Home : The Voice : October 2002 

Hard labor:
workers and projects benefit

Children help build a cistern in Brazil

GAUTIER, MS — The Children’s Fellowship of Gautier Presbyterian Church has raised $400 to help build a cistern for a family in Northeast Brazil.

This group of nine children, five to ten years old, chose two projects to raise the money. In early June, they went to Humphrey’s Blackberry Farm in Hurley, where they spent three hours under the sun picking blackberries to sell to the congregation. As the day began, we adults who thought we knew better, figured they might pick 25 pounds or so of blackberries, considering how young the children were and how hot it was! But, as we began weighing the bags of blackberries, we realized the children had picked almost 70 pounds!

Over the course of the next few days, the children sold the berries to members of the church and other members of the community. Then began the much larger project... the children set out to create hand decorated terra cotta pots. And, these weren’t just any kind of decorated pots - they turned out to be real works of art! We began with a thin coat of mortar around the outside of the pot and then the children placed all kinds of shells onto the exterior. We initially planned to make about 20 of these pots, but as people began to see the children’s work, we realized we had grossly underestimated how many pots we might sell!

By the beginning of June, the children had sold all the blackberries and all the terra cotta pots, and Rev. Bullock had delivered a check for $400 to Rev. Andy Wells of First Presbyterian Church, Ocean Springs, who is the moderator of the Presbytery of Mississippi. Rev. Wells will make sure the check reaches the right place (our project is part of a Presbytery of Mississippi project to supply families of churches in the Presbytery of Northeast Brazil with clean drinking water).

In the process, our children have become aware of how they can help a family have clean water.

The participants were: Amanda, Emily and Joseph Cooley, Tony LaGanga, Ryan and Rachel McCluney, Heather and Haley Searcy and Dameon Wise.

— Chris Bullock

An exhausted group of children rest after picking almost 70 pounds
of blackberries to raise money for a cistern in Northeast Brazil.

Learning about mission

MADISON, MS — Grace Chapel is a missional congregation! When people hear the word “mission” they typically think of the kind of work that Grace Chapel does every other year in Orange Walk, Belize.

During our June 6-13, 2002 trip, we encountered a different language and culture, we witnessed the work and ministry of the local church, we did hard manual labor in the Central American heat, and, after school, we taught Bible stories, and played with children.

On the night before we returned to Madison, Mississippi, the group was tired from all their hard work and everyone was ready to go home. During our time of evening prayer, I asked the group in a perky and enthusiastic voice, “Are you ready for your next mission trip?!” I could hear the sore muscles shudder. Someone groaned, “I need a year to recover at home before I do another mission trip.” I replied, “Our next mission trip is at home!”

A missional church does not view “mission” as a program or an overseas activity. To be a missional church means that wherever we go, God is sending us to be witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Or to put it another way, “The church exists by mission, as a fire exists by burning.” (E. Brunner) No burning - no fire. No witness - no church.

Having said that, I believe the rewards are immeasurable for the congregation that participates in these types of cross-cultural mission experiences. Grace Chapel intentionally plans the trip for high school students and adults, because the experience dramatically shifts our understanding of the gospel (especially young people!). While working in partnership with the Presbyterian church in Belize, we see the work of Jesus Christ living and active in a strange and different place. That encounter opens our hearts and minds to Jesus living and active in other people, places and events that may seem strange to us. When a group returns home, they begin to see life differently, and look for the work of Jesus Christ in unexpected places. Mission partnerships and cross-cultural experiences shape and equip us for our own task of being witnesses to the gospel in the places we live and work.

— Jim Truesdale

Women build Habitat for Humanity house

JACKSON, MS — Women from Fondren Presbyterian Church in Jackson joined with women from the University Club and Leadership Jackson on June 8 to provide a crew for a Habitat for Humanity House being built by women. Participants from Fondren included: Helen Boone, Lisa Brown, Cindy McKey, Barbara Meyer, Lynda Mooty, Heather Pitts, Jamie Pitts, and Martha Yost.

Above: A luau by the pool was a great treat at the end of the week! Below:
There’s no better way to get campers moving in the morning than a good
song, complete with motions (like it, or not!).

Junior Camp is a Great Success

McCOMB, MS — What do The Beatitudes, chili dogs, luaus, and ‘Pharoah, Pharoah’ being planned, so if you would like to join us next summer, make sure you mark your calendar for July 13-18, 2003. Additional information all have in common? Give up? They made the Presbytery of Mississippi Junior Camp a huge success this year! Forty-five rising 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th graders from our presbytery attended this year’s camp held annually at Percy Quin State Park in McComb. Jason Stanard, from Brandon, was the speaker for the week, and Lincoln Warren, from Hattiesburg, provided music. There was a special treat for the campers this year. A brand new swimming pool was available for alligator-free swimming all week long! Crafts, recreation, nature hikes, small group Bible studies, and skits helped make the week full and fun. The week concluded with a luau by the pool and a very entertaining talent show. Junior Camp for 2003 is already being planned, so if you would like to join us next summer, make sure you mark your calendar for July 13-18, 2003. Additional information will be available from the Presbytery office by mid-October.

— Tommy Suttle

Conferences well attended by PW

The Presbytery of Mississippi was well represented by Presbyterian Women at the Alabama-Mississippi Women’s Conference at Stillman College in July. One of the featured speakers was author of the 2002-2003 Horizons Bible Study of Ephesians, Kay Huggins.

Our Mississippi women are well-traveled! Many were privileged to attend the Montreat Women’s Conference in August, and are pictured here with the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.).