HI Friend, I hope one of the reasons you are reading this is because you have been blessed by my devotionals, Fresh Manna or my Tweets that I send out frequently to help bring God’s word to those that have never read a Bible. If you don’t know who Renee and I are, I encourage you to read the “About Me” page.
I have been writing Fresh Manna since the year 2000. I wrote four times a week for the first 17 years and three times a week since 2017. Until the beginning of 2017, I’d never had a donate button on my site nor asked for a penny. To the contrary, my only desire was to give. So, let me quickly get to the bottom line if you don’t have time to read all this! Renee and I take no money personally from this effort. To the contrary, we give to it from our personal income each year. We also personally contribute to our very small administrative costs. All donations go completely to outreach and missions.
Though my calling had been in pastoring for the past 37 years, writing Fresh Manna has been a way for me to reach beyond the four walls of the church. What started as act of obedience to the Lord in the the year 2000, has turned into the honor of reaching the world with the gospel, and the joy of touching the heart of millions with the love, teaching of God’s word, and grace of Jesus Christ. Twitter and writing Fresh Manna together have become the vehicles for that privilege! When I first started writing, I had no idea that it would evolve to the point it has today. 20 years later, Fresh Manna has now been read in over 227 countries (195 official and 32 unofficial or otherwise called regions or territories by the United Nations). I have people write me daily with their thanks, their kind words, their problems and their requests for prayers. I’ve done my best to respond to the majority of them.
I began using Twitter in 2008 to increase reaching more people with the love of Jesus, and I now have over 187,000 followers who each have their own follower base. My tweets on Twitter, which are almost exclusively about the love of God, are re-tweeted (resent out by others) thereby reaching millions virally on a daily basis. Those who follow me on Twitter also communicate with me and often ask for prayer or guidance. I do my best to respond to almost every one of those people. Needless to say, this has become a labor of love which I have adjusted my life to accommodate. I initially gave up Marathon running to free up hours of daily running so that I could do this. It’s been well worth it. I retired from 35 years of pastoring in May 2017 so that I could devote more time to this and mission work with my wife Renee.
We have children on the mission field: my daughter Stephanie, her husband Daniel Gutierrez, and my two granddaughters Madeline and Macy! They live in the developing third world country of Peru and do amazing work as missionaries which we participate in. They are helping lead a missionary church of thousands, and reaching the lost and impoverished continuously and in a variety of ways. Daniel is an executive pastor on and he and Stephanie are teaching pastors. Daniel also travels South America mentoring pastors in other countries. And they also help support an orphanage in Peru that takes in abandoned fully-disabled children who are unable to care for themselves and who would most likely die if they were not cared for here. Missionaries in some countries are not allowed to make a wage in that country. That is the case in Peru. Daniel and Stephanie’s missionary work is supported solely by the donations of generous people and churches.
Renee and I took a step of faith in 2019 increasing our outreach efforts on the mission field by adding Africa to our outreach in Peru and India. If you would like to read more about this work, please read the post An Inspiring Work of God! And visit our Ministry Picture Gallery Page.
In His Love,
Pastor Timothy and Renee Burt