Maguire State Missions Offering

Prayer Guide

Sep 2, 2008

Click on image for related coverage

“Jesus said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” Mark 5:19 (NKJV)

State Goal
$1,417,500

This is my Florida. From the emerald Panhandle waters to the sunkissed Florida Keys; from Central Florida’s ample orange groves to Miami’s famous Calle Ocho; from Tampa’s sprawling skyline to Fort Myers’ Royal Palm-lined streets; from North Florida’s canopied moss-covered oaks to the Capital City’s rolling hills. This is my Florida.

This is my mission: to the affluent high-rise condominium dweller to those living in the poverty-stricken inner city; to the struggling rural migrant and the wealthy metropolitan suburbanite; to the college educated student and the 4.5 million foreign-born residents from more than 150 nations; to those in prison and those scraping to make ends meet; to the more than 13 million Floridians who do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is my mission.

Jesus calls Florida Baptists to His mission.

After being healed by Jesus, the demon possessed man begged the Master if he might be allowed to stay with Him. “Jesus said to him. ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” Mark 5:19.

Florida Baptists are embracing the words of their Savior, returning to their homes, their neighborhoods and their communities to tell the great things the Lord has done for them.

For just like the newly healed man, the greatest witness of all is the testimony of a changed life—a walking demonstration of how Christ can change your life. Every Florida Baptist has that story to tell.

Florida Baptists believe that living in the Sunshine State is not by accident, but a divine plan of God to take the life-changing Gospel message to those around them. This is their Florida; this is their mission.

To bring the transforming Gospel message to their state, Florida Baptists have adopted a Great Commission strategy of evangelizing new believers, planting new churches and strengthening 2,800 existing Florida Baptist churches to be more effective in telling the Good News in their own communities.

Their efforts are supported by gifts to the Maguire State Mission Offering. The growing missionary needs in Florida cannot be met by Cooperative Program gifts alone. The Maguire State Mission Offering complements Florida Baptists’ commitment to the Great Commission in their own mission field.

The Maguire State Mission Offering has a missionary purpose—helping new congregations through no-interest church site loans, supporting partnership pastors and spreading the Gospel through evangelistic ministries.

The offering allows Florida Baptists to reach out with hands of compassion to the uninsured sick, the refugee, the urban poor, the incarcerated and the migrant farm laborer.

The offering enables a mission enterprise that develops Christian believers through youth and family camps, strengthens churches in Florida communities, and helps rebuilds lives in the aftermath of disasters.

In all, the Maguire State Mission Offering underwrites 26 ministries which do not receive funding from any other sources.

When giving through the Maguire State Mission Offering, Florida Baptists are claiming their state as their own mission, just as Jesus urged the healed man to do in his own home. By giving sacrificially, Florida Baptists extend Jesus Christ’s hand in salvation, forgiveness and compassion.

By giving to the Maguire State Mission Offering, Florida Baptists are proclaiming: My Florida. My Mission.

Pray each day for these missionaries serving on your Florida Mission Field

SUNDAY

My Missionary: Geraldo Armendariz
My Florida: Okeechobee and Fort Pierce
My Mission: Reaching migrant families for Christ

“This is my mission. This is my passion.”

That is how Geraldo Armendariz characterizes his calling to start and serve as pastor to a new church for migrant farm workers on the outskirts of Okeechobee—located 40 miles away from the Fort Pierce church where he also serves as pastor.

“I am happiest when I am reaching people for Christ,” said the pastor through a translator.

For the past two years, the Mexico native has led Sunday morning worship at Iglesia Bautista Fuente de Salvacion in Fort Pierce and then driven to Okeechobee to hold evening worship at Iglesia Roca de Salvacion for the dairy farms and orange groves workers.

Throughout the week, he travels back and forth to minister to the migrants’ physical and spiritual needs.

Life is difficult for migrants because of a lack of transportation and education, the inability to speak English and proper documentation. They also contend with hunger as well as drug and alcohol addiction. Pastor Armendariz transports them to the doctors and hospitals, fills medications, visits in jails, helps with paperwork and brings groceries from the food bank.

Funding from the Maguire State Mission Offering assists more than 70 migrant ministries in the state—mostly Hispanic and Haitian—helping pastors financially and providing Christian camps for families and children.

“In Matthew Chapter 28, Jesus issues the Great Commission,” said Armendariz. “I believe that all Christians, the church, its pastors and leaders have a great responsibility. We are all fulfilling the Great Commission.”

PRAY that God’s spirit will provide strength to Pastor Geraldo Armendariz as he fulfills the challenges of this ministry. Pray that the ministry can purchase a van to bring families to church; pray that his wife, Naomi, can quit her housecleaning employment and work full-time in the ministry.

