Shoe Soles Touch Souls in Honduras!
Many of our Fellowship churches have been involved in supporting a special home in Honduras. Casa Hogar is a safe and loving home for street kids. Fellowship International missionary Melodie Francis has been caring for the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of these at-risk children since 2005.
This past summer, Fellowship Baptist Church in Drumheller, AB decided to work with FAIR (Fellowship Aid and International Relief, our humanitarian and social justice ministry), and involved the children in their VBS in an opportunity to bless the children at Casa Hogar.
I’ve asked Wendy Fletcher, Fellowship Baptist’s VBS Director, to share their story with you. Read on… it will encourage you.
Lace up Honduras VBS Campaign
“This summer (2017) our church (Fellowship Baptist Church, Drumheller, AB) engaged our community in a “Deep Sea Discovery” through a week-long VBS. Our town, deep in the heart of dinosaur-land, has a population of approximately 8,000. Our goals were simple: prepare, in faith, to share the Gospel with children and the families that God would bring in His name. We gathered supplies, cut-out fish, marketed, decorated, trained a wonderful group of volunteers and prepared.
“An important part of that preparation was to invite the families from our community who would attend VBS to become involved monetarily in a global outreach initiative as a part of our daily “Kids Helping Kids” segment. However, first we needed a project...
“When we sat down with FAIR’s Associate Director, Norman Nielsen, to pick his “FAIR” brain for opportunities to help kids financially, the idea of raising money for Casa Hogar in Honduras (a house-home for children who are rescued from the streets) resonated with us. Our aim as a church and community would be to raise funds during VBS towards the purchase of three pairs of new shoes for 45+ children that reside there. I started to calculate the cost...approximately $1,600 for all three pairs...in one week...in our small church...in our small town. I was certain it was a match for our global outreach initiative, one that would engage the children, however, as much as I loved the idea, I wondered if we could complete our goal.
“Speaking to the VBS leaders...they were game. We started to pray. We called the project, “Lace Up Honduras!” and mounted the sign in our former sanctuary, now the deep sea! We rigged-up an old fence post in a bait bucket filled with sand to tie a shoelace around it each time $10 was given towards the cost of the shoes. We sent out letters of invitation to the parents of pre-registered children to be a part of our project and made a cool video promoting and informing the families that would come that week. We were ready and asking God to do great things!
“One big and new decision regarding involvement in the project was to invite/challenge our church body to a “Top-it-Up Sunday” on the Sunday directly following our VBS program. One observation we’ve made regarding the church’s connection with VBS is that for those who are unable to volunteer during the BIG week there is limited connection to how God has moved. We hoped the opportunity to play a part in the VBS project financially would connect the church to those who attended. So, we gave the church two weeks’ notice to plan, pray, and prepare for what they might give to this project above their own giving.
“Throughout the week of VBS... my faith grew. God gave us 50 children, some churched, others not, to love on and share the Gospel with. They came with their quarters, loonies, 20 dollar bills...each day they were given an opportunity to walk to the front and place their offering into a treasure chest. By Wednesday our community raised $284...by Thursday they raised (wait for it...) $882 (WOW!) and by the end of Friday we had raised over $1,200!! I was breathless and so proud of the kids and their parents! It was beautiful.
“On Sunday, our “top-it-up” offering was taken in that same old treasure chest by our dear church family …. I am blessed to report that together we raised $1,900 and all the children at Casa Hogar will receive their three pairs of new and much-needed shoes.
“Our church, our team, our community who participated in this effort were all blessed and encouraged. We look forward to seeing what God will do in summer 2018!”
Thank you, Wendy, the kids, and the Fellowship Baptist Church family in Drumheller for blessing the kids of Casa Hogar. We’re so grateful that you stepped out in great faith. God loves it when you do this.
May your example inspire other Fellowship churches to get involved through our FAIR ministry and bless others through dozens of relief and development projects available online. Click here for more information. If you’re looking for a VBS summer camp project to provide for children this summer, why not go online and check out our FAIR catalogue here or contact our FAIR Director Dan Shurr here or Associate Director, Norman Nielsen here.