After a LOOOONG drive across country, Felicia and I arrived in Fort Valley, GA. We were greeted with a crew to help us unload and shown to our parking place behind the church, complete with welcome sign, basket of fruit and a welcome and pot plants.
This church exemplified the phrase, “southern hospitality”. We felt like part of the family from the moment we arrived.
We have some long-time friends who are members here. Sara Anderson (of Bristol Books fame) and Helen Rhea and John Stumbo, whom I met through Good News. John is the mayor of Fort Valley as well, so we were with celebrities!
We really enjoyed working with Rev. Billy Kimbrel. What a heart for God and gentle spirit. We had a blast. He was also full of hospitality. We went bass fishing and dove hunting together, two things I’ve not done before. So I was on a pretty good learning curve.
We had wonderful participation throughout the week. The community was quite intrigued by the stories. One of the folks in attendance was a retired drama teacher in one of the Georgia colleges. She was loving it!
It always surprises the community when the parking lot at the UMC is full and the pews are full after the sun goes down! But, they came out – they worshipped with joy – they responded to the Gospel. I love my job!
The altar was well used this week. God was moving in remarkable ways through the congregation and they were doing some serious business with Him.
LOTS of kids came out to BibleQuest. One night, the boy and girl scouts cancelled their meetings to join us. We filled up one whole side of the church!
The competition was strong for the gold medals, but we did have some winners. I’m so proud of all the hard work these kids put in in Bible memory. We adults could take a lesson here! Here are the kids with Rev. Kimbrel and Lindsey Kersey, the BQ director. We did have ourselves some fun!
Because we were going to be in another Georgia town the next week, we stayed and visited in town for a couple of days. This gave us the opportunity to catch a little Friday night fever at the local High School football game. Here we are with our friend Sara Anderson. Off camera is John and Helen Rhea Stumbo. (Their team won.)
Lots of grand memories from this week of ministry. Praying for God to keep the fire burning in the hearts of His people in Fort Valley, GA.