I want to share a few updates for you as you continue to pray for our many ongoing mission partnerships.

• New pictures have been posted from our June 2008 mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  You can view them here.
• Rand Swanigan and I leave Jefferson City Sunday morning at 5:30 am on our way to Kenya.  I will post updates as often as I can although while in Kenya I suspect it will be few to none. We will return Wednesday, October 22.  See our earlier post for prayer requests.
• Jerry Kemple and a team of nine members will be departing Sunday, October 19th, for Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  They will be working with Hands On Disaster Response to clean and rebuild from the spring flooding in that area. If you would like information about the trip or to see if you can still join the team, contact team leader, Jerry Kemple. The trip cost is $60 and will return on October 24th.
• Be in prayer for our Senior Pastor, Doyle Sager, as he travels to Moldova October 20th – 29th.  He, along with Roger Hatfield, Executive Director of Future Leadership Foundation, and Bob Johnson, pastor at First Baptist Church, Rolla, will be leading seminars for pastors from Moldova.  Pastors and their spouses will attend the retreat, which is actually held in Romania, to develop their skills in their leadership of local churches. 

Thank you for your amazing support of missions – through prayers, through donations, through faithful giving. We, as a church, are humbly blessed to be a part of the work God is doing around the world.

Melissa Hatfield

By Heather Feeler, FBCJC Church Member

When spending a week in the Dominican Republic, an island located in the Caribbean, on a medical mission trip, what might you expect to be doing? Check those that apply.

___ Sweating
___ Learning how to be flexible, in case medicine does not arrive.
___ Healing the sick, physically and spiritually.
___ Sweating more than you’ve ever sweated in your life.
___ Opening your eyes to the dire conditions in the world.

For the seven people from First Baptist Church who traveled to the Dominican Republic June 7 – 14, the duties on a medical mission trip were varied and enriching. Stephanie (Feeler) McDanel, a nursing student in Springfield, MO., checked in medicine, translated for nurses and helped with well-baby checks, while her husband, Andrew, a band director, surveyed the community, filled prescriptions and taught children how to brush their teeth.

Dr. Lory Feeler provided medical treatment at the clinics and Gary Hemphill, a pharmacist, sent them home with medicine. Dale Feeler, Ashley Hemphill and Glenda Scoville directed long lines of people, sometimes desperate and angry, and helped organize the clinics. The team saw more than 1,200 patients with an average person getting three prescriptions to take home. And while medical expertise did come in handy, the four on the trip without it found their own way to help heal.

“I really saw the true condition when I got to survey people in the village by myself with the interpreter,” says Andrew McDanel. “I got to go into their homes, and see and smell their life. It’s what’s most memorable.”

Gary Hemphill finds that people who know the least about medicine are often the best caregivers because a smile, a touch, becomes a greater extension into the community, he says.
In this lush, tropical paradise, concrete houses sit on top of each other, medical care is scarce, and malaria and AIDS are rampant. It is a picture that continues to resonant with the medical mission team.

“I see the world through different eyes,” says Lory Feeler. “I see a more universal place. We may not all look alike or speak the same language, but we have the same basic needs.”

Dale Feeler continues to pray daily for more people to go to these countries and for the basic needs of the people to be met. It is a need that cannot be forgotten once home.

“It’s a big world out there and it’s going to take all of us, working as a team, to reach out,” says Hemphill. More sweat. More flexibility. More healing. More open eyes and open hearts.

If you are interested in serving in the Dominican Republic, FBCJC will send another team in 2009 with expanded ministries in the area of activities for children and construction. More details about the trip will be announced in the upcoming months.

Enjoy this video montage of our 2008 Medical Mission Trip to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQn7-_qoStc]