Monday, July 20, 2009

It's A Long Way.....

Oh, how I missed all of you, my blog friends.

I have literally spent the last couple days attempting to catch catching up on all of your blogs.

We had an amazing mission trip to Virginia.

Bayside Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was gracious enough to let us use their Church as our home away from home last week. Thank you, Bayside Baptist Church! May the Lord bless you immensely =)



Our actual Mission Site was Holy Trinity Baptist Church in inner city Norfolk, Virginia. We attended Worship Service there Sunday morning. WOW! We look different, we talk different, we came from different parts of the Country but we serve the same God therefore we are brothers and sister in Christ.

Pictured here is the organist for Holy Trinity. We share the exact same name. Can you imagine another Gracie? No? That's what my group said, too =)

Our wonderful Sisters in Christ at Holy Trinity cooked lunch for us after Church. We had fried chicken, collard greens, cabbage, green beans, slaw, potato salad, corn bread, homemade pound cake. Mmmmm, It was delicious!

Sunday was a day of Soul food and soul food.

We did beach ministry on Virginia Beach during the day. Sounds tough, huh? Our kids gave out care packages to lifeguards which contained bottled H2O, crackers, chapstick, a Bible, and a Gospel tract. They couldn't talk to the lifeguards cause they couldn't distract them from their duty, but we had prayed over each and every package before it was given out that God would use it to bring someone to Him.

We also gave out bottled H2O and Frisbees with Bible verses on them to vacationers and played games on the beach with the kids. We had sand sculpture competitions which drew alot of interest from those passing by.


Each night, we traveled to Holy Trinity to do Vacation Bible School. As I said before, it is located in inner city Norfolk and is actually in an old commercial store front.

The Sanctuary has 8 pews in it. Reckon how long it took for all 39 of us to fill it up? Let me help you, before everyone made it in the front door!

We averaged 34 kids each night which was fabulous considering they usually have 2-4 children in attendance.

More important than anything, we saw 9 precious children accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. That ALONE was worth every mile of our long journey, and each minute of sleep lost.




It was an amazing experience.

It was an amazing week.

I am humbled to be part of such an amazing work for God.

I am completely taken aback by the leadership and willingness of our high school students to openly serve God and tell others about Him.

I did meet one special little girl at VBS last week. I can't wait to tell you about her.

Until then, remember, The Way isn't always easy and sometimes it's long, BUT in the end there is great reward.


=],

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this great photos and the story of your mission work. It is always encouraging to see the good work being done in His name. God bless.

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  2. Can't wait to hear about the little girl you met. It sounds like a wonderful GODLY experience. God has blessed through you and blessed you through them.

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  3. I can't wait to meet the little girl either!I think it's great when people go spread the word and vacation bible school is a wonderful way to get kids involved in church.Great job and great pics!

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