DECEMBER 22, 2009 ISSUE
“Hola, Welcome To the Yucatan!”
Boone Fork Baptist Church To Send Eighteen Volunteers to Yucatan in January
This Mayan boy, pictured at left, has, in addition to his Operation Christmas Child shoebox, several child-oriented pamphlets that will help him understand about Jesus. At top right, one of the church’s visited by the Three Forks team members prepared a noon meal for the volunteers.To the delight of all, every child receives an Operation Christmas Child shoebox, picured at bottom right, that are labeled for boys or girls and each prepared according to age.
“Pack your bags; we’re headin’ south…Charlotte to Cancun to the Yucatan!”
The orders are dear to the hearts of a group of 18 people from Boone Fork Baptist Church. Next month, in mid-January, they’ll again head to southern Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to assist a local mission, Sandra’s House Mayan Ministry, in its work in partnership with Boone’s Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child. The journey has become a tradition for the church, one of Western North Carolina’s oldest, established in 1790.
Journeying into the known or unknown, as the case may be, is an important aspect of faith throughout the High Country. The granddaddy of all mission outreaches is Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse, which oversees Christmas gift giving through its Operation Christmas Child, medical outreaches to people the world over and global assistance whenever and wherever disasters strike. While Samaritan’s Purse’s ventures around the globe are well publicized, evangelical, medical and humanitarian work also involves numerous other people and churches throughout the High Country.
Each year, local church groups plan mission itineraries to what is literally “the ends of the Earth.” South America, Asia and Africa are but the tip of the journeying iceberg when it comes to where church members go to follow Christ’s call to “Go into all the world…” and minister to the needs of mankind.
National and international short-term missions are a staple of Watauga and Avery county churches, although most mission outreaches won’t be planned or formalized until the first quarter of 2010. A spot-check of various denominations throughout the region reveals that the following church groups tentatively plan on the following projects, with dates to be announced: First Baptist Church of Boone, mission trip to Kenya, for more information, call 828-264-2441; Pleasant Grove Baptist Church of Zionville, mission trip to Ecuador for children’s ministry and construction, for more information, call 828-297-7820; Heaton Christian Church, Elk Park, mission trip to Mexico, for more information, call 828-733-9460; Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Banner Elk, mission trip to Kenya for construction and setting up of water purification units plus Operation Christmas Child mission to the Philippines, for more info, call 828-898-4735; and Howard’s Creek Baptist Church, mission trip to the Bahamas Islands, for more information, call 828-264-1908.
Two other churches are well known for their work in the foreign mission field, although their 2010 trips are still in the formative stages: Alliance Bible Fellowship, for more information, call 828-264-8312; and Mount Vernon Baptist Church, for more information, call 828-266-9700.
“For us, the ‘go to’ mission field is Mexico,” explained David Ricker, pastor of Boone Fork Baptist Church. “Two members of our congregation got it all started with their own tales of serving the Lord in Mexico and at numerous other locations around the world. Through Power Point and other missions-oriented presentations,” he continued, “they got us all caught up in their enthusiasm for missions, our first taking place last January to Sandra’s House.”
Sandra’s House, located in Felipe Carrilo Puerto, Mexico, about a three-hour drive south from Cancun, is a multi-faceted outreach that not only partners with Samaritan’s Purse but also provides Christ-centered mission retreats for other U.S. based church families, medical outreaches, pastoral training for Mexican nationals and sponsors “Shoes for the Shoeless” through Samaritan’s Feet, an organization not affiliated with Samaritan’s Purse.
During their week-long stay in the Yucatan, the Three Forks team will do the “grunt work” in helping Sandra’s House personnel deliver the Samaritan’s Purse shipping boxes to their exchange sites, which are often several hours into the surrounding jungle to remote and often primitive villages. They will move the large boxes, each containing several dozen smaller shoeboxes, from the warehouses to the villages by vans and one large trailer. Once on-site, Mexican ministers will open the containers and give the children the carefully packaged shoeboxes prepared and donated by American families.
“It’s rare for church groups to travel on Operation Christmas Child (OCC) missions, as we like for the national pastors and the resident teams to oversee everything,” OCC spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse Stacy Wilson said. “The shoeboxes are a tool for local churches which they use to minister to the children. What we want is for the focus to be on the local pastors and not on the Americans who go to assist the teams.”
This is the case with the group from Three Forks; they will serve the four-person resident team at Sandra’s House with its OCC project but stay “in the background,” allowing the Mexican pastors and their staffs to deal directly with the children.
