Our Blog

Women on Mission - June 2021

Make Holes in Their Darkness
By: Dianne Swaim

A story is told of British author Robert Louis Stevenson when he was five years old.  According to the story, his nanny was putting him to bed, but he slipped over to the window when he knew it was time for the lamplighter.  As he watched the lamplighter light each street light individually, he excitedly called, “Come quick, Nanny! That man is making holes in the  darkness.”

That story has impacted me for years as I have traveled to several third world countries and viewed hunger and poverty for myself.  In Zimbabwe, I held a 10 trillion dollar bill in my hands, worth only 50 cents in the United States.  Meanwhile, there was no food on the grocery store shelves, hospitals and schools were shut down, and there was a cholera outbreak.

The darkness of hunger hovers over almost 1 billion people in the world.  As they always have, Southern Baptist keep a global eye on hurting people and develop programs, raise funds, and send people to meet their physical and spiritual needs.

Organized to Serve

Global Hunger Relief seeks to put structure to the vast resources possible when God’s people give.  Seven Southern Baptist entities collaborate to observe Global Hunger Sunday.  These partners include WMU, the International Mission Board, and the North American Mission Board.

Every dollar goes directly toward meeting hunger needs.  The Cooperative Program covers all administrative costs.  Eighty percent of funds are directed toward International causes and 20 percent focus on North America.  In 2020, 14 million meals were provided in North America, and nearly $3.5 million helped feed more than 600,000 people across the world.

These numbers certainly indicate the work has been successful.  However, until every person across the world has enough food, we dare not claim success.  Our church’s involvement will make a hole in someone's darkness of hunger.

Hunger banks will be distributed on Sunday, June 6th and will be returned on Sunday, August 1st.

Women on Mission will meet at 1:00 pm on Thursday, June 3rd in the Grace Ladies Classroom (room opposite the Fellowship Hall.) All of our ladies are invited to join us.

Spare Change - May 2021

VBS – IT’S WORTH IT!

I don’t know if you can tell but I love VBS!  In fact, there are a lot of us at Oakhill that love VBS!  Vacation Bible School (VBS) is this crazy week-long evangelistic outreach to children in the summer.  We are hosting our VBS on June 21^st-25^th for kids 4yr-5^th grade.  Even though it takes place in the summer we are right in the middle of VBS Season.  We just had our training rally for our volunteers and participant sign-ups start the first week of May.  It takes a lot of planning and preparing to make VBS work.

While VBS has become a huge event that most churches participate in; it has a very humble beginning.  In 1894, a Sunday School teacher, D.T. Miles, started a summer Bible school for kids. Initially it lasted four weeks; over time it was narrowed down to one week.  Other churches picked it up until thousands of churches participated every summer. Recently the question has been asked if VBS is worth it. Is it worth the volunteer hours and church resources?

Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptists, did some research and found that of the 60% of adults who attended VBS, 9 out of 10 have positive memories.  On top of that VBS is one of the only intentional ways our churches evangelize. We are in an evangelism crisis right now– 48% of church goers are not inviting unchurched people to visit and 61% are not sharing Christ with anyone.  VBS helps with both of those problems. It is a huge opportunity to invite families in our community to participate in something the church is doing.  It is also a way that we can share Christ with those children and their families. We take seriously the call to share the good news with everyone we can.  Our VBS teachers intentionally weave the gospel through all their lessons.  In addition, I get the opportunity on the Wednesday of VBS to share the gospel with the entire group of kids.  We have seen many kids respond to the gospel through the years. It is an amazing privilege to be a part of something so gospel focused and God honoring.

2019 was our largest VBS ever at Oakhill.  We had over 200 kids.  In 2020 we were gearing up for another great VBS, then Covid hit.  We had to move the date twice, however, VBS is so important that we wanted to make it happen anyway we could.  So, we did it in September on four separate Sunday nights.  God blessed our faithfulness, and several kids were saved.  Over the past few months many of these kids have been baptized!  VBS is most definitely worth it!  That is why we invest the man hours and resources to make it happen every year.

You might be asking yourself, “What can I do to help?”  The answer is simple: Pray and Invite!

1. Pray about who you can invite to VBS, then invite them!
2. Pray that kids would be saved and families impacted with the gospel.

We need prayer warriors that will surround this important event, all our volunteers, and the children attending in prayer.  Please join us in praying for opportunities to plant and harvest gospel seeds.  To register kids or for more info visit oakhillbc.org/vbs2021.