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What It Means to Reach Local
by Dixie Massey, InFaith Board of Trustees
I grew up a part of the heritage work of InFaith. My dad was a missionary with InFaith and his work in Wyoming looked very much like the work of the early missionaries when our country was young. For him in rural Wyoming, reaching local meant driving 3 hours or more to church and speaking to a group of ten people because no one else was, and those were people God loved. In that time and place, reaching local meant youth camp in the mountains, using some of the original buildings that had been part of an illegal moonshine operation during prohibition. Reaching local meant a lot of vacation Bible schools because families often wanted something for the kids, even if the adults wouldn't come to services.
When I was old enough to teach, reaching local meant Dad dropping me off with a family that lived over 80 miles from town to teach Bible school to whatever kids came. I stayed by myself in a camper. The milk cows walked by my camper every morning and licked the windows. I taught five kids. Whatever crafts we did we carried back and forth with us because the pack rats loved to come see what was new.
Dad wouldn't leave me alone at the logging camp, though. He stayed to teach with me there. We stayed in a tiny skid shack with no running water. The first morning we arrived at the building where we would teach, several kids were waiting outside, eating cream pie for breakfast that they'd gotten on credit at the only store in the area. Now that I've lived and worked in urban areas, I know that the logging camp had many of the same challenges that the inner city has - kids with no adults around, no support system, widespread alcoholism, and drug abuse. But those were kids God loved. And being there is what it means to reach local.
The activities and contexts of InFaith missionaries have changed in 200 years and we celebrate that this year as we look back at our long history as a mission. A lot of the ministries that go on now aren't rural and they don't look like they did for me. We're in cities, schools, after-school programs, prisons, and nursing homes. We're there because those are people God loves and that is the work he has given us for the present.
So in our present, we pause at this time and in this place of remembrance and give thanks for our past and the seeds that have been planted by our former missionaries. We look forward to our future and pray we might be effective for another 200 years. And we mark this a place of commitment to be faithful to our local - the people right in front of us, the people that God loves.
Join In
Would you consider giving a $20.17 anniversary gift this month to help jumpstart our new field staff members as they begin reaching local communities that need the voice of the gospel? Click here to give by credit card through our website.
Read More on the Blog
Want to hear more of what Dixie has to say? Read her blog post about looking at the present in light of our past on our website here. And subscribe to our blog to receive email updates when new blogs are posted.