Welcome to the Grace Fellowship Missions Minder! This “blog” is intended as a space to keep Grace Fellowship members and regular attenders up to date on everything that God is doing in the missions area at Grace.

Currrently, we are in the planning stages of the West Virginia and Venezuela mission trips for the summer of 2006. We now have over 40 people signed up for West Virginia and over 20 for Venezuela mission trips for this summer.

In West Virginia, we partner with Mustard Seeds and Mountains. Randy and Jacque Wallace run this ministry in McDowell County, West Virginia. It is primarily a home repair and evangelism ministry. They also provide the opportunity for visiting teams to provide Vacation Bible School to local children. McDowell County is the second poorest county in the United States. The financial need in the county is great but even greater is the need for knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In Venezuela, we partner with Youth With a Mission (YWAM). Blake and Carmen Simpson are missionaries to the people of Merida, Venezuela. Merida is a beautiful college town 5,000 feet above sea level in the Andean region of Venezuela. Merida is surrounded by amazing 16,000 foot mountain ranges. Blake and Carmen’s specialty is music ministry and they currently have just completed a musicians DTS (Discipleship Training School) with students from around the world. In the late summer, they will begin their second musicians DTS.

We also partner with the First Baptist Church of Merida. Pastor Samuel leads his very missions and outreach minded congregation from a home turned into a church in the northern part of Merida. In recent years, Pastor Samuel’s church has completed mission trips to Colombia and the Dominican Republic. It is awesome how this very vibrant congregation has such a heart for missions! In addition, they have a heart for church planting! They have planted a church in La Azulita, Venezuela. This is a small town approximately 2-3 hours from Merida. God has worked so that in a town where there was no evangelical Christian church two years ago, now there is a vibrant congregation spreading His fame in Venezuela!

It is so amazing and exciting that God has given the people of Grace Fellowship the heart and desire for missions. We are so fortunate to be able to partner with fellow “missionaries” in West Virginia and Venezuela as they spread God’s fame in their corner of God’s great big world!

Please be in prayer as we seek His guidance on future missions opportunities in Guatemala and Utah.

Many of you heard Mike and Dottie Clark from Guatemala share recently in our morning worship service. Please be in prayer for their ministry as they seek to minister to the children of Guatemala.

Also, please be in prayer for Ronnie Smith and his church planting minsitry in St. George, Utah. Ronnie is working to build an outpost for God in this corner of southwest Utah.

We are in the early stages of planning with Mike and Dottie and Ronnie. Please be in prayer that the Lord will lead us as we seek to broaden our partnerships with missionaries here at home and around the world!

In future updates to the Missions Minder I will hope to bring you more news about West Virginia, Venezuela, Utah and Guatemala and what God is doing there. It is my prayer that everyone at Grace Fellowship will be able to experience a missions opportunity and that one day, we will be sending missionaries out from Grace to towns and cities around the US and around the world.

If you have any questions or comments, please drop them in the Missions Minder and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

Kevin Maner