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Women on Mission -December 2019

                                     Who is this Lottie Moon, anyway?                                                                        
Charlotte Diggs Moon, 1840-1910, better known as Lottie Moon, became a legend in her own time.  A daughter of old Virginia and one of the best educated women in the South, Miss Moon was petite 4 feet 3 inches.  Her voice is described as deep, rich, gentle, musical, which she used skillfully as a teacher/missionary.  But no photographer ever captured on film the animated, attractive, charming, delightful, energetic, fearless Lottie Moon, although a few photos do exist.

For 40 years she represented Southern Baptists in China.  Again and again she wrote back to America, “Send on the               missionaries.”  Once she wrote, “It is odd that the million Baptists of the South can furnish only three men for all China.  I wonder how this looks in heaven.  It certainty looks queer in China.”

After the Japanese-Russian war, economic conditions in China produced much poverty, but there were some new missionaries.  Miss Moon welcomed them, advised them, mothered them, and loved their children, who adored her in  return.  The Chinese women and children came and went in her home as if it were their own.  If the Pingtu Christians were starving, Miss Moon would not eat.  By December of her seventieth year she was so frail the doctors sent her back to the States.  But enroute on Christmas Eve, while the ship rode at anchor in Kobe, Japan, Miss Moon died.  The memory of such a life never ends.
In 1918, Annie Armstrong, the woman who refused marriage to a China missionary so she could fulfill her calling as the leader of mission support among Southern Baptist women in the homeland, wrote: “Miss Moon is the one who suggested the Christmas offering for foreign missions.  She showed us the way in so many things.  Wouldn’t it be appropriate to name the offering in her memory?”* And so it was.
                                                                        
                            The Most Persecuted People in the World
Named “the most persecuted people in the world” by the United Nations, more than 723,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from their homes in Myanmar (Also called Burma). An additional 100,000 remain in Myanmar living in IDP (internally displaced people) camps.

The Rohingya have been stripped of their homes, their citizenship and their rights. Living as illegal aliens in camps built on land annually destroyed by floods, these people have nothing - no education, no health care, no income, no land, no assets and, seemingly, no allies.

International Mission Study: Rohingya will introduce you to the Christian organizations who are working as the hands and feet of Christ among the Rohingya. From delivering buckets of hygiene supplies to planting grass to sharing words of hope, followers of Christ are engaging this crisis head-on. Through this study, you will a) identify with feelings experienced by Rohingya refugees; b) discover how to pray specifically for refugees; c) explore how to accept people who are different from you; d) learn ways you and your church can give through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, Baptist Global Response and the WMU Foundation. We pray this study would inspire you to reach out in love to refugees and other displaced people groups in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our study is Wednesday, December 11th at noon in the fellowship hall. Please join us if you can.

Our Lottie Moon Christmas offering goal is $18,000. Offering envelopes will be made available to each family. Women on      Mission will meet at 6:00 pm on Monday, December 9th at the home of Jean Hitchcock for a Week of Prayer program. We will  carpool from the church leaving at 5:45 pm. We collected 1,180 boxes of mac and cheese for the Evansville Rescue Mission. Thanks you to all who made this possible.

*Excerpts from The Lottie Moon Story.

Spare Change - November 2019

Jamaica Mission Trip Report

Jamaica is a gorgeous country.  It has crystal clear water, amazing beaches, lush jungles and beautiful mountains.  We went there to help one of the rural schools in the mountains.  We flew into Montego Bay, which is one of the big resort cities on the island.  It was a nice city with shopping and many “touristy” things to do.  We didn’t get to stay there long, however, we were actually staying in Mandeville, the largest town in Manchester Parrish, about 2 ½ hours away from Montego Bay; we had to travel over the mountains to get there.

Most every day we took about an hour journey on the curvy, windy roads into the mountains to Leicesterfield.  We worked with Leicesterfield Primary School and Leicesterfield Baptist Church.  Leicsterfield is a rural community in the mountains will very little infrastructure. The people have water delivered or collect water in big cisterns. Many work in the mountain fields harvesting various fruits and vegetables. Some do manual labor jobs like brick laying or other skilled trades. Others travel to the cities to work in businesses. Some even travel to work in the bauxite mines (bauxite is a key ingredient in aluminum). Even though they don’t have much, the people make the best of it.

The school is a charming three building structure.  Many of the teachers travel from other cities to Leicesterfield.  The teachers were amazing!  They really keep the focus on helping these kids get a good education.  The kids don’t have a lot and the school doesn’t have a lot of extra funds.  The only play area the kids have is the parking lot, which has a couple of basketball hoops.  Our goal was to provide a fun play area for the children.  We had to remove some old concrete pads and put down fresh gravel for a play surface.  We constructed a play dome and hired a local welder to make us a play structure that included some monkey bars, slide, and swings.  We had to set it in the ground with concrete.  We spent a total of three days working and playing with the children.  The kids were so happy to have some new play structures.  There is one video that we took of a little girl just standing on the play dome giggling and giggling.  It was those things that filled our hearts with joy.
 
We also were able to worship with Leicesterfield Baptist Church on Sunday.  Their worship was vibrant, and spirit filled.  They were so welcoming and allowed us to give a Bible study lesson for the adults, children, and even preach in worship.  It was so encouraging to be worshipping with other believers in another country.  The church recently put in a basketball court next to their church and hopes to host a mission team that would do a basketball camp next summer.  This might be a future mission opportunity, coupled with installing another play structure at another school.
 
Jamaicans are a proud people with a rich heritage.  Almost everyone born on the island has ancestors that were slaves brought to the island by Europeans.  While the country gained its independence in 1962, there is still much work to be done, especially in the area of missions.  There is a large contingency of Christians, however, not all are orthodox believers.  Many have been trapped by cults like the Seventh Day Adventists.  There really needs to be a bigger gospel presence, especially with teenagers and young adults.  Like America, the churches are not reaching this demographic.  The young people chase after worldly things and want nothing to do with the faith of their elders.  We need to be open to assisting the church in reaching the island of Jamaica for Christ.  Just a short distance from America but still so much need.  I pray that the Lord would bring more laborers into the harvest to reach Jamaica for His glory!