Merry Christmas from Argentina!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! What a joy it is to share with you what Jesus Christ—The Baby born on Christmas day—did through our project two weeks ago in Honduras! Born in that manger so long ago, HE is still changing lives today!
Over the past several months the churches in Gracias, Honduras united together to pray over, and prepare for, an Area-wide Evangelistic Crusade. During the two nights of the Crusade (photo to the left), over 4,500 people (which is 12% of the regional population) attended to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed through worship, testimonies, and the preaching of the Gospel! In tandem with the crusade, we proclaimed God’s Word in the local junior high and high schools. It was a glorious display of how God in the Flesh, born in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, is still powerfully impacting the world today! During this project we saw over 600 people make a public decision to repent from their sin and turn to Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior! Our website www.scottnute.org has a video clip of this event for your viewing.
There were numerous testimonies of lives that were touched by the Lord during this Crusade, such as the young woman in a wheelchair who, in spite of the rain, had her friend push her forward so she could make her commitment to Christ! One of the pastors involved in the outreach said, “The Crusade was backed by the Holy Spirit, and we received a great blessing hearing evangelist Scott preach the message of The Cross.” Please pray for the local churches as they continue the follow-up of those who trusted in Christ during the Crusade and School Programs.
As you read this letter, I will be arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina. What a blessing to spend a portion of the Christmas season serving with my brothers and sisters in reaching people in Argentina with the Gospel! December 5-7 we will conduct strategic evangelistic events with a “mother” church and their church plants. On the closing Sunday all the churches will meet together in a public movie theatre where I have the privilege to proclaim Jesus Christ. We will also conduct a Leadership Development Conference in connection to these single-church “crusades.” Please, join me in praying for many Argentinian moms, dads, single adults, youth and children to come to know the Savior of the world this Christmas season through these unique outreach events!
We are already preparing for our projects next year in India, Bangladesh, Honduras, and other countries. Your generous end-of-the-year CHRISTMAS GIFT will help us to continue our ministry around the world! It is exciting to know we will be starting the New Year—2015—proclaiming new life in Christ to people who are not only seeking meaning to their lives for a new year, but are seeking meaning to all the years of their lives! THANK YOU for all the support and prayers you gave to our ministry this year! I am forever grateful to you!
Merry Christmas,
Scott Nute
Preaching Hope in Honduras
In a few days I fly to Honduras for our next project, a Region-wide Evangelistic Crusade November 5-8 in Gracias, Honduras! In tandem with this event, we will proclaim Jesus Christ Crucified & Resurrected to hundreds of students and teachers in local schools, such as in the Philippines’ school program photo below. Please, join us in prayer for a sweeping move of God that will stir the regional population to come hear how wonderful it is to know and follow Jesus Christ, just like in Acts 13:44, where the Bible says,“…almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”
There is a special place in my heart for the Spanish-speaking world because my mom, brother, and I are from New Mexico…our hometown is Las Cruces, NM (my mom, Pat, and my brother, Todd, still live there. Please, pray for God’s will to be done in their lives). Growing up in the Hispanic culture is a natural part of who I am, and I connect with the Spanish culture better than any other. I can hardly wait to preach the Gospel in English and then listen as a Honduran pastor interprets and preaches the words into Spanish! The local Honduran churches have been working hard for the past 5 months praying and mobilizing for this event. The photo below is a copy of the thousands of flyers, posters, and banners, along with radio and TV spots, that have now saturated the entire region with news of, and invitations to, the crusade. We are asking and believing God for a HARVEST of people to turn to Jesus Christ…to then become active and growing disciples in the local churches! God is moving because the word began to spread during the preparations for this crusade, and two other towns in Honduras have now invited our ministry to conduct crusades…God opens doors!
I want to say a special thank you to my home church, Houston’s First Baptist Church (HFBC), because they recently gave a $5,000 “Challenge Gift” to our ministry! The financial support from HFBC, and allowing our ministry to host our annual “BENEFIT DINNER” at the church, is helping our ministry add more PARTNERS who help us cover project needs, such as the $13,400 budget for the current Honduras project (our next benefit is February 20, 2015, and those of you in the Houston area are invited to join us for an evening of fellowship, good food, and hearing about our ministry!).
