The first American missionary was black

The first American Protestant missionary was NOT who is often credited. It may surprise some to learn that George Liele, a former black slave, was the first.

Liele sailed for Jamaica to reach the lost in 1782, 11 years ahead of heralded British missionary William Carey and long before American Adoniram Judson sailed to India in 1812 (and later Burma).

For some encyclopedias and missiology schools, that’s an update. The fact was brought to light by E. A. Holmes, a professor of church history at Stetson University, according to Baptist Press.

Liele was a slave in Georgia who received Jesus into his heart in 1773 under the coaxing of his master, Henry Sharp, at the local Baptist church. Genuinely touched by the Lord, Liele began to propagate the gospel among his fellow slaves.

He was ordained on May 20, 1775, becoming the first officially recognized black preacher in the Colonies. He preached for two years in the slave quarters of plantations around Savannah and even led a congregation at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, according to the Union Review.

Seeing the anointing on Liele’s life, his master freed him from slavery.

Hearing of family members in Jamaica who needed the gospel, Pastor Liele migrated to Jamaica with the help of British colonel Moses Kirkland. Landing at Kingston, Liele and his wife, Hannah, planted a church there by preaching among the slaves of Jamaica.

He served for 10 fruitful years but also faced severe opposition from the slave owners, who cynically viewed his preaching as agitating the slaves, and even was thrown in jail for a time.

Liele baptized hundreds of… Read the rest: First American missionary was black

Ricardo Simms MTF then FTM transitioning

Ricardo Simms thought the answer to his same-sex attraction and female feelings was to go to gay parties, but the first time there he got raped.

“The heterosexual world wouldn’t accept me. I’m trying to blend in, but it’s just not working out,” says the man from Kingston, Jamaica, on his YouTube channel. “So, here’s a community that has everything for themselves. They have their own parties. They have their own days. They have everything. So, I said, maybe this is how life is supposed to be. But that’s how the devil works. The first day I go around a group of men, I was abused.”

It wasn’t the only time that he found that the world’s solutions just enlarged his problems. Ricardo transitioned to female but today is back to male and is declaring the love of Jesus around the world.

For Ricardo Simms, gender confusion started at an early age. In kindergarten, he didn’t like playing football and getting dirty with the boys. He liked playing with dolls. The teacher slapped his hand for playing with the wrong group. That’s when Ricardo realized something was wrong with him.

At a birthday party where a little boy and a little girl cut the cake, family members replaced him with another boy, causing him to question his identity for the first time.

Then an adult male friend of his mom’s approached him after school and rubbed himself against him in an inappropriate way. “A man who is supposed to be attracted to women was attracted to me,” Ricardo says on an Arianna Armour video.

He didn’t like his gender confusion and prayed to God to take it away.

In high school, Ricardo was terrified of bullies. He had a high-pitched feminine voice and feminine mannerisms that, try as he might, he couldn’t hide. “I didn’t know where this came from,” he says. He even wouldn’t ask the teacher questions in class to not trigger snickers about his voice.

Ricardo couldn’t talk sincerely with his parents about his struggles.

Then he met a gay youth who had “come out” and instead of hiding his same-sex attraction, flaunted it and proclaimed himself “proud.” The guy was vivacious and admired and introduced Ricardo to the LGBT subculture.

“I realized that there’s other people like me,” he says. “So, I went into this new world now of the LGBT lifestyle” of parties, clubs and get-togethers where he thought he would be accepted, appreciated and valued. Instead, he faced unwanted sexual advances.

“That terrified me. I’ve never dealt with that trauma,” he says. “I was abused and I couldn’t tell anyone about it,” he says. “I had to hold on to these secrets. I had to live with these people who had done me these cruel things because it was the only place I could be. I couldn’t go back to the straight world.”

Over and over, people in the gay community told him: “You look so pretty, you look like a girl.”

Soon he responded to the messaging. He started dressing as a female and acting out as a transgender.

But in Jamaica being trans was dangerous. “My close friend was murdered in my country because of who he was,” Ricardo says. “That terrified me. How he died was so heart-breaking to me.”

So, Ricardo moved to… Read the rest: MTF and FTM back again transition Ricardo Simms

Mexico 2, Bible study 0 #ValleyBoyPastor

Ah, the ups and downs of staring a work for God. I was wondering where the people were yesterday at my home Bible study. The one family that started suddenly disappeared. I just prayed for the full hour for everybody in the complex.

Afterward, I saw my neighbors and discovered the problem: Mexico was playing Jamaica in the American Cup. No wonder they didn’t come!

In my younger, more insecure days of pastoring, I would’ve prepared a message on not making an idol out of anything. This time, I took the Bible study snacks over to their place and watched the second half.

Actually, the same thing happened to the school in Guatemala. About one-third the school would miss on certain days, and I never could figure out what was happening. This was before I started to get into soccer.

Later, I took up soccer as a stress-buster. The disciples were passionate for Barcelona, so I got hooked on the team. They taught me about the history, the personalities, the techniques. I grew passionate about it.

So then we would show the Champions League finals at the school. Why not? It’s better they miss just two hours of class rather than the whole day.

… then too, I learned that sometimes, some of God’s biggest business is not transacted during the church service. I saw how one brother finally committed to marry his common-law wife at potluck. Seven sermons didn’t do what shmoozing and food did.

As Christians, we are about people, not programs. Our job is to get people in to Heaven, not into church. Church just happens to be the easiest way to feed the word to as many people all at once. But church time is no more sacred than any time. And God is not limited to service time to act.

By all means, bring the people to church. And if you can’t, bring God to them outside the church. This is what the Valley Boy Pastor is doing in Van Nuys.