Morgan Bailey says he’ll never forget a visit he and his missions team had with a grandmother in Guatemala in late June.
“She was making tortillas over an open fire, and we asked her if she would encourage her grandson to come to the Vacation Bible School we were going to be having,” he recalled. “She said, ‘Oh, he’ll be there. He’s been counting the days until you come.’”
Bailey, pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Ranburne, said the woman’s words were encouraging, but they were also a missions message on a larger scale — that “people are counting the days until we come.”
It was also a meaningful moment for him and the Macedonia team in a different way. In the summer of 2021, Bailey and Kris Henderson, discipleship pastor at Macedonia, visited Guatemala as part of a vision trip to reconnect with partners and start new works. At several places along their journey, they delivered portions of an offering collected at Macedonia during VBS to go toward children’s ministry.
‘From our children to theirs’
“It was from our children to their children,” Bailey said.
So to go back and work alongside Pastor Oscar Lopez, holding one-day VBS events at several churches he planted, was a full-circle moment. The team was able to impact 446 children and sow gospel seeds, Bailey said.
They also held a pastors conference, and the women on the team led Bible studies with the women of the church.
Several volunteers from Beulah Baptist Church in Muscadine, a sister Cleburne Baptist Association church, joined the Macedonia team.
Owen McWhorter, a team member from Beulah, said getting to be involved in Macedonia’s partnership with Lopez was “very beneficial.”
Meeting needs
“You could just see the respect [Lopez] had built over time,” McWhorter recalled. “Seeing his work and his presence there really stood out to me, as well as seeing how Macedonia’s support was paying off through his work in the different communities.
“He just met the needs where they were.”
McWhorter said he also enjoyed getting to work alongside team members from Macedonia.
“That was a highlight for me,” he said. “You get a broader view of a lot of things working side by side like that.”
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