For years it has been on Crystal’s and my heart to minister in the country of China. Since we have been married, we have been training for the day that we can make it to China. We are now at the final stage of training which is to serve six months on the foreign field.

The opportunity has been given to us to spend our six months on the field that we plan on spending the rest of our lives, which is China. Though many of the missionaries we know were able to spend six months in a different country, most have not been able to spend time in the country they believe God is leading them. This is a great internship for us to have since we will not only gain experience and knowledge from working in another country but in the very country that we have been burdened about for so long.

During the six months, we will be doing three main things. The first is to get a taste of language school by studying Mandarin Chinese for four hours a day. We will then spend our afternoons and evenings divided between spending time with the veteran missionaries and English corners. English corners are places where Chinese students go to practice the English that they are learning.

We would like to ask you to pray for us as we seek to accomplish our six months. Pray with us that things will go smoothly in travel and safety as we are there in China.

We would also like you to pray about partnering with us to go to China. This trip will cost between $14,000 and $15,000; this amount includes everything from our plane tickets and visas to all of our living expenses like rent and transportation. Two-thirds of the money will have to be raised in advance to pay for our plane tickets, visas, and rent. The last third can be in the form of monthly donations.

There are two ways to sponsor us: (All donations are 100% tax deductible)

1. Online, by clicking here and donating.

2. Sending a check to Vision Baptist Missions with a designation for “The Johnsons” in the memo line
P.O. Box 442
Alpharetta, Ga 30009

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. As we said before, we earnestly covet your prayers as we endeavor to do this. You can find more detailed information on our trip, missions in China, how our funds will be spent and to keep up to date with the latest news on our website here.

Well, we’re STILL on deputation. We’re STILL traveling an insane amount with a toddler and one on the way, and many of the churches we’ve visited haven’t taken us on. We are trying to raise support at one of the worst times possible, in a rough recession. Oh, and I’m sick. My daughter got hand foot and mouth disease, and now she has given it to me. So now I’m sick, covered in sores, and have to be in 27 days worth of meetings this next month.

OK, now that my FAKE prayer letter is written, I’ll write the real one! I recently heard a missionary prayer letter read at a church, and was blown away by how negative it sounded, and it really hit home to me that perspective is EVERYTHING. I was reading Job in my devotions today, and I had to start laughing at my tiny little “problems”. Job remembered that his Redeemer lived and it changed everything. Satan is constantly trying to get us to focus on things that seem negative, instead of looking at things through the filter of God’s Word. So yes, all of those things I mentioned are true, but here’s the RIGHT way to look at things:

• We get to be on deputation serving King Jesus! I get to preach almost every week, sometimes 3 or 4 times. In the last two weeks I’ve had the privilege to lead two men to the Lord in churches we’ve visited, and seen one young man surrender to missions. I get to spend time every week seeing other ministries and learning from pastors, many of whom are church-planters like me, and have great wisdom to learn from.

• We get to see God come through! He is providing all we need and more, even in a time when many people say deputation just won’t work, there’s not enough support to go around. It is taking a little longer than we had planned, but we are still over halfway done after a little over a year. We have even had 7 new supporters since the first of the year!

• We get to stay busy working for Him! It’s easy to get tired sometimes and wish for a break, but how great is it that God has opened that many doors that we’ll be in a church 27 days next month? A full calendar and a busy life is a blessing.

We are so blessed to have you all as friends, co-laborers, and prayer partners. Thanks so much for keeping us before the throne in your prayers, and if you are a little discouraged, remember to look to your Redeemer and know that your life is one of victory, that He will never leave or forsake you, and all things work together for your good and His glory!

Yours for His Harvest,
Scott, Melissa, Elena, and Isabel Newton

I like writing a blog post about him, because Mark is one of those rare guys who I can honestly say I’ve never seen trying to get in the spotlight. Instead, he has been a #2 man in the ministry for most of his life. He is not super flashy or loud. Men said of William Carey, father of modern missions, that he was “God’s plodder”; meaning that he just kept working steadily and never ever gave up. I mean it as a high compliment that Mark is that kind of man.

