Missionaries on stateside assignment in Alabama are among those served by a ministry organization that presses vehicles into service for the Kingdom of God.
The nonprofit group, Macedonian Call Foundation (MCF), receives donated cars, makes sure they’re reliable and places missionaries from around the world in the drivers’ seats.
Currently, there are three MCF organizations.
Cars donated to the MCF of Mississippi (MCFM) wait for missionaries at a major car auction dealer, owned by a member of First Baptist Church, Madison City, Miss., who is also on MCFM’s board of directors.
The Mississippi organization operates with an unpaid 13-member board of directors and seeks to serve Christ through caring for the transportation needs of international missionaries coming home for short periods.
MCFM supplies cars to Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. The other two MCF groups are in Texas and Georgia.
The MCF of Georgia has loaned cars to more than 900 missionary families since it began 13 years ago — 110 of those were to missionaries on stateside assignment in Alabama, according to Bill Beshears, president of MCF of Georgia.
He said they have served 14 Alabama missionaries so far in 2004. Like the other MCF organizations, the Georgia group has a strong group of leaders.
“We have former missionaries, Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) staff, including James Griffith, a former executive director of the GBC and Baptist lay people serving on the foundation’s board,” he said.
Most of the volunteers who assist with the ministry come from First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, Ga.
It’s impractical for a family coming home for three months or six months to buy a car and then resell it when they leave, explained Harvey Kneisel, founder and president of the original Macedonian Call Foundation in Houston, Texas.
“I’m a former Southern Baptist missionary, and I recognized the need having to come home several times and try to find a vehicle,” he said.
“It cost me a lot of money to provide a car for three six-month furloughs (stateside assignments).” Kneisel and his wife were missionaries to India and to Guyana during their tenure with the International Mission Board (IMB).
Like Kneisel, there are many dedicated Baptist servants who take their ministry of wheels seriously, going the second mile to ensure cars take the missionaries and the gospel on the road.
“By the time the car leaves here to go to the field I spend time driving it myself to check it out,” said W.C. Young, president of MCFM.
Young said the MCFM began in the 1990s with Tom and Jane Hearon of Jackson, whose son was an IMB missionary in Italy and Brazil.
The Hearons realized then how important it is for missionaries coming home to have transportation.
Being a local Christian businessman, Hearon consulted with lawyers and accountants regarding the idea and formed a nonprofit organization under Mississippi law to carry out the ministry.
The Mississippi group has had cars, trucks, boats and even a house with a mortgage on it, donated.
“We sold the house and had some funds out of that to further this ministry,” Young explained.
People donating cars to Macedonian Call are pivotal to its success.
“That way they enter into the ministry to our missionaries,” Kneisel said.
Kneisel has received cars from Alabama and as far away as Indianapolis and Richmond, Va., although most come from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Kneisel said he got the Macedonian Call name from Acts 16:9, which states, “During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’”
The Macedonian Call is closely tied to the Great Commission, Kneisel said, noting, “We try to hold the rope in the U.S. for our missionaries without appealing for Southern Baptist [entities] money.”
Vehicles donated to Macedonian Call need to be “driveable transportation,” Kneisel said.
“We don’t go by color. We don’t deal in cosmetics nor in prestige,” he said, laughing.
However, he said they’ve had a couple of rare cars donated.
“A member of First Baptist Church, Houston, donated a 1950 Buick with 18,000 original miles,” Kneisel said.
“I sold it and bought three cars. So we got about 200,000 miles out of those three cars.”
Although Kneisel holds the trademark on the Macedonian Call name, each separate MC organization establishes its own bylaws and policies.
But at each organization the missionaries typically pays a modest fee to the MC group to cover insurance. (BP contributed)
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