MONDAY

My Missionary: Marc Pargo
My Florida: Rural North Central Florida
My Mission: Planting a church to reach a community

God is providing miracle after miracle in the construction of Cornerstone Baptist Church located just south of Fort White, said church planter and pastor Marc Pargo. “God is sufficient and alive at work.”

At first, the 60-member congregation struggled to buy land. Doors opened and doors closed. When the congregation looked at a particular corner site, north of the Santa Fe River, the owner of the property was not interested in selling it—until a personal crisis “tendered his heart” said Pargo.

“He told me if I had called him any other day, he would not have sold it to us.”

As they began building, the group realized that the six men in the congregation were experienced in a specific area of construction, including the pastor, a brick mason by trade.

Yet they lacked enough laborers. After praying, construction volunteers from across Georgia and Florida, including a team from the Florida Keys, came to lend a hand.

The church received a $75,000 interest free loan from the Maguire State Mission Offering. “Without the interest-free loan, we could not have bought this property,” explained the pastor.

Nearly 78 percent of the rural area is “unchurched,” explained Pargo. “Go down any dirt road and you will find houses on either side. The field is white for the harvest.”

To Florida Baptists, Pargo says, “Thank you. The church says ‘thank you.’ It’s a journey we would have been hard pressed to start out without the support of Florida Baptists. It’s opened up avenues to reach the lost in our community.”

PRAY for Pastor Marc Pargo and the Cornerstone Church as they reach out to the spiritually lost in their rural community. Pray that funding will be found to complete the building.

TUESDAY

My Missionary: Diana Furr
My Florida: The South Central Hill region
My Mission: Healing the needy

Pain and desperation are being replaced with hope in Jesus Christ through the Samaritan’s Touch Care Center, a ministry of First Baptist Church of Avon Park.

The medical clinic’s location in Sebring is home to scores of migrant workers, manual laborers and farmers who live well below what the federal government defines as poverty. Healthcare is limited.

“These are people who have no medical safety net, the ones who fall through the cracks,” said Diana Furr, executive director of the clinic. “We have patients with crushing physical problems, difficult lives. They come feeling God has forgotten them.

“We try to help them experience His love with the medical and spiritual care we offer.”

The Samaritan’s Touch opened May 2007 as the first Christ-centered, free primary medical care center serving Highlands County. Since opening, the clinic had seen over 620 patients and provided over $160,000 in direct patient care services free of charge. By serving the indigent people, the local emergency rooms saved an estimated $1.3 million in tax payer funding

The clinic, one of 14 Florida Baptists churches and associations that provide medical clinic services to the economically disadvantaged, receives funding through the Maguire State Mission Offering. Through the offering 40,000 uninsured patients receive professional health care every day. Each medical diagnosis and treatment is accompanied by a spiritual dose of Jesus’ love.

“The mission field is wherever there are people who need the Lord,” said Furr. “Highlands County is an international mission field with people of different cultures and different languages.”

PRAY for Diana Furr and the clinic’s volunteers who give unselfishly of their time and talents. Pray also for the patients that are treated, that they will recognize the love of Christ in those who are treating them.

WEDNESDAY

My Missionaries: John and Marcia Moylan
My Florida: Crisscrossing the state
My Mission: Providing dental care for the needy

John and Marcia Moylan knew they wanted to serve on the Florida mission field “someday.” When the Florida Baptist Convention mobile dental unit was located at their church—Kissimmee First Baptist—they learned the couple who coordinated the mobile clinic ministry planned to retire.

They began to pray about assuming the role and within three weeks their business and house sold, freeing them to take on the new ministry challenge.

The Moylans—she is a licensed practical nurse—drive the mobile dental bus to locations across the state, including half of Florida’s 49 Baptist associations each year. They maintain the equipment and the two state-of-the-art treatment rooms, each equipped with x-ray and fiber optic capabilities.

The ministry, in existence since the 1970’s, provides free dental services to needy residents and migrant farm workers. In 2007, 1,500 patients were treated by volunteer dentists and nurses. In the first six months of 2008, 38 persons made professions of faith.

The renovated and fully equipped bus, originally purchased and built through donations to the Maguire State Mission Offering, is in need of equipment upgrades, which this year’s offering will underwrite.

“Oral healthcare is important to a person’s over-all well being, from a ministry standpoint and a human stand point,” said Marcia. “People are saved and whole lives turned around from something as simple as fixing teeth. We are getting them out of pain, giving them back self-esteem, and reaching out to say God loves you even in this need.”

