Churches tag team annual missions trip

It’s hard to say goodbye to your church when you move to another city, but Eddie Lary found a way to reconnect annually with his former church home when he moved from Columbiana to Tuscaloosa in 1985. A member of First Baptist Church, Columbiana, since 1974, Lary enjoyed being a part of their yearly construction missions trips.
   
After joining Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, he encouraged that congregation to do the same. The two churches have teamed up every second week in June since 1986.
   
The Ridgecrest/Columbiana team is made up of men and women — some with construction jobs and others such as attorneys, pastors, nurses and foresters. The team has traveled all over the southeast and beyond building churches, parsonages and even shelters for homeless/battered women. They also work with their host churches in revivals, Vacation Bible Schools and Backyard Bible Clubs.
   
Most recently, the team of 40 worked at Trinity Baptist Church in Hollister, N.C. It was an especially meaningful trip for Lary, whose stepson had once served as a staff member at the predominantly Native American church.
   
Working through state missions coordinators, the construction team has worked in many small communities. These are a favorite of Columbiana member Robert Denney who has participated in every trip since 1988. Denney, a longtime friend of Lary, organizes the Columbiana half of the team. 
   
“I really enjoy going into the small communities,” Denney said. “Help from another church is about the only way many of them can get a church built.”
   
The teams have also had their eyes opened to the dearth of a church presence in larger cities. “I vividly remember our trip to Key West, Fla.,” recalled Lary. “We built a church for Fifth Avenue Baptist. The pastor told us that it was the first church built in that city in 60 years, and yet it seemed there was a new bar built there once a month.”
   
Every trip has been different. The team members have learned to be flexible. They’ve stayed in host homes, at hotels and in the churches themselves. They’ve rigged showers in baptistries and outdoors with a hose and tarp. The ministry and testimony of this partnership has inspired other churches as well, explained Ridgecrest pastor Jim Headley.
   
“After a construction project with a Kentucky congregation, their group organized a team to join us on a couple of projects. Now, their church is leading construction missions trips independently,” Headley said.
   
The two churches have worked together so well their distance from each other seems inconsequential. The participants know to schedule their vacations for the second week in June.