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Friendship Baptist Church |
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2008 Missions Conference |
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Ralph and Louise Green Word of Life
Children: Nathan, Stephen, Raymond |
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We were born and raised in South Charleston, West Virginia, both in Christian homes, and both in the same Bible believing church. Ray accepted the Lord at age seven and I accepted the Lord at age four. Ray went to college at LeTourneau College in Longview, TX, and came back to WV knowing that the Lord wanted him in ministry, but not knowing what or where, so he took a job in a parts department of the automobile dealership in which he had worked during the summers while he was in college. I knew from a very early age that I was to be a nurse, and when I was 14 I surrendered to my Savior to do whatever he wanted me to do. Ray and I started dating when I was a senior in High School, and we were engaged before I left to attend Fairmont State College that fall. We didn’t know what the Lord was going to do with us, but we knew we would be doing it together! Our very first ministry together was directing Game Time for our Church’s AWANA program.
We were married in 1983, and I graduated with a nursing degree in 1984, taking a job at a local community hospital. That nursing degree has proved to be a great blessing, both in opportunities to minister to people, and in financial support for our ministry. God continued working in both of our hearts, and Ray quit his secular job in 1986 to become the Assistant Pastor at our home church. He served in that capacity for eight years, primarily working with the youth ministries of the church, both AWANA and Word of Life. We were growing by leaps and bounds because of the discipleship ministry of our Word of Life Missionary, and by being involved in his ministry of evangelism and discipleship. Sensing a call to change to a different ministry, God confirmed His call for us to work with Word of Life in March of 1994, as we saw a number of Jr. High boys trust Christ at a Basketball Marathon.
We served from our hometown in West Virginia from 1994 to 1999, ministering with churches in West Virginia and Southeastern Ohio. In 1999, seeing an open door and a need for another missionary in North Carolina, the leadership of Word of Life asked us to move to Raleigh.
We are thrilled with the ministry God has called us to here! Our goal is to work with local churches to reach young people with the gospel and train them to have vibrant testimonies that will reach their friends, and the world! We probably work more with adults than young people, developing a discipleship relationship with them, and helping them teach young people to “feed themselves” through an organized program of group Bible Study, personal devotions, scripture memory, Christian Service, and accountability. Our favorite discipleship tool is the Word of Life Quiet Time Diary, which is published for all ages. There’s nothing like having a whole family, a whole youth group, or even a whole church reading the same passage of scripture every day, and talking to each other about it! We have friends all over the world who are in the same passage of scripture that we are on any given day, which is very exciting. I am privileged to be on the writing team responsible for putting together the Quiet Time Diary for 5th & 6th graders.
We run evangelistic events—large regional events as well as community events at the local church level, and help the church leadership set up follow-up programs for those new believers. We run a program called Teens Involved, which is a program of ministry training, in which young people are encouraged to try out different areas of ministry to discover their areas of giftedness and work to improve them. Our local church ministry dovetails with the WOL camping ministry, WOL Youth Reachout (a program of short-term mission outreaches in cooperation with WOL overseas missionaries) and the WOL Bible Institute, which is a great place for new high school graduates to learn the Word of God while discovering what He would have them do next.
Ray loves to preach and teach, and is in a different church nearly every Sunday. He is the Area Coordinator for North and South Carolina, which means he oversees the ministries of two other missionaries, and is responsible for accountability between the three of them. He also writes for the Teen Curriculum team, which puts out a new Bible Study program each year. Both of us do leadership training, both at a regional level and in local churches, tailor-made for their ministry needs. I occasionally speak to ladies groups, and am a big fan of small group discipleship for believers of all ages.
God has blessed us with three sons, all of whom love the Lord and have contributed to our ministry in many ways. Raymond, 21, has completed both years of Word of Life Bible Institute and is currently interning at Word of Life to complete his degree and possibly join the staff of Word of Life. Stephen, 20, is a sophomore at Bryan College in Dayton, TN, and is studying music education. Nathan, 16, is a junior here at Friendship Christian School, and believes the Lord is calling him into missions aviation. We covet your prayers for them as God continues to mold them into the men he wants them to be. |
