Matthew’s Story - From Running to Submitting

Matthew is from Porterville, New York which is a small town in western New York, just south of Buffalo. He attended Alfred State College and works at Great Lakes Cheese as an Engineering technician where he integrates robotics into the manufacturing equipment. Although he did not have a church family, his faith started with reading the Bible and finding comfort in it. He found that as he read on and on, he began praying and his life just started to change. His biggest prayer when he started praying was for him to have a wife and a family. He felt that God answered that he was not ready to become a spiritual leader of a family, so he dove into Jesus instead and focused on nurturing his faith. But a couple of years later, he met his wife Natalie. It was like God said, “seek me first, Matthew, and then all these other things will be added”. And he fulfilled that promise and all these other things were added.

It was Natalie’s stepfather who convinced Matthew to go to India on his first mission trip. Matthew saw this as God’s step of obedience for him to go so he went to India, two months after they got married. Upon arriving in India, he felt a sense of purpose. He felt like God was telling him, “This is where you shed all the fear of trying new things, all the fear of the giants and the obstacles in front of you, and you focus on me.” He remembered thinking that he did not even know why he was there but there was nowhere else he’d rather be. It was as if all of a sudden the light bulb began to go off as to God's sovereignty. And he said, here's your purpose.

After going on his mission trip to India, he had the urge to tell everyone about ministries overseas and about the struggles overseas. And he wanted everyone to hear that it's a love like fire. While fire needs oxygen, ignition source and fuel to spread, God is all of that and the people are the fuel. This was what pushed him to put up a website called lovelikefireindia.com as a means to get out to the world what God has done and what God is doing. For Matthew, this was God’s idea and ministry. 

Matthew also shared the story of how he inherited an orphanage in India. One of the things that became crucial for him was to ensure that all 20 children in that orphanage were given beds to sleep on. He felt like this was an act of obedience and he was going to reach out. Through faith and God’s sovereignty, they were able to raise funds and achieve this goal. Matthew shares how God has shown him this as his purpose. Just like in Genesis 12:2, “Where God speaks to Abraham and he says, I will bless you and I will make you a blessing”, Matthew has been blessed and has also become a blessing to others. 

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Global Hope India: For over 20 years we have been watching God radically transform thousands of Americans & Indian Nationals through missions. We’ve taken nearly 1,000 Americans on short-term mission trips to India. We work with 12 long-term indigenous church planting partners located in North, South, East, & West mainland India as well as Northeast India. We empower the Church in India to make Christ known through leadership, child, & village development projects. Global Hope India is a federally recognized 501(c)3 nonprofit organization located in Morrisville, North Carolina. All gifts are tax-deductible. More about GHI.

More about Missions Changed My Life Podcast.

Meet Pastor Kevin: Pastor Kevin is Founder and Executive Director of Global Hope India and your host for Missions Changed My Life Podcast. He’s a poor kid from rural North Carolina, but get this… He just returned from his 50th trip to India in 20 years. If he doesn’t yet hold the Guinness Book of World Records for the most trips to India then he’s got to be close. He’s flown over a million miles to 27 different countries. He’s taken nearly 1,000 people on mission trips to India. Global Hope India has seen thousands of Indian Nationals and Americans radically transformed by God through missions. The miracle continues! More about Pastor Kevin.

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