He is a discipler, and a real lover of people. I can say he has been overly and abundantly helpful and generous to us, even when he didn’t know us. When we arrived at Vision from Portugal, he welcomed us into his house for two months as complete strangers.

Mark and Amy are planning to help Kevin and Corli Hall in Port Elizabeth South Africa, who are working among the Xhosa people. I know God is going to use them in a great way planting churches and training South African men to preach the Gospel.

Would you pray for them with us this week? Pray that their support will come in quickly (and maybe you could help answer that prayer!), safety on the road, God’s power in his preaching. Pray for the Lord of the Harvest to work in South Africa through them, and before them.

Check out their website, let them know you are praying for them, I know it would be a huge encouragement to them. They regularly lead missions trips, and if you are interested in seeing the mission field, or letting a group in your church see a vibrant and exciting ministry, please let him know!

I am on an airplane headed from Cincinnati OH to West Palm Beach FL (always a great exchange there) for a missions conference, and in doing so, making all of you husbands look like Romeo in comparison to me, because I am leaving my pregnant wife in OH on Valentine’s Day. I can already hear the booing from the ladies, but I promise I will OVER-celebrate it when I get back. I’m actually making progress believe it or not: I once broke up with a girlfriend via phone on V-day. Yeah. I’m THAT guy. In my defense, I didn’t know it was the 14th, so I’m more stupid than mean.

The first leg of the trip to Atlanta was not particularly fun because I’m not one of the midgets that airplane seats are designed for, and neither were the two burly lumberjack looking fellows to either side of me. We never talked, but I felt very close to them.

So, when the second flight turned out to be half full, with the rear most row of seats completely to myself, I felt like my day was looking up considerably!

While I stretched out languorously in my triple-seat, I noticed one of the flight attendants behind me. He stood out because he was very obviously foreign, and very obviously gay. I started chatting with him (gasp, he talked to a GAY), and found out that he was from Brazil, and so when I changed over to Portuguese, he was very happy. I found out that he spoke several languages, had a masters degree in Latin Literature, and when I told him that I was a Gospel preacher, that his entire family in Brazil was Evangelical.

We chatted for a while longer, then he stopped and looked at me strangely, and asked, “You know I’m gay, right?” I laughed and

I can’t even express how angry that statement makes me. Not angry at Alex, but at us. I explained to him that “Evangelical” (not that I claim that title, it’s usually pretty vague, but that’s what he associated Baptist with) comes from the word “Gospel”, and that the essence of the Gospel is that God performed an outrageous demonstration of love by paying in Himself the penalty for OUR actions that screamed our hatred of Him. So why, I asked him, would a Christian treat you differently than God does?

I saw immediately conflicting emotions raging across his face, and they came out in his response: “But you say God hates my lifestyle, and I don’t like that. But I really appreciate that you are nice to me.”

I tried to discuss the Gospel and God’s hatred for ALL sin further, but he shut down, and wandered off to the front of the plane. He’s still there now, and I’m praying God lets me talk to him further!

I started reading my book again when a second flight attendant sat down, a lady this time. I had heard her voice on the intercom telling us how to unbuckle a seat belt (like we didn’t KNOW that? What, like I was going to try ripping through the fabric with my bare hands because I can’t grasp the concept of the buckle?), and her perfect English was just barely accented.

One of my favorite pastimes (being a missionary kid, and therefore bizarre) is picking out accents: not just “Oh he’s from somewhere in the UK”, or “she’s Latina”, but specifically what country, or even area of the country. Like I said, I’m weird, but that’s fun to me.

I turned and asked her if she was Swedish, and she was very surprised, but said “no… but close! I’m Danish”. I wanted to say, “I’m donut”, but I thought it would be rude.

