Hope and joy countered horror and frustration on a joint mission trip taken by First Baptist Church, Lowrys, and Smithfield Evangelical Baptist Church, Sumter.
The team from First Baptist Church, Lowrys, gather in front of the mission compound in Mexico during the group’s annual mission trip to Mexico following their involvement in a traffic accident en route.In Winnie, Tex., on the second day of their two-day trip to a mission compound in Weslaco, Tex.,?passengers in the last of the three vehicles making the journey saw smoke billowing from the highway in the distance.?As they approached the accident site, they quickly realized that their pastor, Den Parker, and two other members of First Baptist were involved.?
While Parker and church member John Thompson were all right despite some bruises, the other member, Buddy Courtney, was transported to a hospital in Beaumont, Tex.?While his head injuries weren’t as serious as feared, he had a deep cut on one leg and a fractured wrist.?That afternoon, the group continued on their trip and arrived in Weslaco early Sunday morning, May 28.
This was the third consecutive year that members of First Baptist, Lowrys, had taken a mission trip to Weslaco, about 20 minutes from the Mexican border.?Like the first two trips, this one also went well considering all that had happened en route. However, this trip was different from the other two, in that it was a collaboration between two churches. In all, 25 volunteers participated and more clothes than the group could haul were donated.?The mission team also collected 1,000 pounds of beans and rice to distribute.?
Lowrys pastor Den Parker and two church members were involved in the wreck caused by a blown tire.These items and the group’s luggage were loaded into a van that First Baptist, Lowrys, was planning to donate to a Mexican church.?That van was then loaded onto a trailer, which Parker pulled with his truck.
Most of the Lowrys group went to the Beaumont hospital to check on Courtney and to comfort his granddaughter, Meghan Perez.?Meanwhile, the Sumter group followed the wrecker to recover everything that was not burnt inside the van. Although Parker’s truck and the van were totaled, much of the cargo survived, including the rice, beans and clothes for distribution.
In addition to Parker still preaching at El Bethel Church in Mexico on Sunday night, the joint team built nine additional wooden pews for the congregation.?Working with?Harold and Mozelle Ward, who own the compound in Weslaco where the church groups stayed, the teams handed out bundles of clothes and Spanish tracts to vast numbers of destitute people.?”Hopefully they could see the love of Christ through our actions,” said Lowrys team member Matt Watson.
“The story here is not necessarily that we had a horrific crash, but rather that we fulfilled our mission after experiencing something that evoked great fear and disappointment,” Watson remarked.?”That fear was overcome upon seeing Mexican people who had nothing, yet continued to rejoice through the hope they had in Jesus Christ.
“Seeing this allowed me to realize that our group also should rejoice despite the disappointments we had experienced,” he said.
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