Have you wondered if God is really real?

Have you wondered if God is really real? Or asked yourself, “Where is God?” Even though we have faith, these poignant questions can still come when we face personal tragedy or witness outright injustice. For many of us, we go so fast through the motions of life that God seems to slip from the driver seat, to the middle seat and eventually to the rear seat. Why is it that our faith can become so brittle? One reason may be that our “God Experience” is limited in an intellectual experience.

Through the years, most of us have been taught, either intentionally or unintentionally, that our God Experience is developed by going to church, reading the Bible, and praying. These activities are necessary to grow our understanding of God, but they tend to be inward oriented – representing only one half of our God Experience. When this happens, we can’t see His miracles which make it hard to see God at work in our lives. When we don’t see Him at work, our faith may become brittle.

To combat this feeling, we must build our faith by being on the offensive – by doing good works. In other words, I believe that we will see God at work in our lives when, in faith, we do good works for others. This outward oriented posture takes the focus off of ourselves, creating opportunities for God to work through our lives. When our faith is put into action, we will see miracles happen. This is an action experience that you can “do and see”. It brings glory to God, builds our faith and creates a complete God Experience that goes beyond the intellect.

God Experience = Intellectual experience + Action experience

James said it best, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17). The Word of God gives us hundreds of instructions to defend and rescue the weak and the fatherless, to speak up for them and provide for them. When we obey these instructions and take action, we balance our God Experience equation – building a strong faith that is ready for life’s challenges.

I challenge you to balance your God Experience equation by taking action today. You can rescue a child in need by sponsoring them for $35 a month. You can mentor that child by visiting them on a mission trip. Or, you can advocate for these children that live so far away, right in your home town, by collecting supplies or encouraging others to sponsor children at work or church.

Matt Storer receives Fellow nomination from Microsoft Alumni Foundation

For more information, please visit the Microsoft Alumni Foundation at .

Mission Team Update from Cotui, Dominican Republic (Ernie Taylor)

We just concluded Thursday in Cotui. It has been a great week with the team from NY.
They spent Sat and Sunday without me but the schedule was great for them. Sunday they had a special open air service beside Milagros house. Hundreds of children and adults were there. A pastor on the team preached, several others gave their testimonies and there was lots of music. They also did a walk thru the community stopping to pray with people and sharing their testimonies.

Monday through Thursday we worked laying concrete blocks for 2 of the classrooms. It was blistering hot in the full sun. The women had almost a hundred children each morning for the VBS program. It was a wild time but when they shared the stories about Noah, Abraham and Adam and Eve, the kids were attentive and quiet.

This team includes people from three churches. We also had two men here who had been part of the church who sponsored the first 13 VTI children in 1997. They had never met their sponsored child before so it was a real emotional time for them.

TANZANIA Update: Matt Storer, Jim Ross and Stacey Davis

Matt, Jim and Stacey completed 3 days of work in Morogoro, Tanzania. This new program is the result of a partnership with Pastor Alex of Morogoro Baptist Church. Because this project is new, we spent most of the time working on fundamentals and ministry foundational principles to ensure that will have a soid partnership in the future. In response, the team signed a Partnership Agreement that outlines 4 pledges: Ministry, Management, Finance and Beliefs.

The programs in Tanzania serve nearly 400 children in two projects. Both project sites are beginning with children from pre-school age and are in their early stage of development. We have a long way to go to bring a high quality of health, education and discipleship - but we have a great team on the ground!

Thank you for praying.

Matt Storer & Jim Ross in Zimbabwe and Tanzania

QUICK UPDATE: Jim and Matt just finished 4 very hot and long days in Zimbabwe. They have established a new partnership in a village called Zunga that is about 1 hour south of Masvingo. It is 1 of 17 villages in the area served by our new project. Currently, the project has 240 double orphans (that means the child has lost both parents). Approximately 400 additional single orphans need assistance in this area as well. It is hard to comprehend the mass volume of orphaned children. AIDS and malaria are the primary cause of death among adults and children.

They leave for Tanzania Wednesday, Jan 27th. VisionTrust began a new partnership there last August so they will be doing training, establishing structure and communications.

Please pray for safety, health, wisdom, God’s leading in all things, patience and clear communication.

NEWS: VisionTrust's Response to the Earthquake in Haiti

While VisionTrust does not work directly in Haiti, we do have programs in the neighboring country called the Dominican Republic. Nelson Paulino, the VisionTrust Dominicana Executive Director, reported that, “The DR side of the island is pretty much ok, almost everywhere we felt the earthquake and it was scary, today [Jan 13] in fact many schools are not open in case there is a second one today that may affect us harder, but so far we are ok. After the movement is was difficult to make a phone call, so it was not until later last night when I was able to confirm that everybody was ok on our programs.” Our ministry in the Dominican Republic includes many Haitian immigrants. One program in particular serves primarily Haitian refugees in the Haiti border town of Comendador.

VisionTrust is not providing direct relief support in Haiti at this time because we do not have a ministry presence there. However, we do anticipate that the Haitians participating in our Dominican programs will soon be asking VisionTrust to help them help their family members that live in Haiti. Please remember to pray for the Haitian leadership, the international relief agencies and the people of Haiti.

If people would like to help these families, they can go to https://portal.visiontrust.org/donate/default.aspx and then select General Donation and write “Haitian Family Support” in the comment field. VisionTrust will make sure that these families will receive your gifts.