When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.


Around 10 years ago, God began to deal with my heart about the practical ministry outlined in Matthew 25. I wrote an article on it (that is long lost), and sat it down because I did not know how to begin to do it. About 2 weeks ago, God again dealt with my heart about this same ministry. This time however, though I was still unsure how to get going, I was well ready to simply step out in faith. So after praying, I approached Sis Alvear last week to see if she would be able to pass out clothes as an outreach to the children of Brazil if I could send them to her. She said that it would be a blessing, so I started telling everyone I am personally in contact with what we were doing, in hopes of them donating some nice clothes for these precious children. I was intent, if need be, on filling boxes with my own money if need be. So far, not one person has donated anything. So anyway, my wife and I had plans to go this weekend and purchase enough nice used clothes to fill a box, and ship them on out to Sis Alvear.

Today while at work (I am working for a thrift store that uses the profits to feed the homeless here in Knoxville) my wife came by and was speaking to the regional manager, and the regional manager is going to let her come in and sort through clothes, and is going to sell them to us for 25 CENTS PER POUND!!!! PRAISE GOD!!!!!! Not only is this going to let us pick and choose to be able to send more modest clothes, but it will allow us to send "more clothes, more often" than we thought we could.

Please keep us in your prayers. We still have to find out all the particulars about what is involved with shipping a box to Brazil. We also are hoping to have some future financial support. My heart is that unless this grows to the place that I have to quit working to do this full time, that 100% of any donations will go towards this endeavor.

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

God Bless you and your wife brother as you obey His direction in this.

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

This is fantastic, this is Christ in action!! :bliss

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That's wonderful Matt! Hope things work out well for ya'll!

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Sweet! I very much believe in supporting our missionaries in any way we can. For me this has been mainly monetary support, but I did give some musical instruments I had to a missionary once. I like the idea of sending them some clothes. The people you say haven't participated in your collection efforts; are they people from your church? If so, I find that a bit surprising. Usually us pennycostals pass a lot of clothes (especially children's clothes) back and forth between families in the church. You'd think someone would have some they could give towards the cause.

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That is awesome St Matt!

I know we have sent Balikbayan Boxes to the Philippines & it usually costs us between $100-$150 bucks and usually takes about a month to three months to get there.

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yes, that is about what it costs to Brazil unless things have went up. However you will never know unless you are here when a box arrives how the people are so blessed. Thanks so much.

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Sis Alvear. Get ready! I plan to ship the 1st box out by July 1st.





Folks, I need a name for this ministry. My vision is to send clothing and food all over the world to missionaries for them to be able to meet the needs of their area. Because I know the Alvears are "good ground", I want to partner with them in reaching out to Brazil. I realize sending food is not as easy as sending clothes, so I am going to have to really work on that one. But I really believe that God will give us whatever we need to see folks clothed and feed if we will but put our feet to our faith. Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing, as i have never done this before. But I am stepping out in faith. :)

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When I saw the pictures of the young boys playing soccer without proper foot wear that Sis Alvear posted, I was thinking "I'd like to send them some sneakers", but that's as far as I got!

I'll pray and see what the Lord opens up! There may be a shipping line that will take the packages to Brazil for a reduced rate. My sister in law works as a merchant marine with her husband, maybe she will know of ship companies that provide some sort of charity as a tax write off. Just some thoughts.

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Please let me know what you find out. It seems that I have an ample supply of clothes (adult, child, and infant) for 25 cents a pound. And these are all new/almost new clothes. Many have the labels still on them. They sell anything that is torn or stained as rags.

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

Beautiful!!!!!!

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

We have a local ministry in our area called Matthew 25 ministries.
Their web site is
http://www.m25m.org/

A friend of mine (he's an Anglican priest) heads a ministry called International Sports Alliance. His office is in the Matthew 25 building. He teaches school during the school year and in the summer makes a trip to Haiti and works with children providing them soccer equipment and uniforms and presenting the Gospel to them. I don't know his web site offhand but he is mentioned in the Matthew 25 site at
http://www.m25m.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=104

I believe that we as Christians have an obligation to minister to people in both spiritual and material ways and that as we serve humans we are actually serving Jesus.

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

This is so exciting. Great job Matt.

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UPDATE 7/7/08

Last night I preached on "Open Doors" and one of the verses I took my text from was:

1Cor 16:9 For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and [there are] many adversaries.

Today, we took our box of just under 50 lbs of clothes to the post office to send it out to the Alvears in Brazil. After arriving and getting up to the counter, the postal clerk gave us our first lesson on sending things out of country. Our box was too big to send "Priority". Needless to say it was a snag in the plans we had of getting this box out today. So we got all the correct info, and went shopping for the right size box. While in the line, my wife reminded me of the text I mentioned above, and reminded me that "there are many adversaries, but it was God that opened the door"!

