So thankful for God leading us to expand our ministry to overseas as well as stateside. I had the opportunity to be interviewed by the host of the Ministry Connection, Bryan Ries, this concisely lays out our testimony and vision of what God has called us to do. Would be honored if you had a moment to listen.
You can listen at this LINK
Another page has turned, 2015 is behind the and the new 2016 page has begun. Around 3 years ago God gave us the opportunity to travel internationally preaching the Gospel. It started with mission trips, then moved to campaigns to help missions, then moved to raising partial personal support and now we praise the Lord that we are 54% toward getting ready to head overseas for language school. Lord willing after we have more of a grasp of the language it is our prayer to “do the work of an evangelist” overseas for approximately 25% of our calendar year.
As I travel, I have talked with many who still are unclear of what exactly “Adrian’s missions thing” consist of. I have made a video at my website that defines what the Lord has laid out for us, but here is a quick FAQ that I hope clears some things up.
Evangelistic Campaigns & Church Plant assists in Spanish Speaking Countries
Spanish speaking countries where the Lord opens the door. Currently the door open is Honduras
At this time around 3 months out of our calendar year. this is only an estimate since we cannot predict with definite clarity
Yes, we still live off of our love offerings as an evangelist, but the support takes care of our needs while overseas. We still maintain a schedule especially during the summer months.
Yes, it is the same. Our support level would be considerably lower since it is only for 3 months out of the year. Hence, with approximately 7 supporters we can be at around 50% support
There are 3 out of country places we are considering, whether it be Peru, Costa Rica, or Honduras
Jasmine Burden favorite places she said in this order Heaven, Disney World, and Chik-fi-la! So I thought looking back over this year what was the best of the best for us!! So here it is...
Best Event- June 15, Janae was Born
Best Day- October 21, Jasmine asked the Lord to save her
Most Thought Provoking Statement: God is has given me these things (possessions) FOR A REASON -Bro. Barnhouse
Verse of the Year: John 13:34,35
Sentimental Moment of the Year: My brothers destination wedding
Memory of the Year- After over 10 years doing VBS’s together, doing another VBS with my friend David Corn
Still Stunned Event of Year- Lord blesses with 54% support
Book of the Year- Communicating for Change by Andy Stanley
Fruitful Day of the Year- Young People at Camp Red Arrow
Busiest Month of the Year: SEPTEMBER
Hotel Chain of the Year: Holiday Inn Express
Restaurant of the Year: Geisha Sushi Bar/Tom & Chi
Most Improved Restaurant of the Year: Bob Evans
Deal of the Year: Apple Watch for FREE!!
Vacation of the Year: Disney World
About a week before Thanksgiving time, we were finishing one of our final meetings. We were heading with our truck and trailer toward our NC home. I hit a very large pothole that broke our leaf spring on our trailer (among other things) Due to some scheduling issues, the trailer stayed on the side of the road for about a day and a half. The 1st repair was then made, but unfortunately the entire axle would need to be replaced, which we found out about 100 miles down the road from leaving the repair shop about a week later. The axle would have to be custom made therefore we left our trailer for about a month there in MD for it to be repaired.
Praise the Lord about two days ago, we got back to NC with our truck and trailer. The Lord has provided through the insurance company to take care of the repairs and we are so thrilled to see our God move mountains for us once again! Thank you for many who prayed and were very concerned for us, God bless you!
Keep praying for us during this incredible crossroads of ministry for us. We are thrilled about the support the Lord has been bringing in, and our prayer is that the moment the Lord opens the door for language school that we will be there. Lord willing our language school will be in Honduras, therefore we can immersed in the language and still have the opportunity to be involved in ministry. Pray that God's will be done!
Summer as always proves to be the busiest time of year, when you add the dynamic of having a child in the middle of it, it definitely adds a whole new dynamic. God blessed with many opportunities of teen camps. I was able to ministers from groups from Chicago to Kansas to New Jersey and much in between. Many decisions were made including many teenagers hearing and responding to the Gospel. People that have been prayed for for a long time have been saved, what a joy to be part of that. During the summer I was able to do another VBS with one my best friends Evangelist David Corn and his family. We were able to spend a couple of down days together as well watch God do a work as we ministered together at my home church in Edenton, NC. Its so good to see him be so mightily used of God.
Our family with Evangelist David Corn and his family
Now as we enter into fall time of year the Lord has blessed with the opportunity to be in Missions Conferences. We have enjoyed sharing the work of what he has called us to do, and we have been happy to see the response of people understanding the need of the evangelist overseas. Please pray for us as we try to convey the burden to other churches that we might get our support raised and head to language school. If you are curious about what the Lord has called us to do, please view our video at the MISSIONS link of our website.
The Lord has allowed to preach in 35 of the 50 states behind literally hundreds of pulpits and different church venues and camps. In the past 11 years (8 full time) I’ve noticed a lot of nonsense in our world but there is still a REMNANT that is serving the Lord with all their heart.
I know pastors and evangelists who believe in Revival.
I know a pastor who walks the aisles of his church praying for his congregation at 5:30a
I know churches where the congregation is a conglomeration of prodigal sons and God is using all of them.
I know pastors all over who preach the Word and not their opinions
I know youth groups who fast and pray that God would work in their hearts
I know teens who weep over the lost
I know teenagers who have forsaken scholarships to pursue God’s call
I know laymen who took their families to Bible college to pursue God’s call
I know churches that loves missions and are doing everything they can to reach the lost.
I know church members who can still pray like those of old and hear from God
I know church members who are striving to keep their families unspotted from the world
I know evangelist who still preach the gospel like it ought to be preached
Everyone there is STILL A REMNANT that are still serving the Lord, people may think I’m just optimistic, Im not optimistic, I just choose to live by faith and not by sight!! Lets be encouraged and seek God for revival like never before!
How good the Lord has been! From a couple who was strongly encouraged to adopt for medical infertility reasons to having 2 kids, we certainly Praise the Lord for His goodness toward us!
Mrs. Audrey Gatling's name still lives on
I want to hi-light how Janae Audrey got her name.
I preached my first conference at 16 years old, by that time I had been trained and discipled by my Sunday School Teacher, Bro. Milton Gatling. In that class, I learned how to be a passionate yet compassionate preacher. Through the years of preaching all throughout the country and world, it has always been an encouragement to "check in" once in a while with him to let him know how things are progressing. God used him to be such an encouragement in 2 specific areas. I can almost hear him say, "be a man of integrity, be a man of character" He not only taught me that but also lived it as a godly example. Him and his wife's relationship is what I desire for my wife and I as we continue to serve the Lord!
My wife's perspective: I have to add that Adrian and I knew the Gatlings separately. When I was single and living in Virginia, the Gatlings took me under wing. I often sat with them at church, and Mrs. Gatling would partner with me on visitation when she could have gone with her husband. She was a loving example of Christian womanhood. I will always be grateful for the Gatlings taking interest in me during that time in my life.
A couple of years ago Bro. Gatling's wife was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Though we fervently prayed for her healing, God saw it best to take her home to heaven. This event so broke our hearts, as this woman of God who had been such a help to me, went on to heaven.
My wife and I desired that at least her earthly name should live on, the Gatlings have been such a blessing to us therefore our 2nd daughter's name is Janae AUDREY Burden after Mrs. Audrey Gatling!
Praise the Lord for another safe and profitable trip to Honduras this year. This past trip makes my fourth trip out to Central America and it was such a blessing. While there I had the opportunity to preach a week long revival there at the main church in La Esperanza. The minimum attendance was in around 150 each night. There was a sweet spirit present especially on the Friday night of the revival. I rejoice over the young man who was saved on Wednesday night.
During that week, I also preached a youth rally every afternoon for the kids/teens, but if I wasn't busy enough already I also had the opportunity to preach on 2 TV stations multiple times throughout my visit. This trip did not lack the opportunities I had to preach! I had the opportunity to distribute Bibles in the town of Santa Rosa. What a privilege to hand out Bibles in the marketplace, in the hospitals, at bus stops, and even on the city bus as well. And while sharing the Gospel in a grocery store, the owner (after a month of being witnessed to) was saved during the visit!
God has strengthened my faith concerning the daunting task of learning a new language. For one of the first times ever, I was able to have a "deeper" conversation with one of the Honduran pastors. I was able to go beyond the "Hi and How are you" stage and actually learn about his life and family. That was very encouraging. I have in no way arrived, but that was certainly an encouragement.
Continue to pray for the ministry there that God's hand would still rest upon it. Also pray for us, we have alerted churches of our desire of international missions and we praise the Lord for the missions conferences we have been invited to thus far, to present our burden. What a blessing and privilege to be in HIS work!!
Exodus 14:13-15
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
Here is the scene: The children of Israel had just left Egypt, they're against their first major test of faith: The Red Sea! Moses is calming the people by reminding them of the promises of God, in verse 16 the Lord tells them "Wherefore criest thou unto me?" it was time for them to move forward!! After that point, Moses lifts up the rod and they go through the Red Sea.
APPLICATION: When in the center of God's will, and after we have sought the Lord's face repeatedly about the next step, when he gives the direction it's time to move forward. I can only imagine the Lord saying, "Why do you keep asking me about this? I told you to go ahead and do it!" Moses was where he was supposed to be and Moses stayed sensitive to the Lord's leading, and God told him where to go, FORWARD!!
At the dawn of 2013, I was reflecting over the past year and looking to the future, one main aspect I was reconsidering was our involvement in International Missions. Since that time to this, I personally give glory to God for the fact that not only have we been overseas multiple times, but have also preached revivals and hosted trips for others to go as well! And have more scheduled for 2015. Now the Lord has led to another time of evaluation of our overseas efforts.
Starting this year, our family is raising support to spend 25% of our calendar year overseas. Due to the nature of our ministry in evangelism, we do not want to interfere or distract from our already scheduled revivals and other meetings, but on our free Sundays and Wednesdays, we desire to articulate our vision and goals for evangelism not only in the states but also overseas.
Our vision stated simply:
"GO FORWARD!" was the command and even though it was a giant leap of faith, it became necessary if Moses was to see God's miraculous hand at work.
Frankly, I am very comfortable in evangelism, I love preaching, I love the meetings and churches we are able to minister in. I believe God would still have me to do this, especially in the area of youth evangelism, but I would be ignoring a God given passion if I ignored the call to international ministry. Many ask me, "Adrian, are you going to be a full-time missionary?" My response is pretty typical, I smile and say, "God only knows the answer to that, but do not be surprised." I believe there is a place for evangelist overseas, and its our desire to step out by faith here and GO FORWARD!
The Christmas Holidays are already upon us, and it doesn't seem like that long ago I was posting of what I was hoping the Lord would do. What a blessing to look back on this year and give glory to God what he has done!
Tangible Blessings of the Year
The biggest tangible blessing of the year no doubt is our Miracle Truck. God has been so good in providing it for us and there are many many days that my wife and I just look at each other then look at the truck and just shake our heads. God gave it to us through an individual who chooses to remain anonymous, and we are just so thankful for them.
Also we are so thankful for so many anonymous gifts this year alone. These gifts make up a percentage of our yearly income, we are just overwhelmed and blessed. You know you are, and the Lord does to!!
Intangible Blessing of the Year
If anyone had ever asked us on the road, "Brother, is there anything we can pray with you and your family about??" Undoubtedly our response would be the same, we would love to have another child. We have earnestly sought the Lord about this and our response has been "in His timing" Earlier this year, we found that we were expecting, to later find out that my wife had miscarried. But we praise the Lord for His grace and timing because my wife is doing well and we are expecting another on June 15th 2015.
