Spreading the Good News — Then and Now
I’m writing this on Epiphany Sunday evening here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At home we have added the Wise Men to our manger scene. In church our Gospel message was the account of the visit of the wise men from the Gospel of Matthew.
The Lutheran Study Bible has some wonderful notes on this passage so I would refer you to them rather than do my own comments. However, I got to thinking of their return to the East where they came from after experiencing and seeing what they saw. What did they tell people?
My husband and I, my son, John, and my cousin and his wife went back to Pasadena after Christmas to work on the Lutheran Layman’s League (LLL), Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) Rose Parade float. It was so fun and I hope you saw it on TV if not in person. I met quite a few LWML women working as Petal Pushers on various floats for the parade from all over the U.S. Way to go LWML!! But I digress.
While there, I had a chance to visit with Eric Gates, LHM’s regional director for Africa and the Middle East, about the work that our grant #7, Christian Hope through Mass Media in Egypt, is funding. He was recently returned from Cairo where a November 6th taping involved more than 40 people including cameramen, actors, writers, and back-stage production crew. This is being done through a partnership with LHM and SAT-7, the first and largest Middle East and North African Christian satellite network, co-producing a television series from the SAT-7 studio in Cairo, Egypt, that will begin airing in January 2018. This broadcast will potentially reach tens of millions of viewers in more than 20 countries spanning from as far west as Morocco to as far east as Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
I often wonder what the wise men told people as they journeyed back east to their home countries. It’s so exciting to see that the Word about our Savior continues to travel back to the East. As we fund this mission grant we pray that the Holy Spirit will open hearts along the way.
Learn more about this TV programming in the January-February 2018 issue of The Lutheran Layman or at lhm.org/MENA or lwml.org/mission-grants.
Happy New Year!
Patti
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6).
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