Setting down my chopsticks after yet another dinner of chicken and rice, I looked up to see three rough, wrinkled fingers waving in my face. “Three… three”, she says in her best English. Although we couldn’t communicate verbally, I knew what she meant. She was planning for me and my team to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to go fishing with her family, a daily routine for most people in this remote fishing village. She seemed overwhelmed with excitement to be hosting three American girls in her home for the weekend to experience their culture first hand. 

Truly, I have seen how much I have taken for granted the liberties and freedoms we have in America. Abiding in God looks so much different here, having to gather discreetly, safe language, praying with the blinds shut, and not being able to worship out loud. But even in the midst of limited freedom, God is present and God is good.

I was 25 before I truly understood that God was not American.

Though we don't know what happened, or what will happen, we know that God has heard our prayers and we hope she will see God in whatever happens.

It isn’t often that God peels back the curtains on someone’s life to show us how he has been working in them long before we met them. We can sometimes believe that we are a person’s only hope for salvation, and that if we do not bring them to faith in the Gospel then they will be lost forever. That is not how God works. My interaction with Anthony reminded me that it was not I who was the first one to desire Anthony to believe the Gospel, nor was it Colton. It was God Himself.

It's pretty cool how God can use something as simple as dehydration in the desert to open my eyes to a story in the Bible I have read numerous times!

Is missions safe?

This body of believers asks for your prayers as they try to reach their community. There are villages near them that still practice black magic and witchcraft. They want nothing more than to see the name of Jesus spread and their land healed.

He has revealed many characteristics of Himself and reminds me that no matter what the external view of the nations may look like- they are still created in His image (Genesis 1:26) and that they too will get to experience Him (Revelation 7:9-10). Therefore, I can truly enjoy the ride and allow God to take the wheel!

How beautiful is it that our fruitfulness is dependent on our relationship with God? Above performance, work, or anything that we could strive for on our own, the Father really desires relationship with us. This text has been a great reminder to me in this season to slow down and prioritize my relationship with the Father, and that only then can we see fruit in the work that He invites us into.

I thought forward to my returning to Base Town where I would see my local friend Annie again. I cried out to God, “It seems hopeless for this people group… for Annie who always says that our faith has gotten us both where we are and that they are both good. When will you send someone to these people to stay longer than a few days or months?”

Interested in learning how to steward your finances for the Great Commission? Here are five easy and unique ways to give to Cafe 1040.

Life is not about doing things for God--even good things. It's about seeking and knowing Him.

Dear Summer,
Thank you for teaching me what I desperately needed to know.
In a dry, dusty place you taught me where to find home.
Yet it wasn't really you at all, but the Father.

2020 was a year unlike any we’ve ever seen. Yet despite the chaos, lockdowns, and hardship, God continued to use Cafe 1040 to do amazing work among the nations. Please enjoy our annual report and join us in celebrating all that God has done in the most unusual of years.

No Christian is meant to live in isolation, so no missionary is meant to live in isolation. Bible precedent for this. We don’t all have the same gifts as Paul. Team is a group of missionaries who meet together regularly, working together intentionally for the spread of the gospel. We need others alongside of us in this task.

The Great Commission is not dependent on you or me or any other worker...it is a privilege to be a part of what He is doing across the world. But He does allow his children to be a piece of His work. It’s often a theme that when Jesus gives someone a dream about himself, that person doesn’t start fully believing in Him or following Him until someone else comes along to tell that person what the dream is about and who this Jesus is. It amazes me.

“I do not have a favorite Bible story because my favorite is the entire Bible, the old and the new. All of it speaks God’s love, every single word. How can I choose one story if every word is Him telling me how much He loves me?” – Local believer in Southeast Asia

Generations are why Cafe 1040 exists. We exist to raise up a new generation. A generation that will go to those without access to the gospel and to change generations to come. A generation to raise the next generation to change future generations.

What could happen if Christians all over the world cared about Ramadan in this way? What could happen if we consistently and fervently cried out to God on their behalf over this Ramadan season?