Last weekend, Harvest was invited to be one of the displays for the Taste of Missions Festival hosted at Troy UMC. Something amazing happened at our booth – which I will explain. The entire Family Life Center was lined with tables and booths displaying outreach – some far reaching – missions that were supported by and connected to our church in some way or another. People brought food, listened to excerpts from people who went on local, regional and international mission trips from the church, and visited booths.
They collected a love offering as people registered and through a drawing at the end of the night, one “lucky” mission was to recieve the love offering. Harvest won. That money will be used to make scholarships available for the Ignition Conference this coming weekend. Thanks all for your partnership in that.
But the amazing part was at the Harvest table. In addition to a display of Harvest stuff and a looping DVD of Harvest Ministry Summer Team, we displayed a map of Illinois and participants were invited to play a game. Each person that stopped by the table, took a thumbtack, closed their eyes and placed the tack anywhere on the map of Illinois. If they landed on (or basically on) a town that Harvest had served in at some point, they won a piece of candy.
Now for the real amazing part. Out of all the people who played the game, no one lost. Every single tack was placed on or basically on a location that Harvest had been somwhere in the past almost 20 years. No one could believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
It was a motivator for me because it’s part of the powerful mission of Harvest Ministry Teams – to be ready to go, serving as a resource to the church and taking the message of Christ to the next generation. I’m humbled in the fact that Harvest has been invited to so many different places around Illinois and the Midwest.
I’m grateful for the years we have had to focus on this mission. And I’m excited about how ever many more years we are given to do so.
OTHER POSTS…
History of The Well – a Seminar For Youth Workers
Our church is older than our town
Three ways to minster to “church kids”