For the next half hour we talked about Vikings, Scandinavian culture, her family, and background. When finally the conversation came back around to my line of work, I asked her if she was Lutheran. She told me her family was, but she had no religion. I told her I wasn’t Lutheran, but he had some things right, which led to a discussion of the Sola’s of the Reformation (only Scripture, only by faith, only by grace, only Christ, only glory to God). We talked about the message of the Bible, and she said she had never heard anything like it, but wanted to come to my church sometime in Atlanta because she lived close by. She’s off now serving irritable travelers midget sized drinks, but I’m praying we get to talk more before we land.

This flight was a good reminder of some things to me about the Gospel, and I needed it. So I thought I’d give you a couple quick thoughts that might be a help to you as well, if you’re still reading this absurdly long blog post:

1. We’re not the Judge, so put down the gavel.

I have been very guilty in the past of not wanting to talk to homosexuals, and giving in to what I labeled a hatred for sin, but was really just stinking pride. I’m trying to work on that. It’s very easy to hide behind biblical truth such as “it’s an abomination”, and “God hates that sin”, when in fact we think that we are better than them, and that our own sin is somehow less disgusting to God.

I’m all for a hatred and revulsion for sin, but that means ALL sin. That means that in my Christian life, I am constantly being driven back to the Cross, seeing who and what I was, and the price that was paid for it. It means I hate the sin that keeps worming its way back into my life. It means I hate to see it destroying other lives and keeping people from God. It does NOT mean that I judge people unworthy of hearing the Gospel, because it is Good News precisely BECAUSE we are unworthy of it.

Jesus didn’t even condemn people, in fact He said that He came to save, not to judge. He didn’t pull any punches though, because He turned right around and told His audience that their own sin would condemn them on the day of judgment. Gay people, like everyone else, need to hear that their sin will condemn them: but they need to hear the truth that it doesn’t need to, because it’s been PAID FOR.

2. Every Christian should be an Anthropologist.

Anthropologists are students of mankind: both in the physical sense, and in the cultural sense. I have a huge leg up on most people in talking to people different from me because I’m a nerdy missionary kid, but let me say this if you struggle with finding opportunities to witness to people you meet: A student of cultures will never lack for conversation.

What I mean is simply this: ASK QUESTIONS! And I don’t just mean “If you died right now would you go to Heaven” Have you ever noticed that people like to talk about themselves? Everyone has not only a macro culture (American, Spanish, etc), but a personal micro culture dictated by their family, their history, their likes and dislikes, etc. I’m afraid that many times we think that sharing Christ means knocking down an unopened door and giving them both barrels, when many times we should develop a connection first. That’s not “lifestyle evangelism”; it’s just loving people!
If you don’t know much about other cultures, that’s OK! Just ask questions and you’ll learn, and you’ll get real chances to live out the Gospel by showing them the love of Christ, and to speak out the Gospel as God opens that door.

3. You’re responsible for YOUR obedience to the Gospel, not theirs.

The Bible is pretty clear that each one of us who have been saved by belief in the Gospel have a responsibility (and privilege) to tell it to others. But maybe you’re like me, and you stress out because people reject. I’m waiting for my ride outside the airport now, and I never got to talk with them more. I keep going over in my mind how I could have said more, explained better, prayed harder. I have a tendency to beat myself up like that, and it’s neither healthy nor biblical.

It’s not my job to convict, it’s not my job to save. It’s my job to obey God and tell. It’s my job to plant and water as the Lord of the Harvest puts people in my path and moves me to speak. But He’s the Lord of the Harvest, not me. He’s the one who put them there. He’s the one who seeks and saves and gives life.

Sometimes we get to rejoice as we see Him give life… I’m thinking about Brandon in Panama City who I got to lead to the Lord a couple weeks ago. He was so broken over his sin that the Gospel gave him comfort as he threw himself completely on a merciful God and His finished work on the cross. I LOVE seeing that, and if you’re reading this Brandon, I love you, I’m proud of you, and praying God uses you big time.

But sometimes we see rejection. OFTEN we see rejection. And we simply can’t let people’s response to the Gospel be what decides whether we preach it or not. We preach it because we love Jesus, we obey Jesus, and we love the people He loves: even Vikings and gays.

