Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 6
Saturday morning, we were all up bright and early to pack up our stuff and clean out our cabins. We then spent a couple of hours at FBC Hot Springs helping with the little block party they were throwing for the community. Although not as many kids and families showed up as we had hoped, we still got to spend some time with a few kids that came and also with some of our new friends from the church that we had been working with all week. Around 11 AM, we began to the journey back to KC and made it safely home around 7:30 pm Saturday night. Thank you again for all of your prayers – we can’t wait to tell you all about the trip and how God worked at church on Sunday!
Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 5
Friday morning, we continued to work on our mission dwellings at the camp and looked forward to getting as much work as done on the three homes, even though we realized that we would probably would not be able to completely finish any of the homes. Also, Coach Kendell took a few members of our team to the last morning of tennis camp, and had a great time with all of the little girls. The afternoon went by very quickly as we wrapped up our work on the three houses. We are excited to someday see pictures of the finished products and are already praying for these homes to really help influence young kids to embrace and support missions. Friday evening, we all went to the illusionist show of Maxwell Blade in downtown Hot Springs and had a great time hanging out together and resting from our hard week of work. While we have enjoyed our time together here in Hot Springs, we are ready to come back home to our families in KC! Thank you so much for your prayers and support this week and we can’t wait to tell you more about all that has happened here this week!
Here are some pics from Friday (more pics to come later).
Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 4
Most of Thursday morning was spent continuing the work on the mission houses here at Springlake Camp, while a few members of the team went into Hot Springs to continue helping with the tennis camp. The missions director at FBC Hot Springs then took us out for famous Hot Springs “BBQ”, which was different than KC’s, but still pretty good. In the afternoon, we got a tour of Hot Springs on a “duck”, and our tour guide was Rick Warren himself! (Turns out it wasn’t “The Purpose Driven Life” guy, but we still thought it was pretty funny). When we got back to the camp in the early evening, we had another great time of discussion and Bible reading, as we were challenged to keep persevering, not only in our work here in Arkansas, but in our service back home and our relationship with Christ at all times. We appreciate your continued prayers for health, patience, strength, and continued perseverance for the team as we finish up our work at the camp on Friday. Also, please continue to pray for the girls at the tennis camp, as they close out the camp on Friday as well – pray for many seeds of the Gospel to be planted in their lives! On Saturday, we will be helping with a community block party at the church, so please pray for people to come and for opportunities to share the Gospel with them!
Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 3
Day 3 of the campaign was another busy day. In the morning, most of the team worked on the mission village, relaying the foundation of concrete on the house representing Honduras and putting up fences around the other homes. A few members of the team went into Hot Springs to help with a tennis camp. The weather was great and we are really enjoying working as a team. After lunch in the dining hall at the camp with over 100 excited campers, we headed into town to FBC Hot Springs. While the worship team prepared for the evening service, our groups divided into 3 groups and canvassed neighborhoods around the church, knocking on doors and handing out flyers for a block party/ festival on Saturday morning at the church. Then, we had dinner at the church and got to fellowship w/ many of their church members, before we had the privilege of leading their Wednesday night service. Our worship team led the congregation in music, several members of our team shared testimonies of how God has used the ministry of FOG to impact their lives, and Pastor Micheal challenged their church by encouraging them to prioritize church planting as a major strategy in their already very effective missions program. After the service, we had another great time of debriefing the day, discussing some Scripture, and praying for one another. Then, of course, most of the team went off for another late evening swim 
Some things you can be praying for specifically:
1) For good response from the community around the church to the flyers about the block party on Saturday morning. Pray for many unchurched people to come and build relationships with us and people from the church, and for opportunities to share the Gospel with them
2) For the girls attending the tennis camp in downtown Hot Springs. Pray that those of our team serving down there would be able to minister to those girls and that as the girls hear the Gospel throughout the rest of this week, that many of them would respond.
3) For our team. Pray that our team continues to grow closer to one another and that the Holy Spirit would continue to soften our hearts and that we would all be molded more and more into the image of Christ
Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 2
Well, we started out day 2 anxious to continue what we had started on the first day of the trip. During the night, some thunderstorms had rolled through and rain was forecasted to continue through the day. Because of the weather, we switched some of our projects around and the team split into a few different groups. Some of the women went to clean an old dormitory, a few guys installed some insulation in one of the cabins, and several others continued working on the three missionary dwellings. We also have the exciting, impromptu opportunity to help out in Hot Springs with a tennis camp for girls in the inner city, so a few members of our team, including Kendell Hale (head men’s and women’s tennis coach at UMKC) are going to help run that tennis camp for the next several mornings. In the afternoon, several members of our group went into downtown Hot Springs and helped play crafts and games with some girls from the inner city. After a hard day of work, we finished the day be going to a black light puppet show and a creative movement show (aka “Baptist dance”) put on by one of the groups of kids staying here at the camp. We have met a lot of great people as we have been serving around the camp and in Hot Springs, and we appreciate your prayers as we continue to look for opportunities to minister to people. Also, pray the weather to improve, so we can continue to work on the three missionary dwellings for the camp.
Arkansas Mission Campaign – Day 1
After arriving at our destination late Sunday night, we woke up Monday ready to get to work! We woke up bright and early and received our instructions for the week. We are staying at Spring Lake Baptist Camp outside of Hot Springs, AR and we will be doing a variety of service projects around the camp. Primarily, we will be focusing on building 3 native dwellings that are eachrepresentative and aunthentic to a foreign culture. When students and adults come to the camp in the future, they will be able to see how people live in different parts of the world and learn how missionaries have to live around the world. We will also spend time helping do a number of different things aroung the camp including moving furniture, cleaning dorms, cleaning a prayer garden/trail, painting, cutting down bamboo, etc etc.
Ready to Go!
The team was ready to take off on Sunday afternoon around 2 PM. It was a fairly uneventful 9 hour drive, except for the raging thunderstorms and hurricane force winds we drove through. On the other side of the storms, we did get to see a beautiful rainbow, which reminded us of God’s presence and promise. The picture doesn’t do the rainbow justice, but we could see the entire rainbow at one time – it was amazing!
Mission Campaign Commissioning Service
On Sunday, we had a commissioning service for those people that were going down to Hot Springs. The church prayed and sent out the team as God’s servants from Fellowship of Grace.
FOG Missions Campaign to Hot Springs, AR
Thank you for visiting our missions blog! We will be providing daily updates during our missions campaign to Hot Springs, AR, so check back throughout the week to learn about what we are doing and to partner with us by praying for specific needs as they come up!