Since we first announced that HFBC gave our ministry this “Challenge Gift,” other people felt moved in their hearts to take advantage of this opportunity to help us multiply this gift, and you can too! You can give a Safe, Secure, & Easy online gift today on our website. Some people prefer sending a gift directly to our office, while others prefer giving through stocks, bonds, and planned giving. If you choose to help us equal and surpass this $5,000 challenge gift, your gift of any size will help families and young people all over the world say YES to Jesus, and they will have their lives and souls changed forever! THANK YOU!
For Honduras,
Scott Nute
Using all means to save souls
It is “WORLD SERIES” time! October is when the world baseball championship is played; when old memories from over two decades ago return to my mind…the great memories of when God allowed me to play professional baseball as a pitcher in the minor leagues for the Detroit Tigers. To share a brief testimony with you…
I went on my first mission trip in 1989 with a Christian baseball ministry called “Athletes in Action.” We were in Honduras, and it was there that God divinely opened the door for a Latin Scout to sign me to a free-agent contract after he watched me pitch an exhibition game against a Honduran national team. It was a dream come true that God allowed me to play pro baseball as a platform to proclaim the Great News of His Son, Jesus Christ! During my second year of professional baseball, however, I had a “freak” accident to my pitching shoulder that ended my pro baseball career just as suddenly as it had begun. At the time I was devastated, but now, 25 years later, I am so glad the Lord allowed me to get injured and that HE shut the door to play baseball because shortly after the injury God called me to be an evangelist (at first I didn’t even know what an evangelist was). Never in my farthest imagination could I have dreamed that God would still be using baseball in my ministry today as a stage to proclaim the Great News of His Son, Jesus Christ. Sports is a major area of common interest internationally and some people who would not normally attend a “religious” event are “drawn” to come and hear a former athlete, and thus hear the Gospel presented. Sports also can open unique doors to reach young people (such as the school outreach in Hong Kong in the photo below). Our next project just “happens” to be in the country where it all began 25 years ago—Honduras! And, guess what is being used as a major part of the publicity for this Crusade?—Baseball! Praises to God for His Sovereign plans!
A great verse in the Bible says, “Whatever you do, do it ALL for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Our ministry is doing all we can to use all God gives us to reach and train people to follow Jesus Christ and to be laborers in His Great Commission of reaching the world with the Gospel. Because of the support we receive from people like you, we are able to conduct projects like the one coming up November 4-8 in Gracias, Honduras. Your support covers project expenses for such vital things as: public transportation rentals to bring non-Christians to and from the crusade services, training & follow-up materials, Bibles, sound system & stage rentals, food for the training conferences, posters & flyers, personal travel costs, and other needed expenses. Thank you for your partnership!
Churches throughout the region of Gracias, Honduras have been praying and preparing the past 4 months for this Crusade…praying for people to turn to the forgiveness of sin and eternal purpose Jesus Christ offers to us all! Please, join us in prayer for a powerful move of God to start in, and spread throughout, Honduras!
Still “pitching” the Gospel for Jesus,
Scott Nute
PRAY for Honduras & Argentina!
We have upcoming projects in Central and South America. Your prayers for the souls of men, women, and youth to come to Jesus Christ will pave the way for the Gospel! Please join us in prayer for lives to be changed and transformed from the inside out in these upcoming projects.
Last month in Honduras 130 pastors and church leaders attended our Pre-Crusade Church Mobilization Training (photo on left). In preparation for the upcoming crusade November 4-8 in Gracias, Honduras, the pastors and church leaders received training in various areas, such as OPERATION ANDREW, a personal evangelism strategy we use where Christians PRAY for, and INVITE, and BRING their lost friends and family to the event. These leaders will now return to and equip their congregations with the same strategy they were instructed with. We also distributed 100 New Testament Bibles and 5,000 evangelism tracts to the local pastors and churches, both in Spanish. For this project we will be working with churches from various denominations in the area and also churches from surrounding villages. We will be proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to the entire vicinity of 35,000 people through an Area-Wide Evangelistic Crusade. In tandem with the crusade, we will take our School Program into local schools to reach students with the Gospel, and we will also invite all the students and teachers to attend the crusade and encourage them to bring their families and friends with them. God is already moving…through the preliminary events we saw 45 people make a public decision for Jesus Christ!
