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Welcome!

I personally would like to welcome you to my blog. My most recent and up-to-date news can be read and subscribed to here. To get started, here is my bio, which can also be viewed on my personal profile page through WorldVenture :

Bear Yarbrough anticipates serving as a church planter in Mali, Africa. He plans to work among the Senoufo, an unreached people group of 2.7 million in the 10/40 Window (the 10/40 Window is 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees latitude above the equator where the highest concentration of unreached people remain in the world).

Bear’s ultimate goal is to plant a church of Christ-followers who are self-sufficient, self-governing and self-propagating. He will assist in translating the Bible into a local unwritten dialect, teach the Bible chronologically (teaching through the Bible from creation to Christ for a clear gospel to be presented) and engage in community development.

Bear, who was raised in a loving Christian home, recognized at a very young age that he needed to receive the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. As he grew in his faith, Bear served the church wherever he could. During 7th grade, he began to sense God leading him into full-time Christian service. By 9th grade, he fully dedicated himself to following God unconditionally in His service.

Throughout high school, Bear was involved in various ministries. He helped establish a Christian club on his high school campus. He joined a ministry named Students With A Testimony (S.W.A.T.) that traveled all over the southeast leading small group discipleship weekends. Bear started preaching in local churches to youth groups, and he led the 8th grade boys Sunday school class at his church. He also became involved in a community children’s outreach by volunteering at the local downtown mission and working for the YMCA.

While attending Liberty University, Bear heard a statistic that 99 percent of the world’s youth pastors are in America. Baffled by this gap and chasm in global ministry to youth, Bear prayed seeking God’s will. After a summer of prayer, God gave him a vision for planting churches among unreached tribal groups.

Bear's global view started by working in the slums of Guatemala City, Guatemala; learning the culture of Bogota, Colombia; backpacking in the Himalayas of Asia to pass out Bibles and radios so the mountain people could hear the Gospel in their dialect; and serving as a youth intern for two summers at Ipswich Baptist Church in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Bear has also served as a youth pastor for a church plant; the summer youth pastor at Amissville Baptist Church Amissville, VA; and currently serving as a youth director of Grace Church in Roanoke, VA and interning with WorldVenture in their Coaching Department.

Bear's heart and passion for missions has been recognized by the Church as well as Liberty University. Bear has received the World Impact Award and the David Aurthur DeMoss Award, the highest award given by Liberty University to the student that exemplifies a passion for foriegn missions and motivates others in that direction.

Bear is looking forward to seeing the unreached reached with the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ.