Year: 2012

This report is from Living Christian Fellowship member Paul Hailey.

Living Faith Christian Fellowship, the GCI congregation in Portland, OR, has about 30 members. We meet adjacent to King City, a senior (55 and older) community with about 1600 residents. Since most of our members are of this age group, it made sense to us to make King City our primary focus for outreach.

With guidance from Pastor Dee Bulante, we began sponsoring events at the King City club house with the goals of serving the community and making our presence known. In December 2010 we held a Community Christmas Celebration. In the summer of 2011 we sponsored a seminar on overcoming grief. Then this last December, we held our second Community Christmas Celebration.

We paid to advertise the event to all 1400 homes in King City. We hired a professional three-piece band to play Christmas music, invited the local King City Music Club to sing carols, asked a local singer to lead in a sing-along, and invited a King City resident who previously performed with notables such as Danny Kaye and Red Skelton to sing a solo.

The one and a half hour program went smoothly. About 90 people attended. Pastor Dee Bulante served as emcee, introducing the performers and giving a short message focusing on the love of God expressed through the person of Jesus Christ—love not just for Christians, but for all people. He commented:

We share time with family and loved ones because God has shared time with us through Jesus…. We exchange gifts to one another because God has given us the ultimate gift of Jesus…. We sing songs of warmth and merriment because of the peace and joy that wells up in our souls, expressing thanks to the baby born who is our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

Several “amens” were heard from the audience as he spoke, and some appeared to be on the verge of tears as they were reminded of God’s love.

We feel the event was a smashing success. Some attendees asked where we meet for church, and a few took copies of Odyssey magazine. Many gave comments expressing their gratitude:

You outdid yourselves this year…. Everything looks so beautiful…. Thank you for the delicious food…. We had a wonderful time…. I came primarily for the Christmas music, but was pleasantly surprised with the food served and the whole program. I appreciated the message as well. It gave me a different perspective about Christmas…. I really am glad I came today for the whole program, the food and the people. Nice pastor, didn’t talk too long, but got the message out.

We have learned how a small congregation can reach out to the community. It takes prayer and hard work, but it is worth the effort. We plan to hold two King City outreach events in 2012 – possibly a seminar on aging gracefully and definitely another Community Christmas Celebration.

The following report is from Lee Berger who directs the GenMin Crossing Borders mission team.

We returned recently from a mission trip to Mexico to deliver shoe box gifts. In several ways it was the most challenging of the 13 mission trips we have made into Mexico since 2005.

From churches and other groups across the U.S. we received almost 600 shoe boxes full of gifts, together with personally-knitted baby blankets, handmade pillows, infant supplies, custom-carved wooden cars, several boxes of nice shoes, bags of good clothing and other items. Finding space in the vehicles to transport these items across the border was both a challenge and a blessing.

Carol Meyer from Kansas City donated copies of “Project Renewal” (in Spanish), a book she authored about recovery from abuse (a common problem in Mexico). Truett Seminary at Waco University donated 100 books for training pastors. Generous cash donations allowed us to purchase many other needed gifts and resources for the pastors and ministry leaders with whom we partner in Mexico.

Our crossing into Mexico from Laredo, Texas on Saturday started well with visits to two churches to sing Christmas songs, teach about the birth of Jesus and hand out the shoe box gifts. However, it was raining hard and both of our team’s vans got stuck axle deep in mud at the second church. A tow truck was called but it got stuck too. Then the host pastor’s van and another vehicle got stuck. While some worked outside to free the vans, the rest of the Crossing Borders mission team and local church members prayed and visited inside the unheated church. Two young men who lived in nearby houses (we thought of them as our “Mexican angels”) worked hard to help pull out a couple of the vans. After four hours struggling in the cold rain and slippery mud, a truck from the fire department arrived to free the vehicles.

Our final stop of the day was supposed to be lunch served at the children’s home. Instead, it was supper. Soaking wet and cold in our muddy clothes, we visited with the kids for an hour and a half, distributed shoe boxes and provided the meal. Now well past dark, we headed back across the border to warm showers and our own dinner, thankful for the experiences and inspired by the patient and willing spirit exhibited by all. We had hand-distributed about 300 shoe boxes and left the remainder of the boxes in the hands of two of our Mexican ministry partners who delivered them to churches further inland.

I (Lee Berger), my mother Jean Berger, and Steve and Barbara Solari were scheduled to catch a flight the next day (Sunday) to Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, to take gifts to Karen Salinas and her 17 foster children. This was the first time we had ventured into interior Mexico. Once again, we encountered unexpected challenges. Our flight was cancelled on Sunday due to bad weather (no radar at the local airport), and then cancelled again on Monday.

In the meantime, we made ourselves useful assisting pastor Raymundo Rendon and his wife, Lisa. The Rendon’s kitchen stove (which they use to cook food for various feeding ministries) had stopped working. So we went stove shopping and also bought the Rendons a new set of tires to replace the unsafe dry-rotted ones on Pastor Ray’s car. Lee and Steve made a hospital visit with Pastor Ray one afternoon and prayed for a Mexican government official they had met on the previous summer trip. The group provided babysitting for the Rendons so Ray and Lisa could have a rare night out for their wedding anniversary. There was much brainstorming about ways the Crossing Borders mission team can assist Ray with ministry needs in the future.

On Tuesday, the weather was bad again, so we took the commercial bus to Victoria. We arrived in Victoria at about midnight, and Karen and several of the older children visited with us into the wee hours of the morning. We then had a busy day on Wednesday at Karen’s home, visiting with her foster children and hosting a party to deliver the gifts we had brought, including a bilingual Bible for each child. We prayed for each child and several gave moving testimonials. It is difficult to describe the close bonds we feel for these lovely children being brought up in the nurture of the Lord. Thursday was filled with playing with the kids and restocking the foster home with supplies purchased with donations from many supporters.

After an event-filled and challenging trip, we returned to Laredo on Friday and everyone was back home in the U.S. by Saturday, thanking God for an amazing trip full of unexpected obstacles that led to many wonderful opportunities to serve others on mission with God. We are now looking forward to our next mission trip to Mexico in June 2012. You can learn more about it at http://www.cbmission.org/.