Bro Jeff has been a huge blessing and encouragement to us, which is ironic, because he is a very small man I know he’ll read this, so I had to throw in a short joke or two!

Seriously though, I don’t know of a better missionary and man of God than bro Jeff, and God is using them in tremendous ways in Argentina. Men of his caliber are in short supply. OK, that was the last one, I promise.

Here is a testimonial from his website:

“We arrived to Argentina in January of 2004. It is our desire to serve the Lord here, winning souls, planting churches and training men and women for the ministry. Currently we have planted 2 churches and 1 work that will soon turn into a church. We have a 4 year Bible Institute for the purpose of training young men and women for the ministry. We have had one graduation so far and of the 5 that graduated, 2 are serving as full-time pastors, 1 as an Evangelism director and 1 as a Youth Pastor. We also have a radio ministry that is on every weekday morning for 1 hour. The Lord has blessed the work here greatly. We are praying for many more souls to be saved and many churches to be planted in La Plata, a city of almost 1 million and in other cities around the world.”

Would you please pray for them this week with us? Send them an email and let them know that you are behind them and rejoicing in what God is doing in Argentina. Maybe God would even lead you to take a missions trip to see them. Check out this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

• KNOW- I want my readers to know them
• PRAY- I want my readers to know how to pray for them
• INVEST- I want my readers to be able to invest in their ministries and lives as God moves
• CARE- I want my readers to know the desperate need for Gospel ministry in more than just Spain
• EXULT- I want my readers to know what God is doing globally and rejoice in it
• GO- I want my readers to see the mission fields represented, and be challenged to take short term missions trips, or be open to full-time work if God directs

Those goals spell the acronym “KPICEG”, and I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I hope it’s inspirational. So here is the first in my alphabetical list of great missionaries:

Phil and Lori Bassham

I met Phil the first day we came to Vision 5 years ago, and at the time he was a single guy training for the mission field. He was the music director and singles SS teacher, and had been at Vision since day 1 of the church launch. My first impression was “This guy is odd.” My second impression was “I think I like him”. Phil is quirky to the hilt, but I found out pretty quickly that he was passionately in love with Jesus and His Word.

I’ve never seen anyone care so deeply about music conveying biblical truth, and he has left a huge mark on our church’s philosophy of music and corporate worship.

He is a discipler, a Bible teacher and preacher (I often pick on him because he once tried to preach the entire book of Hebrews in one sitting), and God has directed he and his wife Lori to the incredibly needy field of Thailand to plant churches. Thailand is is country enslaved by Buddhism, which gives no hope to the Thai people, and is only 0.7% evangelical Christian of any kind.

The Basshams have been on deputation since Fall of 2010, and are planning to head to the field late this year, Lord willing. They are currently trying to fill their calendar for the coming year, and I would heartily recommend them to any pastor as a missionary couple that would bless your church, and are worthy of support.

Would you commit to pray with me for the Basshams? Pray that God will give them times of refreshing on the road, that their support level will increase, that God will use his preaching, and for their first daughter that is due in May. Check out their website and let them know you are praying for them this week!

3. Rude Awakening

A little known fact about missionary culture is that we have our own version of Russian Roulette: it’s called the “Prophet’s Chamber”! If you’ve never heard of them, basically it’s a room/apt/house that a church provides for missionaries or traveling preachers to stay in free of charge, and they range anywhere from wonderful to… well, you might rather play REAL Russian Roulette. We have stayed in some much nicer that our home, and some where the toilets were crawling with maggots.

This past week we stayed in a very nice prophet’s chamber that we’ve stayed in before. Goodman Road Baptist Church in Horn Lake MS did a great job with it, put a brand new bed and mattress in it, and generally made it extremely comfortable. It was a huge blessing.

I’ll have to give you the layout of it so you understand the story: it is a room inside their free standing gym building, and the restroom is adjoining the gym part, not the prophets chamber, so you leave the room to use it. With me so far? It’s about to get awful.