PRAY for the “mechanical wellness of the bus,” Marcia Moylan asks. “Pray for stamina, strength and health for John and me. Please pray for safety on the road, as we travel a lot.”

THURSDAY

My Missionary: Othoniel Valdes
My Florida: Tampa metropolitan area
My Mission: Organizing camp for urban children

The nearly 130 boys and girls attending the Tampa Bay urban missions camp each summer will never be the same again, said camp coordinator Othoniel Valdes, who serves as the church planting director for the Tampa Bay Baptist Association.

“Twenty-three professions of faiths were recorded, and 52 children re-dedicated their lives to Christ during this week experience,” Valdes recalled.

Fun-filled activities offered at the week-long camp included canoeing, water skiing, kayaking, riflery, archery, swimming and rock climbing—activities many of the inner city kids had never experienced.

And while the camp setting seemed far removed from the fast-paced life of the inner city core, one aspect of urban life remained. At camp, youngsters of all races—African-Americans, Haitians, Hispanics and Anglos—components of the Kingdom of God—gathered together in worship, sporting activities and learning lessons about life.

“Many of our kids are underprivileged and from broken homes,” said Mary Ann Vicente of Open Arms Ministry in Ybor City, who took five campers. “It’s good for them to spread their wings and come to know Christians who are different than they are. Here, they hear the Gospel 24-7 and each activity develops Scripture applications.”

Urban day camp is one of nine Christian camping programs supported by the Maguire State Mission Offering. In these settings hundreds of boys and girls make professions of faith and respond to God’s call to full-time Christian service.

PRAY Othoniel Valdes asks Florida Baptists to pray for the campers that God will continue to work in their lives. Pray also for Valdes as he finds more space to house the campers so that more can participate in these life-altering experiences.

SATURDAY

My Missionary: Marie Toussaint
My Florida: Metropolitan Fort Lauderdale
My Mission: Becoming Christ to the refugee

Across South Florida, immigrants live in dire straits and need. After escaping rampant hunger, abject poverty and sometimes even political and religious persecution in their homelands, they have found a new home in America. Yet they have little hope when unexpected expenses turn their lives upside down. Without help they go hungry; they go without health care; they go without medication. They turn to the church for compassion.

Marie Toussaint often asks herself, “How can I respond as Jesus would?”

The church and community ministries director for the Gulf Stream Baptist Association serving metropolitan Fort Lauderdale, receives “40 calls per day from pastors and church leaders asking for rental assistance, health care needs and food. The needs are so great.

“My mission is to go after lost souls as Jesus did. I see their physical needs. When they followed after Christ, He fed them and they said ‘Jesus is good.’ Families down here need shelter and food. If we don’t help them, what does that say about Jesus who we represent?” she asks.

The Maguire State Mission Offering provides financial assistance to Florida Baptist churches that are ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of immigrants within their community. The funds are allocated primarily to two south Florida associations that are challenged by a growing immigrant population.

“The world is here,” said Toussiant, a trained nurse and educator. “We don’t have to go to Africa to find hungry people. The world has come to Florida.”

PRAY that God will give Marie Toussaint wisdom as she provides assistance to churches to help the poverty-stricken refugee in Broward County. Pray for her continued health and stamina in a demanding ministry of giving herself to others.

SUNDAY

My Missionary: You
My Florida: Your neighborhood, your community, your state
My mission: “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”

It is not by accident that you live in the Sunshine State, but by a divine plan of God to take the life-changing Gospel message to those around you.

This is your Florida; this is your mission.

You are a missionary. You can make a difference. You have the power to change hearts and lives. You have the faith and vision to “tell what great things the Lord has done for you.”

There is more to the state than fun in the sun. Of the 18 million Florida residents, two out of three persons do not claim a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The need to start new churches is overwhelming. Every day, 1,005 residents move to the Sunshine State, creating population shifts in urban and rural areas and pockets of communities void of a New Testament congregation. Florida is home to 4.5 million language persons who speak nearly 200 languages and need to hear the Gospel message in their own heart language.

Each year, Florida Baptist churches set aside time to focus on the close-to-home needs of the world-wide mission field through the Maguire State Mission Season of Prayer.

It is a time for you to reflect on God’s love shown in the resurrected Son of God, Jesus Christ. It is a time for you to give to the Maguire State Mission Offering to help fund new congregations, camps, medical clinics and missionary partnerships. It is a time for you to pray for the spiritually lost within the state.

It is a time for you to look go into your community and recommit yourself to personally participate in sharing what Christ has done for you with your neighbors and friends.

You are a missionary.

On this Sunday, consider what God will have you to do to bring hope to a state in need of a message of compassion. Pray that God will use you your financial resources sacrificially.

Email this Article Print this page