It’s a time of celebration for the Mexican ministers and their young flocks, one, which combines a short church service and Christian entertainment and singing with the opening of the boxes. As they open their gifts from Operation Christmas Child, the short-term missionaries gather around to share the joy with the Mayan children…playing with them, well, just like kids.
“I thought it was very rewarding to see how the Mayan people actually live. It was definitely eye opening, the difference in how they live compared to how we live. We take a lot for granted…running water, fresh food, even bathrooms. Getting out into their villages, there were no bathrooms nor running water, yet the people seemed content. It really makes you think about this so-called condition of poverty; we have so much and yet so many of us aren’t happy; they have almost nothing, yet they are content. We’re always striving to get more, yet they remain content with what little they have,” shared volunteer David Stapleton.
Are these annual missions to Mexico a new page in Three Fork’s mission endeavors?
“Absolutely!” stressed Ricker. “We Christians sometimes live in our own little bubbles even in our own hometowns and never really see what’s going on around us, much less what’s going on in others’ lives in foreign countries. This trip took us out of our comfort zone—a.k.a. the recliner in our living rooms—and put us face-to-face with other people
God created that need the love of Jesus shown to them. We at Three Forks,” he stressed, “are growing more and more determined to share the love of Christ with whomever we come into contact with, whether in Boone, Mexico or wherever else God may have us go. We just recently had another of our college students go on a mission trip to Africa. That’s an amazing story in itself. We’re certainly open to other mission opportunities.”
“While this was not my first mission trip, it certainly was the most life-changing. Being with the group in Mexico gave me a whole new perspective on how really blessed we are here in the United States. The Mayans value every small thing; they have no need of the complicated material possessions we Americans’ love. I’ll never forget the two girls who found paper napkins in their shoeboxes; they treated them like the finest linen, caressing them and folding them neatly, something we wipe our mouths on and throw away. It was an emotionally draining trip but also such a blessing for us all,” shared volunteer Evie Robertson.
For Ricker, the most memorable part of the church’s mission to Mexico centered around one small Mayan.
“There was a little two-year old girl who had no shoes; her feet were cut and bleeding from the rocky terrain in her village. When she got her shoebox and opened it, she at first discovered a rabbit, which she held onto and loved like it was her only possession…and may well have been. But then,” he added, “she looked into the bottom of the box and saw a pair of pink Crocs. Her eyes got big, a smile crossed her face and she reached in and hugged the shoes; they were her size and fit perfectly. That one moment made the whole trip worthwhile!”
By some “miracle,” each shoebox seemed to contain “just what the doctored ordered” for every child. Baby dolls, hair brushes, toys of unlimited sizes and shapes, toothbrushes, rubber balls, Crayons, coloring books, sandals, clothes, hats and a thousand other things children the world over love. And, in some shoeboxes, much to the delight of the children, individuals and families who’d packed the boxes had inserted photographs of themselves as a way of making the experience even more personal.
“The children are so thankful for the gifts they receive through Operation Christmas Child; in the process, they taught me to be thankful for all that I have simply through sharing their joy. While I’ve been on one other mission trip, to Bolivia with the Mount Vernon Youth Group, each trip is different. In Mexico, it was—Oh gosh! Oh wow!— the children even got excited about the cardboard boxes the toys came in! But, you know, to them our ‘loving up on them’ was even more important than the contents of the shoeboxes. If I can give one bit of advice to those who will go back to the Yucatan in January, it’s pray-up!” shared volunteer Betsy Bolick.
“I was on a medical mission to Sandra’s House two-years ago with a group from Boone’s Alliance Bible Fellowship, but our trip last January was much different,” noted Linda Ricker, Pastor David’s wife who, with children Brittney, 11, and Blake, 12, will accompany the Three Fork’s team to the Yucatan from January 11 to 18.
“While our medical mission focused on the physical needs of the Mayan people, this last trip was about showing God’s love to the children of the Yucatan region. I liked the fact that we were able to watch the kids open their shoeboxes and play with them. Few of us spoke any Spanish, and all they spoke was Spanish and a Mayan dialect, but we all communicated simply as one human being to another.”
Among the members of Three Forks Baptist Church traveling to Mexico next month will be Ben Bolick, Brittany Bolick, Blair Bolick, Eric Townsend, Marylin Roten and the Ricker family, David, Linda, Brittney and Blake. The final tally will be 18 strong when the caravan heads to Charlotte en route to the Yucatan next month.
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