Then, December 3-8 I will travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where our ministry will be conducting “Single Church Crusades” in this alpha-city with a metropolitan population of 12 million people. These single church events are essentially the same as our outdoor area-wide crusades, using the same practical mobilization strategies of prayer, personal evangelism training, and post-event follow-up to connect those who commit to Christ to the local church. We will have evangelistic services in three local churches and then conduct a final meeting where the churches will meet together in a neutral location, a theatre. We will also host our Leadership Development Conference, where pastors and church leaders from throughout the area will gather for ministry training.
If you will remember to pray for the people of Gracias, Honduras, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, what a blessing that would be! Pray for the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of the people to respond by faith when they hear the message of The Cross.
Your prayers and financial support are a continual source of strength and encouragement! Thank you!
For reaching Central and South America,
Scott Nute
Help us transform more lives!
I am going to put all my cards on the table and share vulnerably from my heart. Our ministry is experiencing unprecedented invitations to do ministry all over the world, even in closed countries. God willing, here is where I will be going over the next year to reach and train people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Honduras (November), Argentina (December), Philippines & India (February), Bangladesh (April), Pakistan (May), Fiji (July). I am so grateful for these opportunities, YET…my heart is troubled because all of these projects must be downsized due to limited funding; meaning, we will reach and train less people than we could if sufficient funding were available.
I come to you today saying from my heart to those of you who give to our ministry, THANK YOU!! so much for your help! Last year our ministry received $104,000 in donations, the most funding we have ever received, and we saw 5,435 people commit to Jesus Christ and trained 1,426 church leaders! I tell you our income because some Christians assume many, if not all, international evangelists have millions of dollars donated each year, and this is not true. You are probably aware of how much money is donated to the ministries you give to, but if you are not, here are a few sites where you can go to find out because all tax-exempt nonprofit organizations have to file an annual 990 income statement with the IRS that is public domain: www.guidestar.org (we are Gold Level with GuideStar, their highest level of financial transparency and accountability), and www.charitynavigator.org ($500,000 is the required minimum annual income in order to be posted in Charity Navigator).
To continue being transparent, it seems a number of Christians assume all evangelists have “generous” salaries. Since God called me to be an evangelist in 1990, my average annual income for the past 24 years (including some part-time jobs) has been $14,464. Last year I was paid $32,000, so I am now taken care of with a sufficient salary, recently attained health sharing coverage, and God willing, we will start a retirement fund for me soon. YET…it is difficult saying NO to so many ministry opportunities, and difficult again having to scale back the opportunities I do accept.
As I said before, last year our ministry income was $104,000 and I am determined—God willing—to get that amount up to a minimum of $250,000 per year. Reaching $250,000 will allow us to accept more projects each year and the projects we do accept won’t have to be downsized, but instead can reach and train more people in both QUANTITY and QUALITY…and you can help us accomplish this! Then we will be able to share more stories of transformed lives, such as “Prasanna,” (photo on the left) the young woman in India who publicly turned to Jesus Christ during one of our events and within hours of her conversion she was attacked by religious extremists. Her injuries required surgery to relieve pressure in her brain from the beating. Praise God, she fully recovered and has since acquired a good job in computer technology and she shared her testimony in the very area where she was attacked!
Without using any attempts at manipulation, I am simply laying before you the opportunity to help our ministry reach and train more people…to help us take the next step in financial growth so I don’t have to keep saying NO to opportunities but YES! And, I am asking you to not just give this month only, but rather I am looking for “PARTNERS” who will give consistently because…next year, as I enter my 25th year as an evangelist, God willing, I plan on doing this ministry year-after-year, decade-after-decade, until Jesus comes, or until we pass this ministry over to a younger evangelist in the future, or until my life is over. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my PARTNERS in spreading the Good News about Christ – Philippians 1:4-5.
My responsibility is to present the opportunities and our needs, and then let God’s Spirit move the hearts of His people to help us. With whatever funding God provides, our ministry will go out with confidence and joy proclaiming the Gospel to the world! Whether it be “upgraded” projects or “downsized,” we are GOING out to reach as many people as we can!
Honestly His…and yours, for the Gospel,
Scott Nute
