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On Saturday, February 16, the sixteen-person RBC Missions Committee met for 10 hours to review the 76 international missionaries that RBC supports.  (The committee will review the 136 national missionaries that RBC supports on March 10.)

Each year, the Missions Committee sends each of our missionaries an update questionnaire so they can report on their finances, their accomplishments for the past year, their goals for the coming year, their prayer concerns and their children’s needs.  Every committee member thoroughly reads through these updates prior to the annual review and comes to the meeting prepared to discuss each one.

The consistent theme of all the updates is that our missionaries need our prayer support more than anything else.  The RBC missionary family is experiencing some painful things, both in ministry and in their personal lives.  Several have grown children with marital problems and looking towards divorce.  Some have children with medical needs. Some have elderly parents with issues and they are far away.  Some of them have some serious health issues themselves.  There are issues in their ministries.  They all need our consistent prayer.

After determining the financial position of the missions budget, the committee looks at each missionary’s support shortage, if they have one.  The committee always considers the needs of those missionaries RBC has sent out first.  Praise God, the missions fund had enough money to give $1750 in increases to 28 of our missionaries.  The committee was encouraged that the average missionary we support receives 89% of their current support need.  This is an increase of one percent over last year.

The committee also looked at other issues facing our missionaries beyond financial needs.  The committee will address these issues and needs over the course of the next few months. As well as thoroughly examining our missionaries, the committee also reviewed the policies that guide the missions program and discussed updates and/or changes to some of those policy guidelines.  Any changes or updates made to the policies will go to the RBC council of elders for their final approval.

The most important thing the committee accomplished at the annual review was the extended time spent in prayer for our missionary family. The committee prayed through 18 pages of prayer requests we received through the update questionnaires.

If you do not yet have one an RBC Missionary Guide, please stop by the Welcome Desk in the lobby and pick one up and begin praying for our missionaries.  They are in some serious spiritual battles, and many serve in some seriously dark areas of the world. Your prayers are essential as they bring forth the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.

If you have any questions about missions at RBC, please drop us an email at missions@restonbible.org.