Recent
Events with
Great Mission
Churches Hamilton Baptist Church,
Chattanooga, Tennessee
(Pastor Virgil Smith)
Bible Baptist Church,
Warner Robins, Georgia
Wilton Baptist Church,
Wilton, New York
(Pastor Steve Harness)
Georgia Baptist Fellowship,
Corinth Baptist Church,
Loganville, Georgia
(Pastor Don Richards)
Hamilton Baptist Church,
Chattanooga, Tennessee
(return) Independent Baptist Friends
Meeting, Temple Baptist
Church, Powell, Tennessee
(Pastor Clarence Sexton)
Lighthouse Baptist Church,
Binghamton, New York
(Pastor Don Hughes)
Bible Baptist Church,
Warner Robins, Georgia
(return) Pleasant Valley Baptist
Church, Ringgold, Georgia
(Pastor David Flood)
Pembina Valley Baptist
Church, Winkler, Manitoba,
Canada (Pastor Mike Sullivant)
Faith Baptist Church,
Bath, South Carolina
(Pastor Michael Brendel)
Lakewood Baptist Church,
Harrison, Tennessee
(Pastor David Bragg /Pastor
Ronnie Gilbert)
Faith Baptist Church,
Decatur, Alabama
(Pastor Jeremy Nason)
Emmanuel Baptist Church,
Newnan, Georgia
(Pastor Terry Arp)
If you would like to schedule
James Ray for your church, you
may contact him at:
worldjray4@Yahoo.com or by
phone at 423-802-5198 (cell) or
BIMI 423-344-5050, Ext. 2103.
E D I TO R I A L
JAMES RAY, Editor
Thou tellest my wanderings:
put thou my tears into thy bottle:
are they not in thy book?
Psalm 56:8
The Trail of Tears
L ife is a trail of tears. It may seem to
many people in the world that they
are alone and that no one sees their
tears. That is not entirely true, es-
pecially for believers. God keeps your tears
in His bottle and records them in His book.
It seems to many that no one cares and that
no one thinks of them—that they are alone in
the world unknown, unloved and friendless.
How wrong they are.
How comforting are the words of Psalm
139:17, 18. How precious also are thy
thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the
sum of them! If I should count them, they
are more in number than the sand...
God is thinking about you all the time—
more thoughts than there are grains of sand
upon the shores of the world. This coincides
with the great message of John 3:16—For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. What a message for every missionary
and every Christian! This message most of
the billions on earth do not know and have
not heard. There is no greater illustration
of this than the Cherokee Trail of Tears. If
possible, order the DVD. It is an astounding
story told and illustrated by onsite photogra-
phy (43 minutes).
The journey, one of the saddest stories of
American history, was the scene of a group
of depressed souls making their way over
unfamiliar and foreboding terrain.
Each painful step was taking them away
from the only life they had ever known—
and from the only place they had ever
called home. As they journeyed into the
setting western sun, they were leaving be-
hind the graves of fathers and mothers and
ancestors. Each turn of the wagon wheels seemed
to tell them that they were making a journey
into the unknown. It was goodbye forever
to all that ever seemed precious.
Although politicians threw the whole
Cherokee Nation to the wind, God had not
forsaken them. Godly missionaries stayed by
their side through the darkness. It seems that
whenever darkness is at its deepest, God has
His servants present, standing in the shadows
with hope in their hands.
NATIONS • 3