So anyway, we are in the process of repacking 2 smaller boxes from the 1 big box. Unless we have another "adversary" show up, we are planning on shipping both out tomorrow. I knew this was going to be a learning experience for me, as it is truly "blind faith" on my part. But I have a promise from the Savior himself that "when I have done it unto the least of these, I have done it unto HIM".

We are very excited about what God is doing. We have purchased hosting, and will be launching our website for this ministry soon, hopefully within a few weeks. The website is:


Please keep us in your prayers as we work while its day. I am still believing that this is the small beginning of a international effort to fulfill Matt 25, and also give "seed" to some wonderful missionaries, so they can reach out to their fields with not only the gospel, but with much needed natural provisions.

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Matt, two recommendations.

1. Read The Least of These My Brothers by Harold Bell Wright. He is the guy who wrote The Shepherd of the Hills.

2. Check into a charity called Save Your Soles. It exists solely to provide children shoes who otherwise would not have any.

Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

You may also check on toys... we were asked to sent even broken toys to India (by the Indians themselves)... dolls without arms, etc.

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So what was the cost to ship? Sis Alvear told me she desperatly needs Bibles in Brazilian Portuguese. I would love to get up 100 Bibles. Any ideas on where to find them in this language?

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Re: When You've Done It To The Least Of These....
 

More bibles:
http://store.bibles.com/Category/Bib...age=Portuguese

Look for Brazilian edition

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Hmmmm. Getting Bibles for SA was one of the things we discussed in our first home meeting. In fact, I need to find out from SA what all she needs. I am hoping there is a way for her to get them there for less than what it would cost for us to ship them there. They allow for anyone to be specific in what their donation goes towards. I would imagine that Bibles would be expensive to ship because of the weight.

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Maybe she can contact the Brazilian Bible Society ... and get some pricing???

http://www.sbb.org.br/interna.asp?areaID=182&id=2

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I did a google search and found a Catholic blog with a link that has a very cheap evangelistic Bible in the NVI version. The language that SA said she needed, BUT since this was a Catholic blog source I am really hesitant. I think it still could be the wrong version. I just do not have time to reasearch this now. The rest of this week is going to be very busy for me at work. If you can pursue it Rico that would be great. I guess we would need know, if SA could get at a good price there and what the price is, or if they can be bought here very cheaply with shipping costs included. Who could get the best deal.

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Pure religion in action! Awesome!

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I checked with SA and she says she can find the Bibles there in Brazil for $5 each. Sounds cheap enough to me. I am going to contact the members of my home group and see what all we can figure out on paying for some Bibles for these folks in Brazil. $5 ain't nuthin to come up with. That's one visit to McDonald's. Skip McDonald's for a month, assuming you go once a week, and thats 52 Bibles you can buy in a year's time. My guess is them Bibles would last a whole lot longer than the memory of eating another greasy cheeseburger. She did tell me she is having some issues getting everything worked out with Paypal, so it might be better to just send them a check until they get it all worked out.

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Matt, this is so near and dear to my heart. I really appreciate what you and your wife are doing. I am taking three huge suitcases full of clothes with us to Africa next week. You cannot imagine the excitement that comes over these poor people when those suitcases are opened and they actually get to pick out clothes for their kids. I was overcome with emotion last time; it's very humbling.

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We were able to send out the 2 boxes of clothes today! Included in the boxes were about 50 pieces of toddler clothing, a few womens dresses, a few pairs of mens Jeans, a few mens shirts, and 4 suits that I am hoping some of the ministers can wear. It cost us $200 to ship both boxes, but because the clothes are so inexpensive for me to purchase (25 cent a pound), I believe it is a better value than for me to just send money. This is also something that is allowing my kids to have a "hands on" part in helping to provide for missions.

God bless the Alvears, and their labor of love in the mission field! I just wish I could be there to deliver the boxes in person.

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If it's anything like Africa, they will have seamstresses/tailors that can work miracles. We took some of Eddie's 44Long suits with us and now one of our 36-38 Regular pastors over there is wearing them and they look custom made. They can do just about anything with a cheap Singer sewing machine!

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I would love to send truckloads, but am not despising the day of small beginnings. I have a vision to do much what Lester Sumrall did with his "Feed the Hungry" ministry. I want to send food, clothing, hygiene items, and anything else that a missionary can use to provide for, and reach those they are working with.

Keep us in your prayers!

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A very worthy cause.

I do believe God is going to bless and open doors that will amaze you. :)

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I will. I believe this is the very heart of the Good News message.

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amen and amen!!