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State
Missions Offering
November 2005
A testimony
from Metanoia:
By Bill
Stanfield
Yesterday
was, in Evelyn Oliveira’s words, “a five ring circus,” – which isn’t
anything too out of the ordinary. As 33 young leaders were showing up to
Metanoia for afternoon programming, a photographer was also arriving to take
Evelyn’s picture for a local weekly newspaper. Add to this that one of the
Young Leaders Program staff was out and that new mentors were showing up for
the first time.
Somewhere in
the mix, ‘Sam’ a young second grader who is often quiet and reserved arrived
from school crying. Sam is a bit of a puzzle to us, his teachers, even his
family because all attest that he occasionally gets like this and there is
only one person in the world he will talk to (an aunt). After Evelyn tried
in vain to get him to open up she figured that the best thing to do would be
business as usual and so she paired him with one of the new mentors – a high
school student from Charleston’s Academic Magnet High School within minutes
Sam was smiling again, a connection was being built and two lives (that of
Sam and his mentor) were experiencing healing.
The mission
of Metanoia is to be “people pushing forward into new relationships with God
and one another to create strong communities.” Sometimes we get so busy that
we miss how God is accomplishing Metanoia’s mission all around us, sometimes
through us, sometimes in spite of us – and sometimes through a child and a
high school student who have never met before.
The ministry to Japanese is one of the
ministries supported by your gifts to the State Missions Offering of the
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina. The goal for 2005 is
$110,000. |
You may download this article and use it in your church bulletin or in
any way you would like to promote the SC/CBF State Missions Offering.
Other monthly
features:
February 2005: Charmaine Townsend.
Metanoia. Go.
March 2005: Raymond Bennett at Christ
Central Ministries in Allendale. Go.
April: Fumi George, Japanese Ministry.
Go.
May: Tyquanisha Fludd, a Young Leader
at Metanoia. Go.
June: Duc Nguyen Van, the pastor of a
Vietnamese congregation in Greenville. Go.
September: Oakland Baptist Church in
Rock Hill doing missions in Belgium. Go.
October:
Akiko Beville,
Japanese Ministry. Go.
November: A
testimony from Metanoia. Go.
December: Lana
Rowland on Belgium. Go.
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