Pastor Jay //

September 6 marked my last Sunday as pastor of FBC Cameron, MO after almost ten years of ministry there and twenty-one years since I accepted God’s call to ministry.  Thank you for your support here at my blog over the last several years. This blog was begun on August 19th, 2005 while I was attending a meeting in Richmond about connecting churches to missions. It chronicles a tremendous journey in my life and the life of our family over the last several years. Thank you for your encouragement along the way!

I have included part my letter of resignation below.

I want to thank you for allowing me to serve you as your pastor these years. We have witnessed God’s Mighty Hand and I praise Him for what He has done in our lives. I pray that the labors invested here will reap a mighty harvest for His Kingdom in years to come. I am confident that you are well established in His Word and His Will as you move forward in new endeavors. I pray as Paul did in Ephesians 4:1-6

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

In His Service,

Pastor Jay Raines

NOTE: there is not a link on this site to our new ministry site. Please note the site address in the picture.

  We went to a dinner last night at seminary and met a missionary to India. He told me a story about a Christian man there that bought a house in a village. The neighbors laughed at him when he discovered that the well of the house he bought was dry. He had to bring water to his house from outside the village. No one offered their well water to him. What they didn’t know was that each day at 6:00 am and in the afternoon he would pray to God. His prayer always included a request for water in his well and for his village to come to Christ.

   After a year of praying, all of the other wells in the village dried up and his began to fill. The villagers marvelled, “If our wells dried up, yours should be even more dry.” When they asked about the reason, he simply told them that he had prayed to God for water. He invited the neighbors to share his water. Soon, there was a man in the village that came to him and asked him to pray for his child to be healed. The Christian man said that he prayed every morning in his house at 6:00 am and that he would be welcome to come. The next day, he prayed for the child and the child was healed. The father said that he had prayed to his gods for years and nothing had happened.

   Soon, more people began to come to the Christian man’s house for prayer at 6:00 am. Eventually, more than 300 people could be found at 6:00 am in the man’s house praying. Many of them were still unbelievers, but many of them had trusted Christ. The authorities came to stop the meeting. It is illegal to make converts in India. The man told the authorities that he had never gone to the other houses to make converts. Rather, these people had come to him. He said, “What would you have me do? Stop praying for them?” They left him alone and the meetings continued.

What circumstance are you enduring that God may want to use for His glory?

I found this interesting story about one of our members: here

Reaching Indians in Romania

June 14 , 2006

Dr. David Man Singh is an Indian believer that was converted from Hinduism as a boy through missionaries in his homeland. He is called and deeply burdened for his own people in India. So why would God call him to go on a mission trip to Romania? He certainly didn’t know. Even stranger was that this mission trip was designed to use the game of tennis as a tool to share the Gospel, and Singh doesn’t even play tennis. In fact, when he did try during the trip, he was injured! But God had other plans all along.

When Troy Geddes, International Mission Board missionary to Romania,… (more)

They got some of it wrong, like David’s name. It is actually David Mansingh. Other than that, the story fairly accurate from how I remember it when we went on this trip in October of 2005. I remember prayerwalking around that complex with David and a Romanian translator and speaking to one of the women looking out of a window of her apartment.

If you have a google account, you can open this map and add other missionaries to the map. Tell us where they are and give us a link to their blog. If they are in an unknown area, give us their hometown. Join the fun.

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I went to my favorite local mexican restaraunt today and ate zuchinni bread with my amigos who are learning english as a second language. Ruth and Mike are doing a great job and the students are learning quickly! I was very proud of them after seeing their progress. I noticed that each of them had gotten their own notebooks and they were writing down everything that Ruth put on the whiteboard.

I was asked to come and help them practice introductions. We worked phrases like “Hello, my name is _____. Nice to meet you. How are you doing?…” We had a lot of laughs.

One of the things that they worked on today was the “th” sound. I never really thought about how hard it is to make that sound. There is not a sound for “th” in Spanish. Needless to say, they had to practice hard so they could say “Ruth” instead of “roof” and “booth” instead of “boof”. But they got it! Keep praying for these guys. We all prayed together at the end of the session.

Welcome to my hangout. We spend a lot of time here. I especially like their tamales. I have also come to know some of the workers. Many of them are from Mexico or still have family in Mexico. And many of them want to learn English or improve their English. Yesterday, one of the friends of our church started an English as a Second Language (ESL) class there yesterday. They have allowed her to come into the restaurant and teach one hour two hours before work begins! She was hoping for at least six students. She had nine! Wow! What a tremendous ministry. Along the way she will be able to not only teach practical English skills, but they will use the Bible for their text. Please pray for Ruth B. as she leads them. (She reads this blog).

 This is one of those places you didn’t think you’d ever want to go, but today I saw God at Crossroads Correctional Center (prison). I attended the closing ceremony for the Kairos weekend. Thirty offenders were gathered with 35 Kairos volunteers for a life-changing experience. I listened for over two hours to these men share about how the love they had experienced impacted them. The volunteers had exibited unconditional, non-judgmental love. I heard many of them talk about how they had done wrong and how they were now forgiven by God, but still had to pay for their crimes. The prison selects the leaders from among the 1400+ population to be part of the meetings. Many of these leaders are at odds with one another when the weekend begins. They become a family of brothers that learn to care for one another and they learn to listen. Walls are torn down and the love of Christ is exibited. I was in tears as I heard these men talk about the difference they hope to make in others lives.

One man talked about how he hoped to pass along what he has gained to his 14 year old son who is headed in the same direction toward destruction. One of the muslim leaders who accepted Christ this weekend was later seen trying to lead one of the Buddhists to faith in Christ - how amazing!

I heard one man say that in 38 years of incarceration there has never been a

program that made a difference like this and he pleaded with the warden who was present for a third Kairos to come so that another group of men could be reached. God is calling out the men of our churches to volunteer for the next Kairos in May of 2008.