You have to love it when a plan comes together… right? Sunday was one such day. Mission Jackson volunteers, Englewood Baptist Church Sunday school members, City of Jackson Police officers, Mundt Rental Properties, and members of the Jackson Lions Club worked in unity to reach out to the community near Guardian Courts ( aka, MJ Hollywood), The day was a hot holiday weekend day. When we planned the event, we had no way of knowing how many people would attend, since some families might be visiting relatives or otherwise be preoccupied. All together, we had around 75 people to participate. I have included a photo gallery below to show you a sampling of what the day was like. Now, here is a list of items that might be of interest to you:
- Most importantly, we know of at least one person who accepted Christ as Savior on Sunday. One of our volunteers presented the Gospel to a gentleman using EE (Evangelism Explosion) and he prayed to receive Christ… praise the Lord!
- I was blessed to share my personal testimony, intermingled with the Gospel, to about 20 adults. I also shared 3 passages of scripture about obtaining peace with God through Jesus.
- The Jackson Lions Club provided free eye screenings to the children and adults in neighborhood. They screened 26 people and of that number, 25% were identified to have issues that needed followup. Thank you to the Lions who came out on a holiday to serve the people of this city.
- The city of Jackson Police Dept. was gracious and assigned a patrolman or two to visit with us and mingle with the residents and our volunteers alike. Thank you Captain Holt for your generous offer to assign one of your men to us for the afternoon.
- Mundt Rental Properties provided us a vacant apartment for the Lions to conduct their eye screenings. Thank you Mr. Paul for getting this ready for us, especially for the nice cool air conditioning!
- We had 2 Englewood BC Sunday school classes assist us. My personal class did the “hot” work of grilling the food and handling the food preparation. You all did a great job! Thank you very much!
- The MJ Hollywood volunteer team also did great and we had a few volunteers from other MJ sits drop by to hang out with us and help with the neighborhood kids. Thank you all so much! If it were not for your dedication to this ministry, we could not get to first base with this ministry. You ladies and gentlemen rock!
- Thank you to our brother, Paul Lee for coming out to help with the balloon animals and community engagement. I believe he had the greatest blessing of the day by leading a gentleman to Christ (mentioned above).
- As a “thank you” to the adults in the neighborhood for coming out on such a hot day, we gave away one $100 WalMart gift card at the end of the event. I had a couple of people to donate funds to make that possible. You know who you are and I pray that you know how much I appreciate your generosity.
- Last, but not least, thank you to all the people who live in that community and are willing to allow us to come into their neighborhood week after week to share the love of Christ with them.
So, let me wrap this up by saying how good it is when people from different groups, departments, and backgrounds can come together for a common cause. If we can all find a common goal of sharing the love of Jesus Christ in our community, well… we would have a lot less time to grumble about all the bad in the world and more time to talk about how Jesus makes an impact on the lives of men, women, boys and girls… amen.
