Missions

Tuesday our team completed songbooks for our Missions Conference. Bro. Russell brought the booklet from his previous church, but it was printed on colored paper and our copier could not make readable copies. So Mrs. Darla retyped the sheets. The songs had no music of their own – but the tunes were familiar hymns.

It took a short bit of formatting on my part, then we had a twenty-page, 5.25 x 4.25 booklet ready to print. Oh yes, there are a few more steps. First of those is a donated copier that has a few quirks. About every 20 to 30 copies, a special menu must be run. Sort of a ‘stand on your right foot, then stand on your left, hold your right ear with your left hand…’ Well, I’m sure you have such a piece of equipment!

Pastor, who knows how to treat the copier, made the copies, while I started on the first batch – stapling twice, folding then boning to have them lay flat. Voila! Come Sunday morning everyone will have a missions-oriented songbook.

Monday, other people were decorating the sanctuary. From the rafters swing flags from each nation where we have missionaries. Unlike churches who donated to a cooperative program or association center, our funding is sent to a specific missionary. We know their names. We have pictures of their families. We have their letters on our walls. We correspond with them. We pray specifically for them.

This is not an abstract “We support missions.” This is a specific “Here are our missionaries to …” and now we can point them out on a map. Bro. Bill and Bro. David provided a clear wall map. Bro. Adam placed missionary names on the wall and threads from them to the correct spots on the map.

There are some blanks. We’ll work on filling those in. In fact, some visiting missionaries are bound for a few of those blank spots. Perhaps we will be able to add them to those we support.

What we are doing is tangible through this display, but it is all based on faith. You know, that substance of things hoped for; evidence of things unseen that we’ve spoke of before. Well, part of it is seen. You see it in the men, women and children who gather to sing His praises. You see it in the families who accept His call and head to the fields that are white already to harvest.

If you cannot come join us for our Missions Conference October 19-22, please join with us in prayer for the conference and our missionaries.