The picture above is of Mr.’s Eunice Dietemeyer receiving the LWML Charter for our newest Church in Mayville North Dakota. Below is my closing remarks as Mission speaker.
I would like to add here as I close and reiterating your theme of “lifting High the Name of Jesus”, and reflecting that you are the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League some thoughts on all of our work together. Every time I go to a Board for International Mission meeting, we are presented with the slate of new missionary calls, military chaplain calls, peaceful releases from the field, and other interesting information. I want you to know that we begin all of these sessions with prayer for wisdom and prayer that what we would do in that meeting would be done to lift high the name of Jesus and be done to His glory. We pray that we would faithfully represent the people of our church body by whose authority and in whose name we are sending these individuals. Their desire to lift high the name of Jesus in convention is the driving force of our work. We send missionaries “in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” but we send them in the name of our church body, you, as well.
So I want you to know as I close, that whenever I signed a missionary call, whenever I put my signature on the solemn appointment of a missionary spouse, whenever I sign my name to the calling of a Military Chaplain, I think of you. That may sound corny but it is true. I think of your commitment not only to our missionaries but to those who care for our servicemen and women overseas and here at home. I think of members of my own church, who although they may not be members of the LWML, are strong defenders of missionaries, have given of their toil and their bounty, to see to it that the Word of God as Paul says, “speeds on and conquers” (2 Thessalonians 3:1). I signed those letters with a great deal of trepidation. Over the years I’ve learned about the wiles of the devil, the dangers and the difficulties of the world, and the issues of our own flesh that rise up in the lives of all of us, and in the lives of our missionaries and chaplains as well. I want you to be assured that all the members of the Board for International Mission are of one mind and believe in the mission of the church and have absolute confidence in the love Of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus. We stand together under the cross representing you and also praying that you will continue your support and your prayers. We are not in a board meeting now, and I have not been authorized to speak to you on behalf of the entire board. I will not presume to do that but I will never be quiet about the dedication, the integrity, and the love of the members of my board for the Lord, for their church, and for those sent in our stead to do the task a missionary. All of us together do what we do in order that we may “Lift High the Name of Jesus”.
