Ministry Highlight Interview: Silas & Amanda Cheek

Tell me a little bit about your family and your life right now. 


            After school, we moved to Bend, OR, and have been there for seven years. God used these years to grow us in our marriage and to grow our family. Emma, who will turn six this spring, has a tender heart for others and loves to have fun. Issac and Isabella just turned three this February and, while they are opposite in every way, they both love doing puzzles and coloring all day long. We’ve been plugged into an amazing church here too called Eastmont, where we’re serving with the high school youth group and helping the worship team.



How did you two meet?


            While pursuing my dream of being a missionary pilot, I (Silas) began flight training, which ultimately lead to becoming an aircraft mechanic. I met Amanda in the process as I attended the church where her dad pastors in Tucson, AZ. I quickly realized her call and heart for missions. After being married, we attended Frontier School of the Bible to start our life together and to prepare for life in missions.



How did you first know you were called to ministry (individually and/or as a couple)?


            Amanda and I both grew up in full-time ministry families. Amanda’s parents have been working in ministry for 30+ years. My parents have been with UIM International for over 30 years. We both accepted the gift of salvation at the age of 5. With so many faithful individuals guiding us at every stage in our lives, we both felt called at a young age to be in full-time ministry. We never wanted to lose sight of this calling, and that’s why last year, we prayerfully applied to UIM.



How did God lead you to pursue UIM Aviation?


            Again pursuing God’s call on our hearts towards missions, the opportunity to join with UIM Aviation in Tucson, Arizona was open to us. We have always had a heart for this ministry and organization. We love the people in it and are excited to work alongside them.



What kind of process did you have to go through to become UIM appointees?


            Like with all mission organizations, we went through a thorough application process. We had references, outlined doctrinal statements, and an interview. We had the opportunity to go to their headquarters in Glendale, AZ for orientation where they officially made us appointees.



What type of ministry will you be doing?


            UIM International exists to share the Gospel with indigenous people groups across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Across Mexico many native people groups are in need of medical attention, essential goods, disaster relief aid, and, most importantly the hope of the gospel message. What takes several hours, even days, to travel rugged mountain roads, trails and unforgiving terrain takes only minutes in an airplane. God is working in the hearts of these wonderful people and is accomplishing the work through indigenous Church leaders, missionaries, missionary pilots, technicians and aircraft. Currently, there is a high need for aircraft technicians as there is more work than what personnel can easily manage.


            Silas will be onboard as an aircraft maintenance technician with the opportunity to continue flight training. Amanda will be onboard to assist with any non-aircraft work such as office administration, event coordination, and fund raising, in addition to being an amazing mom of three.



Is there a specific location where you hope to serve?


            We will be serving in Tucson, Arizona with extension to Mexico.



What is the projected timeline for your ministry?


            Our family needs to be 100% financially supported before being field missionaries with UIM. We are praying for a quick, yet lasting, financial partnership development so we can be available for the future God has for us on the field as soon as possible.



How are you serving the Lord right now as you wait to be sent to the mission field?


            During our time in Bend, the Lord placed us in an amazing local church where we have all enjoyed serving and growing spiritually as a family.



How can people support you as you begin your journey with UIM Aviation?


            Pray – Our dependence on the Father through prayer is key to any ministry. We are asking committed family and friends to be on our prayer team to consistently GO for us in prayer. Your vital role will be the life blood of this ministry, helping it thrive and be fruitful to the glory of our Lord.


            Give – Again, we need to be 100% financially supported before we are able to begin our journey as field missionaries with UIM. You can give by mailing a check payable to UIM International designated for Silas and Amanda Cheek to P.O. Box 6429, Glendale, AZ 85312-6429. For those who would rather give online, you can go to uim.org/donate. You will receive our newsletter and updates. Any amount helps! Thank you in advance for your generosity and service!

Thanks for reading!  And a huge thank you to all of you who are prayerfully considering supporting this wonderful couple!  

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The Way (Part 2): Who Can Stand?

           

            Mankind as a whole is an ingenious lot.  God made us that way.  Flight, instant inter-continental communication, space travel, and robotic laparoscopies are just a few extreme examples of ways we have overcome barriers and surpassed the lines set before us.  On a smaller scale, we push ourselves to be better athletes, better musicians, better spouses, better parents, better professionals – whatever it is – by discipline, knowledge, creativity, cunning, or any other number of means.  If we don’t possess a specific character trait or skill, we believe we can strive to achieve it.  Our lack of motivation occasionally holds us back, but we believe that where there is truly a will, there is a way. 

In part one of this series, we established that God’s standard is perfection.  Is this expectation one that man can meet?  Can we will a way into existence?  Is it within us already like the MVP who gains his or her status by natural-born talent?  Or, can we earn it like the MVP who used a combination of hours of practice, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, and excellent coaching to reach the top?  Failing to obtain the title of MVP isn’t life-altering.  Will we suffer any significant loss if we don’t live up to the demand of perfection? 

God gives us the answers to these questions in His Word.  He has revealed to us exactly what condition we are in.

1.  We don’t have it within us already. 

           

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.  Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah17:9 NLT).  Our culture teaches us to follow our hearts above all else.  Those who are considered to be exceptionally good people are described as having a heart of gold.  God warns us that we don’t even know the depths of the wickedness and deception in our hearts – including the so-called golden ones.

“Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NLT).  No one is perfect – not even the sweet grandma who wouldn’t hurt a fly and has dedicated her life to helping others. 

“No one is righteous – not even one….For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:10, 23 NLT).  We do not measure up, and we cannot measure up.  In and of ourselves, we all fall short. 