Spiritual Blessing of the Year
To see dozens come the Lord in salvation in revival services, camps, VBS's and various avenues. This year I do not have record of how many salvation decisions were made but we rejoice anyhow. We know at one point someone was getting saved approximately 1 every 3 days but not sure what the final exact total was. God knows and thats all that matters.
Favorite Memory of the Year
Has to come from my Facebook Post on June 13th which reads...
the "amazingness" continues...blessed to have a father and mother in tears and come and let me know that their son had just got saved last night!! #AMEN along with 2 other teens that we're saved that day!! Also to see teenagers at an altar last night audibly weeping over the souls of lost family and friends!! #HALLELUJAH #CampCoBeAc
Favorite Jasmine Statement of the Year
After singing "Give Me That Old Time Religion" at the Fannin Road Camp Meeting, Jasmine has been singing it this way (over and over)
"Give me that OLD TIME AND AGING" (3x's)
"It was good for my Father" (3x's)
and it's good enough for me!!
Thanks Pastor Jim Lester!!
Favorite Picture of the Year
Credits go to Mrs. Sherry DeFord for capturing one of our Favorite Pictures of our family.
God has been so good to our family and we give Him glory. 2105 holds a lot of surprises for the Burden family and all I can say is stay tuned and pray for us!!
PAST
As always the summer has proven to be the busiest yet the most fruitful time of the year. Trying to encapsulate in a paragraph all the camps, VBS’s, and revivals is in an impossibility. Seeing around 30 kids, teens, and adults come to Christ, receiving embraces of parents who have been praying for their teenager’s salvation, watching as teens audibly weep over the souls of their friends and loved ones, responding to texts messages of teens begging for counsel of how to live for God, and last but not least taking 17 people to Honduras to experience first hand missionary life. Yes, all that was squeezed into three months! Thank you so much for those who have prayed for us because the summer definitely was fruitful.
PRESENT
We have been back in the states for a couple of weeks now, and trying to catch our breath between meetings. I encourage you to read posts on our website concerning the Honduras trip itself and look on social media at the hashtag #missionstripbm. Praise the Lord we are able to pull our trailer to the majority of our meetings now, and that has made such a huge difference in the stability and the comfort level of my family. My wife has thoroughly enjoyed cooking and cleaning her own place after almost five years of living out of a suitcase.
FUTURE
The schedule during the fall is looking to be great one with Christian School Revivals, Revivals, Youth Conferences, and even Camp Meetings. Please be in prayer as we seek the Lord’s will to increase our overseas influence and involvement. The Lord has placed a definite passion for oversea works and we want to be wise how we proceed, please pray with us about this matter.
Camp Meeting at Fannin Road Baptist Church Old Fashioned Sunday
It all started in Flushing, MI where 15 of us including me, my wife, my brother and sister in law (Aaron and Erinh Burden) as well as 2 other adult chaperones and 11 teenagers headed out to Honduras! My Pastor and Assistant Pastor and one other church member met us in Atlanta for the final leg of the journey and we all landed in Honduras to assist Missionary Ronnie Doss.
The Lord allowed us to send all the finances for the church roof and floor to be replaced. There are 22 churches that have been started and we were helping the Grace Baptist Church, pastored by national pastor Havier.
What a blessing to complete the project with the help of Havier side by side each day. There were extra funds left over to put even another roof on another church as well though we were not able to put that roof on while we were there.
We were also able to help Missionary Ronnie Doss with his home. Doing roof work and painting, we were able to help him out tremendously.
The work aspect kept us busy but we were still preaching every day except 2 nights. We spread the Gospel by passing out John and Romans and tracts in the village of La Esperanza as well. The trip was extremely busy, but everyone pitched in and made the trip a great success.
Sunday was Picture Sunday and we were able give to people in their hands a picture of them and their family. Many have not had a picture of themselves and it was wonderful to watch the response of them having a picture of themselves.
