So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Ephesians 2:19

I have written a number of Catches, especially in these last few years, about welcoming foreigners and strangers into our midst, thinking mostly of immigrants and refugees from other countries. There is so much war and political unrest in the world today that common, ordinary citizens are most often the worst victims. So many people uprooted, made homeless, and lost without a country. Such people have always been high on God’s list of priorities. That’s because He is a just God and it is His intent, if He hasn’t already, to correct this injustice and make right in the world what has gone terribly wrong. And when we add whatever human efforts we can contribute to this cause in this world, we are operating along with the will of God.

However, I have never thought of myself as a stranger or a foreigner, but in a spiritual respect, I am. As a Gentile, the Bible teaches that I am a stranger and a foreigner who has been welcomed into God’s forever family. I’ve been grafted into the tree. I don’t belong here, but here I am anyway. I have not only been welcomed; I’ve been adopted. And if you are a Gentile who believes in Jesus, the same thing has happened to you. So don’t you think we should be especially attuned to the foreigners and strangers — the immigrants — in our midst? When you see pictures and videos of Afghan refugees and South American and Mexican immigrants, we should not be so arrogant as to see ourselves as something other than them. We, too, are strangers and foreigners. And our salvation is a miracle of God’s grace.

Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:20-22

A Letter from Marti to the Catch Community of love

Dear Catch Community:

As earlier reported, John and I stepped out of sight from Minister and Ministry for three weeks this past August to re-introduce ourselves to each other, and beseech the Lord about His direction for the Ministry.  During the third week, we began diving into the tremendous mountain of responses we received from you via our “Your Participation Matters” request.  

We cannot even begin to thank you for our forthright, transparent, and good thinking, offering clear understandings and extremely impressive insights about the Catch Ministry’s strengths, weaknesses, barriers to overcome, and what the generations within the Catch community have to say about us as the Voice of Christ to this century’s generations. 

We received 10 times more responses from Catch Citizens than we anticipated. Of the many respondents participating, most attend a local community church at least once a month. The average age of the participants is 55, representing 40% women and 60% men.  We do not want to rush into the completing of the report until we have properly addressed the collected findings with your verbatim comments and conclusions. I trust you will agree that it is better to do the right thing for the right reasons over turning around a half-baked report in a “timely manner.” 

You simply have no idea how grateful we are for your overwhelming interest in the Catch Ministry by identifying several items that require attention, which provides, at the same time, the ability to discover together what actions we need to take. And toward the Catch Citizens’ desire to enter into the Voice of Christ for this century’s generations, we can only conclude that you who participated in our request are also listening for the Lord’s clear direction for His Catch Ministry. 

John offered the last 25 CDs of his Some Folks World album to the first 25 respondents to our request for ‘Your Participation Maters’ and they are:

1. John Jeffries 
2. Anne Rauth
3. Sandy Campbell
4. Wayne Bridegroom 
5. Gary Mintchell
6. Jay Baker 
7. Cynthia Cody 
8. Daryl Friesen 
9. June Fishman 
10. 10.Sandy Conant
11. 11.Kimm Mathieson 
12. 12.Pat Klever
13. 13.Paula Bernard 
14. 14.Terri Main
15. 15.Laquita Showen 
16. 16.Lin Ashlock
17. 17.Olivia Chan
18. 18.Mike Seto
19. 19.Greg Liming
20. 20.Steve Walsh
21. 21.Mark Seguin
22. 22.Toni Petrella
23. 23.Andy Parker
24. 24.Tom Bowman
25. 25.Kerry Austin 

Thank you again to everyone who participated — Your Participation Matters! We look forward to completing the report soon. 

Under His mercy,

Marti Fischer

CEO: The Catch Ministry Inc.