Thanksgiving had special meaning to me this year. The week of Thanksgiving I returned from a mission trip to Moldova. While in Moldova I heard again what I hear every time I travel overseas. A number of persons told me that the dream of their lifetime is to go to America. We live in the most wonderful country on the planet! I told Janice that if Americans only realized how blessed we are as a people, they would celebrate Thanksgiving with new meaning.

Some of the leadership in Moldova told me that the number of bright young people leaving Moldova and coming to live in the United States is creating a crisis of leadership for the future of their country. On my return trip I met a young Moldovan woman on the airplane who was on her way to Texas to meet a man that she was considering marrying though she had never met him and though he was eighteen years her senior, because (in her words) "...then I could become a citizen of the United States."

We live in a land of plenty and privilege, a land of blessing and opportunity, a land of freedom and prosperity. I find myself wanting to shout this to every demonstrator, complainer and cynic who is critical of our beloved country and our leaders though they offer no solution to the real and serious issues we face. In the midst of our exercising our freedom of speech we should offer thanks to God that we live in America where we are free and so blessed that to most of the world it is incomprehensible.

Speaking at the Preaching Conference in Columbus, I remarked that one of the latest excuses being offered for not supporting missions through the Cooperative Program is: "People no longer want to send money away to support ministries they have not personally seen, to people they do not personally know. Nowadays, people want to spend their money on things they are involved in personally."

If you have made such a statement or if you are in agreement with this statement, I want to suggest to you that our fine Southern Baptist missionaries serving across the world today would be glad to welcome you to their mission field. I have never known our missionaries to be any other way than welcoming of any Southern Baptist who would come to join with them in mission work.

If you must see and experience for yourself before you will give, then by all means you should go to the mission field. Before you do, however, realize that there are not many of us who are ready to live in the kind of conditions many of our missionaries are living in.

If you want to be physically present with your money on the mission field, you need to be prepared to eat things that you have thought inedible. Be ready to give up the comfort of central heat and air. Be ready to be sick with dysentery and have only a primitive outhouse and no running water. Be ready to live with flies and disease-carrying mosquitoes. Be ready to live day and night with the stench of raw sewage. Be ready to take cold baths with a dishpan full of water. Be ready to deal with sickness without the convenience of the finest medical centers in the world. Be prepared to be the lone American in an environment that is hostile to Americans.

With all due respect, I don't really think we are as prepared as we say we are to give our money only if we can go with the money to the mission field and see how it is spent.

Every time I see firsthand the conditions in which our missionaries live and work I am overwhelmed by the level of their commitment to Christ and to their calling. I came away from Moldova with a renewed commitment to do all that I can to encourage Georgia Baptists and Southern Baptists to be faithful in our support of these wonderful people. As we enter the season of prayer for international missions and consider our gift this year through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, I pray that we will be faithful and generous in our support of the preaching of the Gospel around the world.

As we enter 2004, let us commit to make it the greatest year in the history of our Convention in supporting the Cooperative Program. No dollars spent in 2004 will be better spent than those that support the work of missions across the world. The Bible teaches us that "Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Luke 12:48). From what I have seen, I have no doubt in my mind that we Americans are the most blessed people in the world today. It is required that we be faithful.