Mission is Sharing
“For a long time now—to this very day—you have not deserted your brothers
but have carried out the mission the Lord your God gave you.”
Joshua 22:3
Mission Is… Hospitality…Humility…Justice….Equality….
Compassion… Simplicity… Conviction…
Sharing
Mission is sharing – sharing our lives, our labors, our love, and our faith. Our Mission Ministry focuses upon mission in the world and the work of the wider church. We also help to support our students preparing for Presbyterian ministry. (Another church committee, Service and Outreach, focuses upon volunteer service and financial support within the Wilmington community.) There are many ways we share mission at St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church. Share with us!
2010 Mission Trips
On Saturday morning June 12, our medical mission will head off to RDU to catch a flight to Atlanta and on to Manaus. The medical team is made up of 11 people; Dr. Bart Williams and his wife Sandra, Dr. Dax Hawkins, Dr. Stephanie Hackney, Pam Moore, Paige Howard, Jennifer Glatt, Nancy Stevens, Amy David, Steve and Kay Hein. After spending Saturday evening in Manaus we will take a 4 hour bus trip on Sunday morning and meet our boat. Joining us were 12 members of the Pretropolis Presbyterian Church and 3 members of the Maues Presbyterian church. Fortunately 4 of those members from the Brazilian churches will serve as translators for us.
The boat will travel throughout Sunday afternoon and evening and Monday morning will we be at our first village Monte Sinai. Monte Sinai has 45 families. Tuesday we will be at Vila Nova with 60 families, Wednesday at Vila Darci with 30 families, Thursday at Acaoera with 40 families, and Friday at Ebenezer with 10 families. Then Friday evening we head back towards Manaus traveling throughout the night, then catch the bus back to Manaus and spends the afternoon there and leaves late Saturday evening. We fly through the night and arrive back in RDU around noon on Sunday.
Here is what a typical day looks like on the river. After sleeping in hammocks breakfast is served at 7am. Then we have a devotional time praying for the village and its people. We provide basic medical care from our physicians and our dentist will most likely pull lots of teeth!! We give out lots of medicine to treat the people and lots of vitamins as well. While the doctors are busy seeing the villagers many of us work with the children doing a mini VBS for them during the day. So we take lots of crafts with us, play games and tell them Bible Stories. By 4pm we have separate meetings for the women and the men to talk to them about personal hygiene issues. At 5 pm we hold a worship service where our team shares some testimonies with them and I deliver a short message. After the service we hand out of gifts to for the babies and the children which are much appreciated. They love soccer so we present the chief with a soccer ball for each village. By six pm we are back on the boat for dinner and evening devotions and then the hammocks where we usually fall asleep fairly quickly.
One of our objectives is to join as team with our Brazilian friends to help them in their ministry to these villages. We are excited to go and excited to be used by God in this way. So as a congregation you could pray for us for safe travel, a servant heart and openness to see God in the beauty and wonder of his world in the Amazon.
Yours in Christ,
Steve