Several members of Mount Hebron West Baptist Church, Elmore Association, have been traveling the world “on mission” during June and July.
World Changers, sponsored by the North American Mission Board, offers weeklong construction projects for youth and college students.
Mount Hebron West’s participants included six attendees at a college construction project in Pensacola, Fla., 15 attendees at a youth construction project in Durham, N.C., and four attendees at a youth construction project in Birmingham.
Two church members worked with a Christian Missions Unlimited team to help build a church in Brazil.
Six members spent a week prayer walking in 13 remote Kekchi villages of Guatemala with International Mission Board missionaries Jim and Carol McGriff and Barbara Everett.
Andrew Smith is interim pastor of Mount Hebron. Jimmy Veazey is associate pastor.
Students from The Lighthouse Community Church, Harpersville, with their leaders joined the Scott Dawson Evangelistic Association for a missions trip in Mobile July 14–18.
Each morning the group attended a worship service where they were trained, challenged and encouraged to reach their world with the gospel.
From there they grabbed a quick lunch and hit the streets as soon as possible going door to door sharing Jesus.
God “showed up and showed out” with divine appointments on every corner, missions leaders explained. In four afternoons the group led 251 people to Christ.
A team of 31 single adults from the singles ministry of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, traveled to Salinas, Calif., in mid-August to work with Pastor Joel Jiminez, who serves as pastor of Emanuel Bilingual Church.
The Hispanic people welcomed them with open arms and kept them fed well with authentic Mexican meals.
The group spent the first morning canvassing neighborhoods inviting all children to attend a sports clinic.
More than 85 children showed up for the day’s activities, where football, soccer, basketball, volley and softball were among the sports played.
The group used evangecubes, seven-sided cubes that tell the gospel story in pictures, to share the love of Jesus Christ with the children. The children asked many questions about the story and wanted to take the cubes home to show their family and friends.
The group spent Saturday in Seaside, Calif.
They assisted with a recently planted church and were again out canvassing people of all ages to attend the block party. Food, games, face painting, balloons and live music were the activities at the block party.
The team ended with a missions focus back in the California town of Salinas.
Team members gave testimonies and challenges to the young people of their church to go and serve the Lord.
So many things made this trip special — host families, children and teamwork made this a life-changing experience.
Everyone always has a favorite time, and Emily Sanders, who was one of the participants on the trip, said hers was a Thursday night “prayer ride.”
She said due to the dangers of gangs and violence in some neighborhoods, they could not conduct prayer walks, as is most often done during many short-term missions trips.
So the members of the church loaded up the out-of-state volunteers and local churchgoers, and as they drove, they prayed for the people of the city and the evils around them.
“How powerful a time this was for us. I was blessed to be in a car of all men, who prayed to God about a way of life, a fear, which we do not know,” she said.
“It was a reality check of what is wrong with the world and how we can change it through prayer.”
There were 21 professions of faith and many more seeds were planted as the volunteer missions team shared its faith.
Sanders and the others returned to Alabama with their cups overflowing from their experiences.
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