James & Carolanne

I cannot help wondering sometimes if our work is really making a difference. Are we bringing hope to the hopeless? Are we making a difference in people's lives for eternity?

Carolanne and I donate funds towards this ministry in the same way several of you who receive this newsletter do. Are our gifts really being used to change lives and point people towards Jesus?

My own work in this is often behind the scenes building the software that allows ministry to take place. As such I don't often see the direct impact of what I do. Is it really making a difference?

To answer these questions, this morning I started to read through some of the stories and emails that have come in just in the last few hours. I'd like to share a little of what I found with you.

I'm failing at every point and its getting hard for me now, I can't find the motivation to get up and try again. I want to give my best achieve everything and I want to end it all at the same time

8 minutes ago from N**** in Delhi, India

Because of the fact that this message contained the words "I want to end it all", our system flagged it as a more urgent crisis and sent an immediate response with several suicide and counselling hotlines designed specifically for people in India. This was a feature of our mentoring system that I built several years ago, specifically for our growing India ministry. I'm glad to see it is working well!

The system has also assigned it to a mentor who wants to answer messages from India and has specifically taken our "Offering Hope in Crisis" training. And, since N**** has told us she is female, the system also chose a female mentor to respond.

As I continue to read through the messages I see people asking for help, asking for prayer, confessing sin and several considering suicide. It's hard to read and even harder to know how to help. Many of the messages are in languages that I don't speak or understand. Chinese, Portuguese, Hungarian, Russian, Slovak, Polish. That's just the past hour or two. I'm very thankful that we have over 1000 mentors from a variety of cultures and languages who are willing and able to receive these requests and help to guide people towards hope in Christ.

Hi there, as I'm a muslim want to be achristan, can I ask something? I need to what I have to do & who do help me exactly after I except Christianity.

M. A. from Pennsylvania through partnership with Luis Palau Association

Not only do we respond to these messages ourselves, but we partner with several other amazing ministries and churches working toward the same mission. We offer our tools like the mentoring system for free to these organizations so that they too can easily respond to people seeking God.

The message above was responded to by one of the Luis Palau mentors who was able to encourage M. A. to get connected to a local church.

You and I play a critical part in bringing HOPE to people worldwide!

As a result of your prayer and financial gifts and with God's grace and provision we have been able to continue in this ministry. Is our work making a difference in people's lives for eternity? Absolutely Yes! God is using these tools to touch the lives of people LITERALLY around the world every day.

Recently we put together a map with a small selection of ministry stories from around the world. You're welcome to check it out here.

Thank YOU!!!

Thank you for standing with us in this ministry. Thank you for holding us up in prayer. For those who give, thank you for using what God has given you to help advance His kingdom.

Please continue to pray for us and for this ministry. Pray for the people who write in every day looking for help, hope and prayer.

Some specific prayer requests at this time:

• Pray for the several people who have written in recently and are contemplating suicide
• Pray for more opportunities to connect with more people
• Pray for wisdom for the mentors to respond with love, grace and hope
• Pray for funding for our ministry and staff (including us personally)
• Pray for our new Malay partnership who want to work with us to develop their own evangelistic resources in Malay, Chinese and Indonesian

Thank you!