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"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptiszing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age." (NASB) Not long after Chuck Campbell became our pastor we adopted this scripture as our mission statement. Little did we know that we would be reaching the world with salvation bracelets and the Word of God when Jeff Owen set up a church website.
We are a very small church, but our God is SO BIG! This is like a miracle he has entrusted to us. When requests first started pouring in we were overwhelmed, but by trial and error we got better. The church would meet Wednesday and Sunday evenings before services to make bracelets, stuff envelopes and address them.
Many did not get their bracelets as the postal sorting machines were shooting them out of the envelope. We, also, had a lot of returns for incorrect addresses. We learned better ways as we went along.
Requests kept coming in, more than we could handle a couple of hours a week. I was hired as a part-time church secretary, except I don't classify this work as secretarial. Although God must have been preparing me for this job years ago. I worked in a office of the Olin Cellophane plant where order can in, labels were made for packaging, and bills of lading for shipping, which is all similar to getting the salvation bracelets mailed. The pastor gets the address labels printed from his computer, then they are put in envelopes which include a letter from the pastor, the plan of salvation and what the colored beads on the bracelet represent, and of course, a bracelet, then taken to the post office. In two week period recently I mailed out 2,167 bracelets.
Other churches have stepped in to help; our association has helped; the Baptist State Convention, and lots of individuals. One church started furnishing the materils and making the bracelets for us. this is greatly appreciated.
This is an interesting job. I have met new people through telephone conversations, and writing to some. In the process of labeling the envelopes I wonder about the person it is going to and pray that God will bless them. Seeing so many towns, citites and countries is a geography lesson in itself. then I think, "I guess these people wonder where Lake Toxaway, North Carolina is too!!"
Our pastor stayed glued to his computer one day and was praising God when he saw that the first person was saved in Russia. Now, he has seen people saved in China. Thousands have said they accepted Jesus as their savior after reading the plan of salvation and praying the sinner's prayer. As comedian Jerry Clower used to say, "Ain't God Good?"
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