Moments Matter in Racing and Life, The Key to Sharing Hope & IMB Pipeline Tops 1,200

Timing is everything. For Nicholas Patterson it factored heavily in his coming to America. It remains the same for him on pit road every Sunday.

When he was a baby in Romania, a blizzard kept Patterson from being delivered to an orphanage from the hospital. Instead, he ended up being adopted by an American family.

On Feb. 19 he was in the pit crew that kept Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., near the lead of the Daytona 500 to claim the checkered flag. It was Patterson’s second trip to Victory Lane at the famed raceway, having been on the pit crew for 2021 winner Michael McDowell.

Patterson was born 11 days before his soon-to-be parents, Bobby and Christie, had a little girl. In the following years the family would add four more children through adoption, all from Russia.

In talking with BP, both Patterson and his (barely) younger sister, Chelsea Sobolik, spoke on how their faith remains important and shapes them in their careers. Sobolik was director of Public Policy for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission before accepting the position of senior director of Policy and Advocacy at Lifeline Children’s Services.
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What would be on the top of your priority list if you moved to another country to be a missionary? A former International Mission Board (IMB) missionary says it’s learning about the local people and culture.

“One of the tasks that is most central to being a missionary is becoming conversant with a different culture, different ways of viewing the world, different values and priorities,” Matthew Bennett said.

Bennett served with the IMB for more than seven years in the Middle East. Now, he’s a missions professor at Cedarville University. He was a recent guest on Baptist Press This Week, the BP’s video interview show.

He says that approach is not only helpful on the mission field, but with your next door neighbor.

In the interview he offers specific questions to open avenues of conversation and give tips for building relationship to do so.
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Good News for Today is sponsored by The Voice of the Martyrs

Good News for Today is made possible through our friends at The Voice of the Martyrs, a nonprofit organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world. Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, VOM is dedicated to inspiring believers to deepen their commitment to Christ and to fulfill His Great Commission — no matter the cost. Find out more and sign up for their free monthly magazine at vom.org/goodnews.
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The International Mission Board is celebrating more than 1,200 missionaries in their missionary pipeline. Through group crossed the threshold in early March.

It’s more than four times the number of missionaries in the pipeline in 2019.

The IMB says these are missionaries in the application process hoping for placement on the mission field.

The organizations’ goal is to always have 1,500 mission applicants in the pipeline.

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