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Living Word Lutheran met Rev. Bill Moberly and Awakening Lives to World Missions (ALWM) at the perfect time. I had known Bill for years and appreciated the great ministry he has done. We had not been involved with missions and wanted to get started. We had just paid off our building and chose to think outside of ourselves for a while.

We committed to become very active in missions.

As our council talked about possibilities, the most popular thoughts were:

Pay for another church to construct a building

Help bring clean water to those without, and

Send adults on a mission team.

Then Bill came to speak at Living Word’s first Mission Sunday event in October 2019. We learned he was seriously involved with all three of the above mission opportunities in Vietnam and Cambodia!

We felt God calling us to jump on board, with ALWM leading the way.

Bill helped us get going. His Harvest Connection Seminar cast vision for our congregation in February 2019. He connected us with a fast growing, 300-member church in Vietnam who needed a building. (This language group, the Steing tribe, was unreached until the early 1990’s.) Our congregation was thrilled to help and quickly raised $32,000.

Bill also told us of a church with ministries to orphans and to unwed mothers, whose babies otherwise would have been aborted. They needed more rooms and a bathroom – we were privileged to be able to help with that project. Also, Bill steered us to water purification projects that were needed in both countries.

Photo of Living Word Lutheran Church in Milbank, South Dakota

Living Word Lutheran Church

Photo of Living Word Lutheran Church mission team

Living Word mission team with the pastor of our new ministry partner at Gia Ray Church, northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

Finally, we sent two couples from our church on a two-week ALWM mission trip to Vietnam in June 2019. Our people came home inspired for missions and excited to get others to go back. They are forming the nucleus of a Missions Team that will promote and encourage ongoing missions in our congregation.

After doing the above, our congregation decided to raise another $50,000 for new projects in the coming year that would impact the world and our own community. We are raising $25,000 and then matching it with money from our general fund, which was at a comfortable level. The only reason we were able to do so much in less than a year was through the ministry of ALWM. They connected us with the right people and places to create the greatest impact.

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