IBC Ministry Team Trip - May 13-June 1, 2008

Week One | Week Two | Week Three

We left Singleton Hall at 5:30 a.m. and drove to Westside Baptist Church in St. George, Utah where we helped Pastor Greg Wright set up for the school graduation, cleaned a car that had been donated to the church, and did yard work for a widow. Supper was at the assistant pastor’s house, with the pastor and his wife. Eva and Pastor Jeremy’s wife discovered that they had lived within minutes of each other in New Brunswick, Canada! Eva and Katie stayed with Tara, one of the school teachers. She is preparing to go to Papua New Guinea as a missionary teacher next year.

We left at 8:30 a.m. and the drive to First Baptist Church in Escalante, Utah, was beautiful! Red cliffs all around, with rugged rolling hills in the background. But the people we are meeting and the lessons we are learning are the things we will really remember. We as a ministry team came here to serve and minister, but we are the ones receiving the ministering! As a heavily Mormon area, this may be a hard and slow place for sharing the Gospel, but these people are faithful. They get involved in the town’s life. When we arrived, we enjoyed a lunch with Pastor Dale Richards and his wife and daughter, then painted the fence along the front side of the church property. During the evening service, Eva and Daniel Bushey did a puppet show and Pastor Torrey spoke on the features God wants local churches to have (Colossians 2:1-8).

Pastor Dale and his daughter Sarah took us to Devil’s Gardens, an area in the desert full of rock formations and archways. It was quite fun. Then we left for First Baptist Church in Ferron, Utah. Pastor Tim Lacock and his three older children drove with us to a part of the desert with a great view of different layers of strata, as well as big boulders covered with Indian pictographs estimated to be over a thousand years old. We also were able to see imprints of a three-toed dinosaur. After supper we searched for a geochache, a box that someone had hid. Tonight we are staying at the Three 7’s Ranch.

Today we started work at the church at 8:00 a.m. There was some painting, rust removing, and digging to be done. Mrs. Lacock again outdid herself with the meals. We spent time with the family and went geocaching again. It was great fun, hunting together for little treasure boxes people have left hidden.

We left Ferron at 6:00 a.m. for Grand Junction, where we helped Liberty Baptist Church hold their first ever youth rally. Everyone enjoyed interacting with the 29 teens that attended from different churches nearby. Pastor Turner and his wife were very sweet people. The time there was a blessing.

Week One | Week Two | Week Three