By Shauna Neville
As the year is coming to a close and this is our last newsletter of the year, I’m excited as I look back over the past months from a missions perspective. I’m excited about all the people who understand the call to support missions and church planting and who do so through PCG Missions.
I grew up in all things, “Missions.” When I was a nine year old little girl, my dad, received and responded to an opportunity to go to China as an English teacher.
From my understanding, China had been closed off to Americans entering it’s borders for a very long time up until that point. At that point, China decided they needed help from the Americans and other native English speaking countries. They were desperately seeking to bring in American teachers to teach the people English and so they opened up their borders to qualified teachers. It was an open door that my dad walked through that changed the trajectory of our family’s life and my life forever.
What was originally a one year leave of absence from his job and commitment to teach English in China, became a lifetime of ministry fruit all over Asia and the world. Some would see the places I’ve lived in as “impossible,” but I look back and see all of it as such an amazing upbringing that I would never want it changed, given the chance. I believe it did cause sort of a different perspective than most who were raised in a single culture… I’m what is commonly know as a “third culture kid.”
My mom, baby sister and myself in a wet market in China.
When we (not me, but people in general) think about our own financial health and investments, it’s a goal to invest our money wisely. It’s a goal to invest the money we posses into high yield investments, or investments that yield a high dividend, right? The goal is for the money invested to not be lost, but to actually make money itself by way of returns and dividends, right? When I invest my husband and mine’s income, I do my absolute best to make sure I am investing in something that will yield us a good return. I don’t invest with the goal of loosing it. If fact, I do my research and my absolute best to make sure I invest into something that I believe will bring us good returns.
It’s the same for me with our offerings. I give where I know the money will yield a good return. And one thing I know for sure, having been so closely connected to an missions organization and the people behind the scenes since I was a kid, the money my husband and I invest into PCG Missions is being used in the absolute most productive and significant ways I would want.
I’ve seen first-hand the heart that Larry and Janet Neville have for missions and missionaries and church planting. I’ve been a missionary under this organization. One thing I know for sure, they will never leave a pastor or a missionary “stranded.” I’ve also seen first-hand, missionaries and pastors who were “sent” by others actually get “stranded” and “left for dead,” by their sending pastor or organization. They were left to fend for themselves. Told things such as, “Believe God for the money.” I have seen first-hand that this is not something that would happen with PCG Missions. I’ve seen Larry and Janet Neville make “it happen,” for people, even when it meant using their own money, down to the last penny.
Another thing I’ve seen first-hand from being in such close proximity to PCG Missions and Larry and Janet Neville, is that when Larry sees an opportunity and calls for an offering in order to help make it possible to pursue such opportunity, it has most always been a good call. First one being that he is the one who saw the opportunity for English teachers back in the 1980’s… the opportunity that my dad responded to.
My family wasn’t always “Praise Chapel.” I spent the majority of the “forming” years of my life in a different fellowship. It was in the other fellowship, that my family was actually a part of when Larry and Janet Neville sent my family to China.
A few years later, there were some things that happened that caused my family to leave the fellowship… that meant leaving our covering… our financial protection… our security. I remember that time pretty well even though I was still such a young kid and you know what I remember most about that time? Mike and Donna Neville. As far as missions-wise, they adopted my family. They took my family under their wings, so to say and made sure that they were there for us in any way necessary.
You see… this is what I’ve seen first-hand from Praise Chapel, Praise Chapel Missions, Global Harvest, PCG Missions… whatever you call the missions branch of Praise Chapel. This is what I’ve seen first-hand since nine years old as a missionary’s kid, as someone who has worked in the missions office, and as a missionary myself.
My experience and “research” has proven over the course of thirty six years that PCG Missions is in fact the best place for me and my husband and for you to invest in.
We are storing up treasures in heaven, yes, but it’s so much more than monetary treasure. It’s countless numbers of lives that have been and are being changed, because we as a group pull our resources together to, “win, build, and send.”
TOGETHER WE CAN.`
