It's almost time to head off on our mission trip to Buda, Texas. Soon, fourteen members of our congregation will hit the road for a 15-hour journey to the Central Texas Children's Home (www.ctch.org). We are traveling there to work with the Washington Avenue Church of Christ from Evansville, Indiana and their youth group around the facility.
While there, we will be working rather intensively as we rake gravel driveways, paint the administration building's offices, storerooms, and closets, and clean out an abandoned home on the property alongside some other jobs pressure washing, landscaping, tearing down an old chicken coop and building a grape arbor.
As you can see, we have a hefty task in front of us, but it's one I'm confident we'll be able to accomplish. Setting out on our first congregational mission trip is a success in-and-of-itself. Those of us going are indebted to the Elders and their foresight in granting us this opportunity. We are also thankful to everyone who donated snacks and financially for our trip.
Before we leave, I ask that you say a quick prayer on our behalf. While the travel is fairly straight-forward, it is nonetheless quite lengthy. We'll do our best to keep you updated with several Facebook live videos every day that you can watch by following this link and each day we'll post on here at least once about our activities (even on the fun days).
I leave you with what makes me most proud right now. For years, I've pleaded with our congregation about the great commission. I've made the point over-and-over that it says, "Go into all the world," not "send into all the world." While we've been overly gracious with our support of missionaries, we hadn't been them ourselves. I'm thankful to say that's no longer true as of 11:59 pm Friday, July 20.
We are now missionaries heading into the mission field.