Servant Ministry

This Saturday and Sunday, two mission teams from Hayes Barton will travel to La Bonita, Costa Rica and Guatemala City, Guatemala for a week of service ministry. The Costa Rica team will work under the leadership of Wil Bailey, a Rocky Mount, NC native who is currently the United Methodist missionary in the Southern District of Costa Rica; the Guatemala team will work with Brady Greene and his Vida Joven (Young Life) staff. Brady is married to Cindy Donaldson Greene, daughter of Joe and Pat Donaldson, sister of Kelly, HBUMC members.

This is HBUMC’s fifth trip to Costa Rica, where the team of 14 will spend next week building a parsonage and church classrooms in a mountainous region of southern Costa Rica. Our second year Guatemala team of 19 will be repairing and reconstructing homes in a poor, urban section of Guatemala City called El Recuerdo, built on the former city dump. For both teams, typical daily activities include interacting and sharing the love of Christ with community members & children, welding, roofing, painting, pouring concrete floors, building walls and foundations, woodwork, landscaping, etc.

We hope you'll be present at the 7pm Ash Wednesday service, where our two teams will be commissioned. Additionally, please sign up in the narthex to be a Prayer Partner for one or more of our 33 team members, who are listed below. Our Internet access will most likely be sporadic, but we’ll try our best to update the Central America Missions team blog and invite you to follow along.

Kevin Anderson, who went on last years' Guatemala trip, recently shared the following with me, written by Dr. James Howell at Myers Park UMC in Charlotte. He said he thought it did an excellent job of summing up the journey that we're about to embark on and I agree.

“Servant ministry is not the haves doling out to the have nots. When we serve, we are served, and with the person in need we discover our shared poverty of soul. Often when we think we are about to help someone in need, we are surprised by an immense, joyful faith in the other person, something we’d been missing staying at home. We serve, not to pad our resume, relieve guilt, or feel good about ourselves – or even to change the world. We do it to honor God, to love Christ, to discover spiritual truths about ourselves in the mirror of the other person, and to witness to God’s goodness. This frees us to be more generous, and we are not too disturbed by failure or the slowness of results: we do it for God, we know our own failures, God has been patient with us, we do what we do to love Christ, so the labor is never wasted, and we grow in our faith.”

Thank you, Hayes Barton, for your prayers, financial support and for the opportunity to grow in our faith with the people of Central America.

Guatemala Team: Ann Benson, Gene Bowers, Nelson Brugh, Tom Brugh, Sara Bryant, Beau Cates, Rick Clayton, Perry Currin, Stacy Grove, Sally Martin, Joe Parker, Jim and Cathy Pierce, David Potter, Tim Price, Trevor Spear, Dickie and Angie Thompson, Andy Wright

Costa Rica Team: Sherry Abernethy, Shanaz Carper, John Cates, Lori Constantino, Dene Dawson, David Dyer, Dick and Andy Fowler, Kelly Furr, Laura Fine Ledford, Ned and Nancy Nutt, Michael Stanziale, Doug Walter