast.   There was a great crowd and a wonderful spirit at that prayer breakfast.  This Monday, March 31^st, I will be opening the House of Representatives in prayer.  Also, the weekly LA Legislators’ Bible Study Prayer Breakfast (which I have led since 2000) has been very well attended by both the House and Senate.  Here are some notes from our last two meetings:

“How Can We Who Are So Diverse Be Truly Unified?”

“In our diversity, let there be unity!”  That was last week’s theme.  We focused on the reasons for which our unity is of paramount importance to all of us.  Often it is said that we must be unified in order to accomplish greater things.  However, as we have seen, there are much more important reasons:

• We were made in the image of the Holy Three-In-One.  God, the Eternal Community, who lives in the perfect unity of love within Himself, said, “Let Us make man in our own image, after our own likeness” (Genesis 1:26).  He designed us to live as a holy community, being united in love, even as He is united within Himself in love. 
• But we foolishly broke our bond of love with God and with one another and chose to go our own self-focused way (Genesis 3; Isaiah 53:6).  In His unconditional love, our Lord Jesus died to restore our unity with God and with one another forever. (Romans 5:8, 18; Eph. 4:15)
• On the night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed for our unity, saying that our oneness would be our testimony to the world that God actually sent Him and that God truly does love us in the same way that He loves His own Son.  Jesus prayed, “I do not ask for these (disciples) only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that you have sent Me.  The glory that You have given to Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent me and loved them even as You have loved Me.”  (John 17:20-22) 

• Our Christ, Whom we all follow, has blessed us with the privilege of sharing in a beautiful seven-fold oneness:  “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”  (Ephesians 4:4-6)

But now we must ask, “How do we do this?  How can we who are so diverse be truly unified?

  I.  We must be HUMBLE LISTENERS: We must listen to one another with the ears of humility that Christ will give us.     

o        James 1:19 “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

o        Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”

o        Proverbs 18:13  “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

By listening we not only learn; we not only become aware of our blind-spots; we also are communicating loving respect for one another. 

 II.  We must be MERCIFUL:  We must extend the same mercy to one another that we have received from our Lord.   

o        Matthew 5:7  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

o        Luke 6:36  “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

o        James 2:13  “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

o        Ephesians 4:32  “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

III.  We must develop KALEIDOSCOPIC VISION:  Each of us must have eyes like a kaleidoscope whose mirrors are set at perfect angles so that it becomes kalos + eidos + skopeo, an “observer of beautiful forms.”  We must learn to look at one another with the eyes that Christ will give us.  We must allow Him to grant us the ability to marvel at the ever-changing shapes and colors of the humans around us.  1 Corinthians 12 teaches us that there are “varieties of gifts” and “varieties of service” and that we who are “one body” cannot say to another part of the body, “I have no need of you.”  Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that every believer is God’s poiema, His “work of art.”  

Please pray for an ever-growing unity among our legislators and in our churches and in The Church (even as our Lord Jesus prayed). Please pray against any influences that would cause division.  Thank you again for making it possible for Bec and me to do the work to which He has called us.

In the Savior,

Rod and Bec       

Giving thanks for TWENTY YEARS!

November 22, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving, friends, 

We join with you in giving thanks to our Lord for the many blessings of this year.  We are also giving thanks to Him for TWENTY YEARS of service to Him through The Mission Foundation and for His provision of financial support through friends like you!

We know that you are very familiar with our work, but please reflect briefly with us on twenty years of work: 

• Louisiana Legislature:  Since June of 1993, I have been privileged to serve the men and women of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the Senate.  When the upcoming session begins, the Louisiana Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast, which meets weekly during the session, will be in its 15^th year.  Please pray for God’s guiding and protecting Hand over this ministry. 
• The Gathering of Men:  We launched the downtown luncheon in October of 1993, and twenty years later men from all denominations continue to come together for weekly Bible study and prayer.  What a joy it has been to serve the men of our city with my dear friend Tyler Lafauci and other brothers here in Baton Rouge.
• International Ministry:  For the past eleven years, Becky and I have been blessed with many opportunities to serve our Lord’s Church in other countries, including India, El Salvador, Peru, Dominican Republic, Albania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, United Kingdom, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, and a country in East Asia.  Bec has used her teaching gift, her ability to disciple women, and her organizational skills in a number of different ministry contexts, while I have had the opportunity to do interim pastoral work, begin new men’s ministries, teach in seminaries and Bible colleges, and work alongside national Christian leaders in the development of training programs in expository preaching.           
• Monday Morning for Men in Ruston:  A little over a year ago, I was blessed to work with Jeff Peshoff and our son Jake in the establishment of a weekly meeting for men that meets at First National Bank of Ruston.  Those who have participated are members of a number of churches – Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, and Independent.      

We want to give special mention to our recent opportunity to serve at First Methodist Church of Shreveport, a city-center church that continues to thrive and impact the heart of Shreveport through its outreaches and projects and through its collaboration with other churches and ministries.  Through the invitation of Rev. Jonathan Beck, I was the guest speaker for their annual Fall Banquet and for their weekly business luncheon.  Bec and I greatly enjoyed our time with the people of First Methodist.  There were also a number of long-time friends from North Louisiana who attended the meetings, including some legislators and one who previously served in the legislature.  We give thanks to God for allowing us to serve at First Methodist!

In closing, we are in great need of a very strong response to our appeal regarding year-end giving.  Our ministry is highly dependent upon these special gifts.  Would you please prayerfully consider how the Lord might have you participate financially in our work with The Mission Foundation?   We would be extremely grateful for whatever you may feel led to do.  

Giving thanks to our Savior for His blessing over the past twenty years!

Rod and Bec