Thanks for those who prayed, there was no big health concerns nor threatening moments. God kept us all safe. Besides the water and power going out nearly daily, we stayed fairly comfortable too.
We have had quite the summer between junior camps, vacation Bible schools, and youth rallies, the Lord has been blessing. Many saved and great to see Junior age as well as teens surrendering to the Lord!
For 4 years we have traveled to each of our meetings by car, but Praise the Lord for the first time we carried our travel trailer to our first meeting in Mt. Union, PA! For the next 3 weeks we were able to have our trailer and live in OUR HOME! Before our trip, Jasmine was searching for which toys to bring with her on the road for our next set of meetings, while holding back the tears I told her, "hey buddy, you get to bring all of them this time! We are going to take our whole house with us!!" What a blessing, to have our home with us!
Grilling out at the Campground
This week we are preparing for our trip to Honduras. Please pray for the groups from Immanuel Baptist Church in Edenton and Trinity Baptist Church in Flushing, MI, we 17 head out Lord willing next week!
Things got started off to a great start at Camp CoBeAc. The churches of the Great Lakes Youth Conference got together and we had an amazing week. Highlights include parents in tears watching as their son accepts Christ as his Savior on a Tuesday night! Watching as well as teens learned how to pray for lost people and their lost friend for whom they were praying for got saved before the end of the week! It was an incredible thing to behold the excitement of teens over not sports, not games, BUT souls!! Fantastic week!! Able to get acquainted with some great churches and youth pastors as well.
Somerville Baptist VBS in FULL SWING during Song time
Moved on over to Somerville, AL where it was an incredibly busy week, but was wonderful to watch as 16 came to know Christ as their Savior. The VBS was action packed and I was busily preaching around 28x's this week! God moved and we were thankful to have a part.
Now we are in Camp Bethel in Amherst, Va, and things are moving in the right direction. Praying for teens to get saved this week, as we know that there are some who are not saved. Thanks for your prayers as we continue to serve Him!
For the past 3 years, we have fervently prayed for God to give us a truck. Even little Jasmine has prayed for so long as well concerning the matter. At the close of a revival service, a man who wishes to remains anonymous came to us and let us know that God had laid it on his heart to buy us a truck. Amist the misty eyes and great thanksgiving to God for his generosity, we we're able to set the details to buy a Ford 550 to pull our travel trailer!! The word "excitement" does not even contain our feelings at this point. Please pray that we will use this for God's glory and that He will be exalted in our lives!! Thank you for our prayers!
Earlier this year, my wife and I were blessed with the news that she was pregnant. We we're ecstatic and very grateful to the Lord for giving us another blessing. Due to a health issue that Tabitha has had since before we we're married, we were stunned and thankful that Jasmine was even conceived as well as this child. To say the least we we're both ecstatic.
During our revival meetings in Maryland and Vermont, Tabitha was feeling very winded and tired after meetings and throughout the day. She began periods of bleeding therefore she was pretty much on bed rest. When we we're in Michigan, the problem persisted and we went to the ER. After the days in ER and other things, we found out that Tabitha had indeed miscarried. She then underwent a procedure to prevent any further infection of her uterus.
Many have expressed much concern and kindness to us throughout this time, and we know that God has purpose and a plan. Please do pray for us, especially my wife as we continue the meetings of this coming month.
Well, since our last post MANY, MANY, miles have been traveled and Praise the Lord that many have been saved as well. Souls have been saved from Waco, TX to Sophia, WV and all the way to St. Albans, VT. Today was a blessing to watch 3 teens come to know Christ during the Youth Rally at Northside Baptist Church. God certainly has been good.
But with victories, the Devil doesn't sit idly by. Sickness, fatigue, and other things have come in waves and right now we are dealing with Jasmine being sick again. Pray for our protection and health because as it was started at the end of March, I preach or travel everyday till the mid-May, therefore we need the Lord's strength!
Our new prayer cards are in, and a clip of them is shown, if you need some please let us know!