Day 5 and Week In Review
After Friday’s final VBS session, everyone enjoyed a hot dog cookout in the parking lot of 17th St. Baptist Church. The 30+ children, parents, Broaddus team members, and other folks from the community who walked over feasted while continuing to getting to know each other. Even Officer Rogers from the Roanoke PD joined the fun!
The two WMU Updraft teams, Bruington and Beulah, again helped out with the food ministry at Baptist Community Center. After a visit to Target, they went over to the Baptist Friendship House where they met five youth from the community.
The three groups played volleyball and soccer before enjoying a pizza dinner. Even though they only spent 3 hours together, they traded phone numbers and email addresses as they left.
I will try to post a couple of detailed reflections in the coming days, but my immediate thoughts are thus:
- There is no doubt in my mind that God is doing great things in both Southeast and Southwest Roanoke. We encountered Him multiple times, often when we least expected.
- All three groups were simply awesome. We never heard a complaint – their spirit and generosity were tremendous. The three “B” churches made an indelible mark that will remain at both centers for a long time to come.
- I was impressed by the stories of how all three churches came to drive over three hours to serve in Roanoke for a week. All of them had leaders that said “we need to serve” – and they did. Much like Abraham who simply obeyed and went where God told him to go, these groups obeyed and followed Him here.
- The community surveys the two Updraft teams conducted were very effective. They revealed a lot about the communities that I did not realize. August will be a “feet on the street” month where I will try to recruit youth and mission groups to help us walk the communities and meet the folks we are called to serve.
- Working 80 hours in five days requires lots of Mountain Dew, a willing spirit, and God’s strength. After a week like that, I wish there were more hours in the day to work with these groups.
This coming week our very own Ridgewood Baptist Church’s youth group will help lead an afternoon sports camp at Baptist Community Center.
Speaking of sports camps, if your youth group is interested in helping us lead a couple of evening sports camps for the Baptist Friendship House in August, please contact us. We need to be in front of the community more and reach the area children. These would be twice a week. I hope to find 4 youth groups to cover August.
Enjoy these pictures from Friday!
