Pennies. Nickels. Dimes. Quarters.
For many people it’s pocket change: Coins found in the cup holder of their car. In the cushions of their sofa. In the pants they haven’t worn since last year.
But for residents of Conestoga Mobile Home Park in Monroe, Georgia, it’s valuable money, quite possibly the only money they have.
And they’re willing to give this money — the coins they can’t really spare — to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (LMCO) for International Missions so people they have never met in places they have never heard of can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“They are more than happy to give what they don’t have so that others throughout the world can come to know the Jesus that they have come to know,” said Pam Whitehead, a North American Mission Board missionary who serves the people who live at the trailer park.
Called to serve at Conestoga, Whitehead shared the gospel with the people there, many of whom were so immersed in poverty that they had no interest in the world beyond their own broken-down front doorsteps.
Once dubbed the “doorstep of hell” by Whitehead’s late husband because of its notoriety for violence, drug trafficking, transience — even satanic rituals — the trailer park has cleaned up a lot since the Whiteheads began leading the Southern Baptist ministry there about 10 years ago.
For some residents, financial desperation is the product of years of poor decisions; for others, it seems more a result of circumstances, of falling through the cracks of assistance for mental or physical disabilities.
Still the people have learned from the tireless missionary, now a widowed mother of four young adult children, including one son with Asperger’s syndrome, not to let their circumstances dictate their obedience to God.
Pulled from the darkness
“Our adults know the darkness they were in. They know the darkness that the Father has delivered them from, and they want others to know that too,” Whitehead said.
Since 2007, The Lighthouse at Conestoga Mission, through Whitehead’s persistent leadership, has set an annual goal of raising $100 for LMCO.
Most churches collect their international missions offering in December. The Conestoga Christians begin collecting their offering in February, and continue to collect for about six months, before the financial pressures of the holidays take hold.
For the Conestoga believers, $100 is a huge goal.
Every coin given by the Conestoga Christians is cause for celebration.
“One of the little boys in the park came running in one day, screaming and hollering and waving his hand, saying, ‘Miss Pam, I have 50 cents. I have 50 cents, and the people over the ocean can hear about Jesus,’” Whitehead recalled.
(Baptist Press)
Share with others: