LINK TO THE CAST NET PUBLICATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
Dear Friends of FOMMI:
Greetings to our readers! This prayer letter is not so much a reporting of current happenings with FOMMI as it is a tribute to my late husband, Andrew Wayne “Fisher” Mund, who spent the last thirty-seven years of his life spreading various nets to reach the lost around the world (with an emphasis on those in the fishing industry). He stepped into uncharted waters in 1984 when he yielded to the nudging of the Holy Spirit to begin the mission outreach that became FOMMI.
His many years of experience in radio broadcasting led him to develop a network of stations carrying programs he began to produce called “A Fisherman’s 5-Minute Look at the Book” for M-F, and a 15-minute week-end program called “The Mariner’s Call”. Thus radio became the first “net” spread to catch the lost. Today these broadcasts are literally heard around the world through access to conventional radio stations as well as access on the internet from the website fomm.org, or a variety of podcasts. The latest testimony from radio listeners came in on February 14 from a listener to a radio station in North Dakota. He wrote, “I just wanted to thank you for your quick, practical sermons! I listen while I work on my ranch so I really appreciate the short, condensed sermons. Thank you and I hope they will continue, God willing.” A long-time listener from the Caribbean, whom I consider a close friend, wrote a special note to me when Fisher-Mund abruptly flew away in September 2021. She paraphrased a well-known poem by James Whitcomb Riley called “Away”. She wrote “He is Only Away” and quoted Song of Solomon 8:7.
He is only away.
In your thoughts and your heart
You are always together,
Never apart.
In your sorrow remember
He is only away.
Though he may not be with you
The memories stay,
And in time, when the hurt isn’t too much to bear,
When you look in your heart
He will still be there.
These two are only a drop in the bucket of those who have had their hearts affected by the Holy Spirit through the faithful preaching of God’s Word via radio in those thirty-seven years.
The printed page became the second “net” spread to catch the lost. This publication (THE CAST NET) was begun in 1985, and shortly after that a supporting church in Kentucky began to print tracts with “fishy” titles for FOMMI. Those tracts were used around the world and one tract is responsible for the establishing of the thriving work in the Philippines, Fishers of Men Baptist Church in San Fernando City, La Union (another story). Later a discipleship book titled “Anchors of the Faith” was compiled with the help of two preacher friends. While tracts are no longer printed, the discipleship book is still widely used and is even now having a reprinting that is adding two chapters Fisher-Mund wrote just months before he left us. Anyone satisfactorily completing the study and chapter testing of “Anchors of the Faith” receives a certificate from FOM “C” School. In 2000 the book “Nautical Notes” was published. It was written as part of the requirement for Fisher-Mund’s doctoral degree at Great Plains Baptist Divinity School. It continues to be a blessing to readers.
Church planting became the third “net” in 1989 as Fishermen Baptist Church in Bon Secour, Alabama was planted/established. Fishermen from the area who were part of an advisory board supported the need of a local church. That church just celebrated its 33rd anniversary and remains a gospel “net”.
Romans 10:14, “…how shall they hear without a preacher?”, was the force that set the fourth “net” in the establishing of Bible schools in the Philippines and India. Young men continue to be trained who are reaching out to the lost in their areas. (More stories here.)
The fifth “net” that was able to be cast in the thirty-seven year period was an outreach in Bangladesh. That ministry has been and continues to be extremely fruitful, with the majority of their converts being the fishermen that Fisher-Mund had envisioned way back in 1984. (Many stories continue.)
I want to publish part of a letter from 2014 where a resident of Maine was saved through reading material much like what you have seen in this edition of THE CAST NET. A man who lived in N.H. and Maine and had visited FOMMI in Bon Secour, wrote that he had put his son, an atheist who mocked God, on the mailing list of THE CAST NET over 15 years prior. The son had not spoken to the father for years. The father wrote, “I hunt in Maine October and November. While hunting a road I’ve shot mucho deer on—same road my son lives on, very remote—a car pulled alongside and the occupant says, ‘Seeing any deer?’ and so on. I talked to him 5-10 minutes and it dawned on me it was my son; anyway, ice was kind of broken. I lived in a camp on the other side of the mountain from him, so I drove over a couple times a week to see him. In our conversation one time, and many times afterward, he starts talking of things of God, even taking Jesus Christ’s name in a wonderful, positive way. I’m saying to me, ‘What in the world’s happening here?’ He then tells me of some guy who was a fisherman all his life and started a church near Foley, Alabama, sends him a newsletter every month or so. This kid (now over 50 years old) had fished Alaska, Greenland, off the coast of New England, a superb net-mender, and to him the only people who are intelligent, smart and wonderful are other fishermen. Somehow this fisherman near Foley, Alabama (Bon Secour) got to him with the gospel. Thank you, Lord, and thank you Fisher-Mund. Hopefully this letter encourages you. Your letters always encourage me.”
Back to the present 2022. FOMMI has begun distributing business cards with QR codes that will take a user to a radio broadcast and/or a presentation of the gospel. If you could distribute some of these, let the office know and we will mail them to you. Maybe this will be the sixth “net” for FOMMI and Fisher-Mund.
FOMMI continues only because the call of God to reach out is still there and time is short. Thank you for your faithful prayer and financial support. Revelation 22:20, “…Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Continuing on,
Lenora Mund
Office Manager
Fishers of Men Ministries International
PO Box 400
Bon Secour AL 36511
(251) 752-1495
awmund@fomm.org