Missions done right (7/31/09)

The past week has been memorable. I told my staff yesterday that our trip with St. Andrew's Anglican Church serving with the Staceyville circuit of Baptist churches was everything a mission trip should be. The church was a youth group from Arkansas with four adult leaders. They're an extremely evangelical and charismatic group of Christians who were sold on our vision and purpose from the very beginning of the week. In order to give the proper description, i'd say they have the tradition and structure of the catholic church (everything the catholic church does right) while also having the vision and purpose of a protestant evangelical church. The group leader, Mike Cavallo, is one of the best youth pastors i've ever met. His students follow him and look to him as a leader who leads by example and has a great heart for God. Talking with Tito and Cassie, my staff for the week, we decided that this was one of the biggest differences between this and other mission trips we've been part of leading. The fact that the church leaders have it all together and the young people follow them is monumental. This week we worked with the Staceyville Baptist Church circuit. They were a fantastic church to work with. The churches in the circuit are: Rhoden Hall, Cowley, Staceyvill, and Douglas Castle. We got to see and meet people from all of the churches except Douglas Castle. Most of our work consisted of VBS at two of the churches, some construction at Rhoden Hall (helping put up a cieling), and getting to know people in the community through prayer and encouragement. We stayed at the Kellits High School, where we ate most of our meals and had our meetings as well. We lost our tap water for two straight days and went without showers. The team was encouraged by the words of Paul we studied during the week about his hardships and toil in ministry, yet his concern for the churches he worked with being so much greater of a burden. We were blessed to get a shower on our last day of ministry before we left Kellits. Some key people i'll never forget from this week are: Michael Brymer, Cooper Lumpkin, Mike Cavallo, Ricardo Ross, Rita Ebanks, Deacon Horace, Ms. Barrett and the cooks, Sidney from the track team who I never did get to race, and Reupert Miller from the Staceyville Church. It's really cool to see what God can do with a group of people who simply want to serve God and not get caught up in their pride, comfort, complacency, and stubborness. St. Andrew's Anglican Church plans on returning next summer to the Staceyville circuit. It sounds like they want to focus more time out at the Staceyville Church, but also continue their relationship and work with Ricardo Ross, the deacon at Rhoden Hall.