We went to bed Friday night, and I had planned on getting up around 5:30 or 6 to do my devotions before going on visitation with a church in the area. My alarm went off at 5:30, and I stumbled groggily out the door to use the restroom. Quick note about me: NOT a morning person. Coffee is a catch 22, because I need to make it to wake up, but I need to wake up to make it. The result is often 3rd degree burns.

As I started my zombie-like shuffle back to the room to start getting ready, I passed my wife, who was taking our daughter to the restroom, and the door to the room was swinging shut behind her. As soon as it “clicked” closed, her eyes widened, and she said “Honey, that’s not locked, right?”

It’s strange how certain things bypass your need for coffee.  In one nanosecond, I was alert and completely awake as I jiggled the handle to find that it was indeed locked.

The next few seconds (standing there outside the room in a gym that was about 40 degrees in my shorts and a t-shirt) are lost to my memory, but my wife CLAIMS to recall them vividly; painting a picture of a man transformed into a bug-eyed screaming lunatic, clawing at the door in desperation. The cold can affect people’s memory, I’ve read in some medical journals, so I’ll let her have her fantasy.

After those brief moments of alleged panic, I called the pastor’s number, only to find that his phone was turned off. Of course.

Being the rugged survivalist that I am…this is hard to write with my wife laughing in the background… I set about to find something to keep us warm. My wife was in a long sleeved shirt and fleecy pajamas, Elena even better off in footie pj’s, but I was FREEZING. In a supply closet I found a mattress pad, a pillow, and a thin sheet.

Being a Newton and having an intrinsic understanding of physics, I knew that heat rises, so we went upstairs where it was slightly better. For the next five hours we huddled together on that mattress pad wrapped in the sheet, calling the pastor’s cell every half hour.

Finally, his wife picked up the phone, and graciously didn’t laugh when I told her our predicament. The pastor came over shortly thereafter and opened the door to our blessedly heated room. He DID laugh.

So there you have it… those are the craziest moments thus far from our life on the road, I hope you enjoy getting a chuckle out of my misfortune/stupidity. The missionary life is never dull!

2. The Christmas Miracle

I love all those sappy Christmas movies that feature animals, always so cute and cuddly, teaching kids the “true meaning of Christmas”, whatever that means. Well, the real story is not so cute and cuddly.

We had just driven 3 days from southern CA to Houston TX to spend Christmas with Melissa’s family, and it was through a blizzard. I thought New Mexico was all sand and heat, but apparently not around Christmas time.

Her sister and bro-in-law attend Christchurch Baptist Fellowship in Houston, and we had been meaning to drop in and see the pastor again, because we hadn’t been able to work out an open meeting date to present our ministry. So Christmas morning we got up, got ready (which in and of itself was a Christmas miracle, with 8 young kids staying in the house), and went outside to drive to church when we ran into the first hiccup of the day: our van door was wide open. Oh yes, and it was POURING RAIN.

Turns out the handy feature on the key chain that opens the door remotely isn’t so handy when you leave it lying on a table where toddlers can get to it and play with it!

We mopped everything up as best we could, jumped in the car, and headed to church without further incident. When we arrived, I went to the back of the van where my suit coat and ties were hanging up, threw the tie around my neck, and promptly started gagging. Fumes were assaulting my nose, my eyes were tearing up, and my tie was wet. I thought, “Did someone spray my tie with gasoline??”

I quickly found that my suit coat and all my ties all smelled the same, and it wasn’t gasoline: it was CAT SPRAY. We found out later that a big fat tom cat lived right around the house, and must have found our warm open van too tempting an offer to pass up. That, or my personal hunch, he was an agent of Satan sent to buffet me. Not unlike the rest of his kind. Are you seeing a pattern with cats yet? Wake up and smell the ammonia people… they are evil incarnate.

I then spent the next couple minutes (and church was about to start) picking out the least stinky tie, and rubbing hand sanitizer on it to try to kill the smell. I only partially succeeded, judging by the lack of interest by the church members in shaking my hand or spending time chatting with me.

The coat and ties were completely ruined, as most likely was any shot of getting support!

