Brothers and sisters,
The month of October has been a busy month here at Hope Valley Baptist Church, hasn’t it? Between missions projects, church events, and the day-to-day life of church, we’ve done a lot over the last month. So for this week’s article, I just wanted to run through some of what we’ve done.
While it technically started in September, our commitment to Scarlette Jasper’s Christmas Box ministry in Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia has been a constant theme here at HVBC. The Missions Team initially set a goal of 40 boxes and you all quickly passed that goal, prompting the team to add 5 more boxes to the mix. All in all, our church will be sending 45 boxes to Scarlette and to the folks in her community, allowing them to have Christ-mas and remember how much God loves them.
Kentucky was not the only part of Appalachia our church has helped this month. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, I kept getting questions from folks, asking, “What are we going to do to help those folks? How can we address this disaster?” We decided to do two things: create disaster relief buckets through CBF and send funds to the Baptists on Mission. On short notice, you all contributed over $3,200, allowing us to send 16 disaster relief buckets out west and nearly $2,000 to Baptists on Mission.
But we weren’t done there. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan Herring reached out and asked us to partner with some of his friends in Clyde, NC. Colder temperatures have already become a regular thing in the mountains, so Jonathan asked us to bring coats, mittens, sweaters, and other warm things to help the people and you all responded. When he and Toby Bowen pulled out of HVBC for Clyde, the bed of Jonathan’s truck was full of your donations.
But we weren’t done there either! Jonathan had found a partnership with a factory out of Thomasville that was willing to send bed pads out west for every sleeping bag we collected. And so we sent out the word for donations of sleeping bags and other things to help fight the cold—space heaters being particularly important. Again, you all responded, filling several boxes full of supplies for the folks in western North Carolina.
As if that wasn’t enough going on, we also came together to put on our annual Fall Festival, with games and candy and prizes and food. We were able to reach out to our community here in Durham and remind them that there is a group of Christians who love them and wish them nothing but joy. In the midst of challenging times, it can be an act of holy resistance to say, “We will carve out space for joy and celebration.” Because of that, 56 people were able to come and have a great time!
Finally, through all of this, each Sunday we took the time to examine spooky passages in the scriptures and ask ourselves good, faithful questions. How do I want to spend my life? How do I want to treat the people around me? What does it mean to seek and abide in God’s presence? And, of course, our handbells came through with beautiful music this past Sunday to uplift us and focus our eyes on the beauty of God. It has been a busy month here at HVBC; it has been a good month here at HVBC.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben