The Windles – BCM International

DECEMBER 2023 UPDATE…….

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year! Thank you for being with us through another year of ministry with BCM International. We feel so deeply blessed to have you as part of our ministry team and say fervently with the apostle Paul: “I thank my God every time I remember you … because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:3-5)
Again, thank you for your prayers and praise with us.

2023 has been specially blessed as we have completed exactly one year on the transition team with new BCM president Dr. Rick Rhoads. Marty especially has traveled globally to many BCM fields with Rick, Jeanette to South America and Europe. Witnessing Rick and his wife Naomi bonding with our beloved BCM ministry partners around the world, their godly, loving spirit, and all the next-gen leadership Rick is bringing to BCM ministry on five continents has confirmed again and again that God has brought Rick to BCM “for such a time as this” and that we are privileged to continue working with him in all ways possible as God continues to give us strength.

Over this past year, more than 850 BCM missionaries and over 15,000 volunteers have reached directly 1.3 million children and approximately 30,000 adults in BCM-planted churches, including a number of “closed access” nations through both in-person and virtual ministry. Beyond that, BCM’s In Step with the Master Teacher children’s ministry training program has less directly impacted millions more through training top national leadership (Train the Trainer program) to in turn take this program to their own churches. The denominations with which BCM has done training in Africa alone during 2023 number over fifty million members.

Just a few additional prayer requests and praises. After a year of constant travel stateside and globally since our relocation to our new permanent base in western MT (i.e., the Windle family homestead!), we are happy to be off the road for the next 2-3 months, though working full time in our separate home offices. Marty continues with much Zoom conferences, meeting together with Rick and global ministry leaders in strategizing for future of BCM, giving one-on-one leadership counsel to field ministry personnel, and more. Jeanette just finished the next BCM World Magazine issue (see link here) and remains busy with numerous editorial projects along with a new book deadline.

That said, we are already scheduling next year’s travel, which looks at moment to include ministry trips to Philippines and South America and for Jeanette preparations for Littworld 2024, which will be in a Spanish language country for first time—Mexico. She will be teaching various workshops along with helping with translation for delegates from around the world English-Spanish and vice versa. A number of other trips are expected within North America and Christian writer training events by webinar. In between, we will be doing some ministry travel for BCM and missions events in churches, though thankfully at a far slower pace than past years.

Our greatest praise this week is having two of our three adult sons, Steve and Michael, home over New Years. Michael was back in the hospital six days earlier this month and in fact hasn’t been out of the hospital more than 2-3 weeks at a time in last six months now. So we had asked prayer that he would be well enough to travel from the west coast with our youngest son Steve. For complications, the same huge blizzard that stranded us on the road for days last Christmas blew in on virtually same dates. But God is good! The roads from Seattle to MT remained clear, and both arrived safely late last night (about ten hour total drive). We are looking forward to spending next three days with them before Steve drives Michael home and flies back to Baltimore, where he is working for NASA and finishing his PhD in applied physics. Please pray with us that they both make it home safely and for Michael’s continued healing.

Meanwhile, we pray as well for you so please do send us any specific requests we can raise to God’s throne. We pray that your Christmas season has been blessed with fellowship, friends, and family. For more, further updates for prayer and ministry news can always be found at our BCM FaceBook page.

Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year 2024,
Serving our risen Savior together,

Dr. Martin and Jeanette Windle
BCM International