2.  We can’t achieve it.

“We are all infected and impure with sin.  When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.  Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind” (Isaiah 64:6 NLT).  Some people subscribe to the idea that the good things they do can cancel out or make up for the bad that they’ve done.  This verse says that even the best things we do are like filthy rags.  The translation of  filthy rags is toned down from the literal meaning of menstrual rags.

“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.  And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law.  For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law” (Galatians 2:16 NLT).  Doing what is right – i.e., obeying the law – cannot make us right with God.  Doing what is wrong just once outweighs a lifetime of doing good.  Again, the standard is perfection.     

“God saved you by his grace when you believed.  And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Ephesians 2:8, 9 NLT).  Salvation cannot be earned.  We can go to church, read and talk about the Bible, care for orphans and widows, give all our money to missions, and get baptized and still not be saved.  Reconciling with God is impossible on the basis of doing good things.         

3. We can’t afford to fail.   

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NLT).  Just one sin is enough to earn death. 

“But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James1:14-15 NIV).  Sin promises us pleasure, hope, and happiness – and it may bring us those things temporarily.  However they will inevitably be overshadowed by immeasurable grief and death like the birth of a stillborn baby. 

“But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars – their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8 NLT).  Physical death (the separation of body from soul and spirit) is not the only death brought about by sin.  Sin also separated us spiritually as individuals from God.  If we die physically without closing the gap of this spiritual separation from God, we enter the second death.  This is an eternal separation from God (our souls and spirits are immortal) with the additional torment of eternal punishment.  Failing to meet God’s standard of perfection has serious eternal consequences.

           

            God’s requirement is perfection.  We do not have perfection within us, and we cannot earn it or achieve it.  We fall short, and there is nothing we can do about it.  Even if we have the will, we cannot make a way.  Failing to meet God’s requirement results in death (physical, spiritual, and eternal), so we cannot afford to fail.  Our need is great.      

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The Way (Part 1): How Good is Good Enough?

           

            How good is good enough? Lines are drawn early on. Athletes know them well. Line 1 – you are allowed to join the sport. Lines 2 through 6 – you make some level of a team (c, b, a, junior varsity, varsity – which might betray the size of school I grew up in). Line 7 – you play little more than a bench warmer. Line 8 – you get average playing time. Line 9 – you are a starter. Line 10 – you are the team’s MVP. Similar lines are drawn in nearly every area of life – from the bands, drama teams, student councils, and academics of teenage years to the careers, homemaking skills, parenting styles, and economic statuses of adulthood. We like knowing where the lines are drawn and what rewards we can receive for crossing them: recognition, influence, compensation, etc.   

            

            Too many individuals carry this thinking with them into the church.  We can get caught in the trap of viewing and treating people according to the “salvation scale” we have concocted in our heads.  The lead pastor of course is ultra-saved.  Then come the other pastors and staff, followed closely by the senior saints, home-schooled families, and families who serve in every ministry possible.  After that, the average, busy “lay” families, the singles, the college students, the “drink, but not unto drunkenness” crowd, and the church youth group take their place.  The edgy fringe families with tattoos, those with messy lives, the pastor’s rebellious kid, and the teenage hoodlums who don’t go to youth group fall in the “maybe they’re sort-of saved” group.  Next are the Chreasters (Christmas and Easter crowd) – we only see them a couple times a year, so they don’t even really count.  Then there’s the prodigals – who can’t possibly be saved and probably were never saved in the first place.  I mean, did you hear what they did?  And forget all the people who never go to church (who wouldn’t want the pressure of having another ladder to climb?). 

            By the way, I think Jesus weeps over the state of our hearts when we think this way (his followers included doctors, fishermen, prostitutes, and tax collectors, and he valued them all equally and treated them with respect even before they believed in Him), but that’s not what I want to discuss here.  The question I want to ask is this: where is the line?  Do we all have to be in vocational ministry to really be saved?  Is there any hope for us once we’ve crossed too many lines in the opposite direction?  Do we all have to look the same to believe the same way?  Are there really some people who are “more saved” than others?  Does God only love us once we have crossed a particular line?  Which line is it?  How good is good enough? 

            God’s Word makes the answer pretty clear.  The requirement for entrance into heaven and into the very presence of God is perfection.  Check out the following verses.

“For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You” (Psalm 5:4).  No evil can dwell with (i.e., live with) God.  None.  This does not just refer to murder and rape but to all sin, including gossip, gluttony, and lying.  Sin is anything that falls short of God’s perfection.  That even includes not doing what we know to be right (James 4:17).  Just one imperfection is enough to separate us from God (James2:10).    

Revelation 21:4 is often quoted and is talking about the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:1, 2) in the new heaven and earth: “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”  What many people don’t realize is that this is not an all-inclusive promise.  Not everyone will get to experience this paradise.  Of this same place, it is also written: “and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it….” (Revelation21:27).

You can also look at 2 Peter 3:13 and Habakkuk 1:13 for more reading on this point, but the standard is clear.  There is one line for all, and that line is perfection.  Nothing less will do.  Logically, this makes sense.  Heaven cannot be a perfect place if even slightly imperfect people are allowed into it.  A perfect God cannot tolerate imperfection.  I know I am not perfect, and I don’t know anyone else who would claim to be.  This truth is the great equalizer.  No matter what our race, gender, age, economic status, Bible knowledge, or background, we all fall short of perfection.  Yet, this is God’s demand.  If this is so, who can possibly stand? 

To be continued…

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