Kingdom-advancer Gail Hamilton went to live with Jesus on October 18, 2018. Before she passed from pancreatic cancer, she spent the final years of her life making a difference in the lives of female church planters halfway around the world from her home in Pennsylvania. By partnering with Enhance* and Stadia, Gail’s family still work as catalysts to provide funding and training – both vocational and theological- for future female church planters in Southern Asia, where nearly 500 million people have never heard the name of Jesus.
Listen to Gail’s story and then take your next step to support female church planters in Southern Asia!
Gail Hamilton
I’m part of a great legacy of strong women. I have 4 daughters who are all leaders in their churches and workplaces. My husband, Don, and I have shared a ministry in Harrisburg, PA, as well as working on our own individual ministries, for more than 34 years. God has been good to us in so many ways.
At the end of 2016, my life changed when I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.
With my diagnosis, the sense of urgency surrounding my choices heightened. I spent a lot of time thinking about my priorities and the legacy I will leave when Jesus calls me home. I’ve realized that my daughters are my legacy and will carry on my legacy, along with those I have helped to know Jesus. Relationships and bringing more people to heaven are the only things that really matter! With that in mind, I found myself asking, “What else do you want me to do, Lord? What else can I do for Your Kingdom?”
About that time, we received a call from our friends at Stadia, who has been instrumental in starting hundreds of new churches. Stadia partners with Enhance*, an organization that seeks to fulfill the Great Commission in Southern Asia, where the largest concentration of unreached people groups live. In our conversations with Stadia, we learned that over 500 million people in Southern Asia have never even heard the name of Jesus, and around 26 million children are unwanted, calling the streets their home. I cannot even wrap my mind around these numbers and the sever poverty that exists!
Enhance and Stadia are just as impacted by these staggering numbers. Starting in 2017, Stadia began partnering with 25 young women who are receiving training and support in a transformation center in Southern Asia through Enhance. These graduates, who are first generation Christians, will work in an average of three communities each in their first five years of ministry.
When I heard about this ministry, it felt as though God had answered my, “What else?” question with extreme clarity. My family and I are now serving as catalysts, promoting awareness of and raising funds for this great need. We have been blessed to be in a chain of godly women leaders and are now extending that chain into Southern Asia!
Don Hamilton
A few weeks ago I had the great honor of traveling to southern Asia to spend a few days with two groups of graduates from transformation centers. Along with my daughter Andrea and an awesome team of Gail’s Girls supporters, I had the opportunity to teach these excited young graduates, who are presently taking the Gospel to several dozen towns throughout a large region of that country. Within three/four years, in the neighborhood of 200 new churches will established. My time spent with teaching culminated with the opportunity to deliver the graduation address for these students.
At one point during the sessions I looked across the aisle to see one of the most beautiful sites I’ve beheld in a long time. There, on the front row, sat a beautiful young Gail’s Girl about to graduate. She was dressed in a beautiful golden traditional garb and there on her lap was her open Bible. Taped on to the inside cover of that Bible was a photograph of my wife, Gail. Though this young lady had never, nor would she ever meet Gail in this life, Gail’s affect her life was demonstrated in that she would accompany this young woman everywhere she went and every time the Words of Life were opened. I broke into tears and sometimes still weep when this picture comes to mind.
This is the third graduating class Gail’s fund-raising has supported and I know there will be many more. Now seventy-five young women are planting churches and God is transforming communities by the dozens.
We only have so many resources and so much time to make a difference for the Kingdom of God in this world. When you generously support Gail’s Girls, you know without a doubt that thousands of lives are being drawn to God. I know this is true, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. Please pray for and give generously to this ministry – Gail’s Girls.
On October 18, 2019 my wife, Gail, passed from this life and into her eternal life to be with her Lord Jesus. This was the culmination of a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Though this has been such a difficult journey for myself and my children, we have taken great consolation in the fact that Gail’s death was indeed a passing from one life to the next. She is no longer in pain and has more life now than she could ever possess on earth.
But there is another consolation from my wife’s passing – Gail’s Girls. We all leave a legacy, footprints if you will, when we pass from this earth. God decided to leave many footprints in Gail’s legacy. In southern Asian there are millions upon millions of people who have never heard the name of Jesus, much less had the opportunity to learn how much God loves them. God is using this partnership with Stadia and Enhance to change those facts. The ministry of Gail’s Girls is reaching thousands of people in this most unchurched area of the world. Thank you for sharing your resources so that the Gospel will reach these wonderful people.