West VA Mission Project

Over the past few days, I’ve been in St Albans, WV, helping with our first-ever mission trip there.
Teen Mission is partnering with the Gateway Church of Christ (http://www.gatewaychurch.net/) in St Albans, WV, to reach out to nearby communities. Many of them have several families in great spiritual and physical need.

West Virginia has one of the highest poverty rates (15.6%) in America.
In the St Albans/Charleston area, several major chemical companies used to employ thousands of people.
However, after years of out-sourcing jobs, those now number in the hundreds.
This is one of the reasons that West Virginia's unemployment rate continues to grow at nearly twice that of the national average.

Gateway is one of the largest churches in the state and with an average attendance of 600 it is the largest independent Christian Church/Church of Christ in the state of West Virginia.

The mission trip is going really well and Gateway is doing a great job as host.

We have a team of 27 from the Mt Olivet Christian Church in Williamstown, KY, there serving this week (June 15-21).

The folks from Gateway are leading this team in learning songs, skits, stories and games for an outreach VBS. There are several service projects in the area going on as well. Gateway has identified several projects in the community that need volunteer help.

On Monday, we had groups working in four different areas: (1) a public park near the river, (2) the Hansford Seniors Center, (3) a local Braille Mission and (4) a home of a family in need.

Our team helped clean the riverside park, getting ready for an upcoming "Riverfest." The local parks & rec crew hate this job and were thrilled that volunteers from KY would undertake this task.
We later learned that the crew's foremen is a Christian who has been witnessing for several years to his mostly non-Christian crew.
Our prayer is this will give him some open doors in further sharing Christ with his co-workers.

We painted and visited with some of the elderly folks at the Hansford Center. The director of the center is a member of Gateway Church of Christ.

Several of the guys helped rebuild some things at the a couple's house who run a braille ministry in South Charleston as well as repairing a bathroom for another family in need in St Albans.

Starting today (June 17th), a team will begin an afternoon VBS/Kids Camp from 3-5 pm in the afternoon at a local park.
There will be games, crafts, music, Bibles stories and lots of fun.

The most interesting story is that of a fellow named Charles.

I'm told that Charles attended church for the first time this past Sunday, June 15th.
At the invitation time, Charles came forward was baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of sins and gift of the Holy Spirit.

He then wanted to know what was happening next.
A staff member at Gateway said, "Well, we have a mission team coming here starting tomorrow (Monday). They'll be doing work/service projects around the city. Why don't you come and join them?"

Charles showed up at church at 7 am on Monday morning ready to go.

He went with the team helping at the Hansford Center. He painted and worked there all day.

The team dropped him off at the end of the day and he said he would see them today.

When I left the church this morning, sure enough, Charles was back and ready to work again today with the mission team.

All that Charles knows about being a Christian is that a Christian goes out everyday and serves the community with the love of Jesus Christ.

Isn't this a beautiful picture?

Charles has never heard of a church split or music wars or doctrinal disputes.
He has never gotten mad over the color of the new carpet in the sanctuary.

He simply doesn't know any better.

While Charles may be child-like in a lot of ways in his faith, that's not all bad.

Remember that Christ asks all of us to be like little ones if we are to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven one day.

We'd love to have you join us in West Virginia on a mission trip sometime in the near future.

God bless,
Greg H