So as it stands, the deputation score is Cats 2, Scott 0. Stay tuned for part III of the weirdest deputation moments!

And then there have been some… less wonderful times? I usually don’t write about negative experiences, because no one likes a whiner. But sometimes we all just need a laugh at someone else’s expense, don’t we? I’m already famous for providing that at my home church. Any time someone needs an easy laugh from the pulpit they tell a Scott joke: usually about how I can’t tell jokes (untrue), or maybe about the time I took a nose-dive from the platform after giving announcements (true), or how for the first six months of playing guitar in the service my mic was turned off because I was that bad (also true).

So in the spirit of lightening your day with my misery, here are a few of the WORST moments of deputation:

1. The Cat Burglar

We had just started deputation, and were on our first “big trip”; Maryland, PA, and NY. We had been gone nearly two weeks, and were sitting at a pastor’s table eating dinner when my cell phone rang. Being a polite guest, I ignored it, but then it kept ringing. I checked the caller ID, and it was my next door neighbor. I’ve found that if a neighbor rings you repeatedly, you’d better find out what’s going on, so I called back.

She then proceeded to ask if I had left enough food for our cat, because it was making a huge ruckus. This was problematic for several reasons:

• I had left NO food.

• We weren’t coming home for another week.

• My neighbor didn’t have a key, and calling the picky landlord to explain didn’t sound fun.

• And most importantly: I DON’T HAVE A CAT!!!
  

We could only assume that a stray had wandered in from the cold while we were packing the van. I tried not to go into full bore panic mode, imagining the havoc a starving cat would wreak on my furniture. While the other dinner guests chuckled annoyingly at my distress, beads of cold sweat started appearing on my forehead as I imagined my bed being turned into a litter box.

With no other choice left to me,  I called the landlord, who then ignored my frantic messages for 5 days before finally opening the door and letting the now emaciated cat out of the apartment. Two days later, we arrived home. It’s hard to describe the sense of doom I felt as I unlocked the door of what had to be by now a scene of biblical devastation.

Doom turned int0 disbelief, then to relief as we found that in it’s two week captivity, the cat had only damaged a small corner of the window blinds, and even more miraculously, held its bladder! No presents on the bedspread, no strange smell from under furniture, nothing. Take that Daniel: God can shut the mouth of a lion, but He can also shut… well, you get the idea.

Stay tuned for part II and III of the weirdest moments of deputation…

Dear Praying Friends,

Happy New Year from the Newton family! This time last year we had only just started deputation, and the majority of those receiving this letter we had not met yet. Looking back over 2011, I can’t believe how good God has been to us in providing our needs, but more than that, providing awesome relationships with so many families and churches all over the US.

This past month we were in GA, LA, TX, AZ, CA, and TN, covering over 7500 miles! Praise the Lord for safety, great meetings, and 4 new partnering churches since our last prayer letter.

It’s starting to actually feel real: we are starting to plan for visas, set-up fund, etc for hitting Spain late this year, Lord willing!

In other Newton News, just yesterday we found out that we are having another little girl! I am so thrilled that God has blessed us with Elena, and now… pause for effect… Isabel Newton! Melissa’s due date is May 25^th, so I’ll probably be doing some solo travel before and after.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Melissa’s pregnancy: She is happy that she actually LOOKS pregnant instead of (in her words) “slightly pudgy! “
•  Spain preparations: Paperwork is always fun, and visas are a LOT of paperwork.
• Support Level: We have had many great meetings recently that have expressed a desire to support us financially, but are unable due to the economy. It’s definitely a challenge to raise funds in a recession, but we know that God is providing both the financial and prayer support that we need.
• Setup Fund: This will definitely be priority this year. We are trying to save as much as possible for all the costs of moving and settling in.
• Laborers: We are asking God to do what He loves to do: raise up and send out more laborers into His harvest field. There is a great opportunity for harvest in Spain and the rest of the world, and we want to be a part of seeing them called, trained, and sent.

Thanks again for your continued support, love, and prayer. Praying you all have a great 2012!

Scott, Melissa, Elena, and Isabel Newton