President’s Letter

Having set a personal goal to study the book of Hebrews in 2004, I am immediately struck by the words of chapter one, verse three: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” “Sustaining” means upholding, maintaining, guiding and propelling.

As I think of the ways God has worked in our family of organizations this past year, I’m assured, more than ever, that we can depend on Him to sustain us. We just finished a wonderful year. In November, 150 global leaders gathered at the JAARS Center in Waxhaw to unify and discover strategies to accelerate progress toward Vision 2025. We are awed to see that happening and to realize we are part of God’s plan for the nations.

In the practical outworking of Vision 2025, our Sustainer invites us to trust Him in greater ways. Within the next three years JAARS must be able to meet any major support challenge within three months of the need being known. A daunting aspiration. But if I read Hebrews 1:3 correctly, we can depend on God to sustain us in every need—even in our need to trust Him more.

The worldwide supply of aviation gas continues to be critically low, and this is a concern. Yet we are encouraged as we see God at work. The provision of an airplane not dependent on avgas—a PC-6, for operation in Southeast Asia—came in a way we had not imagined, through a church foundation. With the shared use of this airplane as sustenance, we will continue to seek funding for PC-6 and PC-12 aircraft to replace aging avgas planes.

On December 30 JAARS signed a contract to purchase a Bell Long Ranger Helicopter for service in Papua New Guinea. It will need some retrofitting, but we hope to do that, paint it, crate it and ship it to PNG by the end of July. Encouraged by these aircraft additions, we pray and watch expectantly for what God will do next.

The year ended with a sigh of satisfaction, when I learned the results of our annual audit—excellent. We had our share of difficulties in 2003, but the God of Hebrews sustained us, and we are grateful.

To start the new year well, the JAARS leadership team and their spouses retreated together to pray, to build up team cohesiveness and to reexamine our goals. We asked ourselves: Do we clearly see the vision of where God is leading us? Do we trust Him to sustain us on the way? We answered yes to both questions, based on faith in God, who enables.

By His sustaining grace,

2003 Financial Report