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Section I: A Snapshot of Boomerang Churches
 

Wearing coveralls and a "terrible" white hat with a huge bill, Gayle Finke withstood the 100 degree temperature and 100 percent humidity to pass out Bibles to underprivileged children in Arkansas. By all accounts, she shouldn't be there. Just a few summers before she suffered a heat stroke and accompanying seizures while vacationing in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, and still suffers ill effects from it today. Regardless, she was there because she wanted to be a part of her church's mission trip--she wanted to do something good for someone else. Little did she know that the trip would change her life and her husband's eternity.
 

While attending Jericho Week in Glorieta, New Mexico, in July 1997, Bekah Sewell heard about the needs of the impoverished people living along the Mississippi Delta. Burdened, she asked her church, The First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills, to purchase the North American Mission Board video that depicts their struggle, "A River Runs Through It," and move the annual home missions study from Spring '98 to Fall '97. With their approval, she decorated the fellowship hall to look like the banks of the mighty river and prepared a meal, "beans and rice." Unlike the thousand-dollar-a-plate meals politicians have, she wasn't trying to raise money, she was trying to raise awareness.

After eating the modest meal and watching the video, the participants' consensus was, "We need to do something to help, but what?" Ray and Susan McBride, who were visiting the church, suggested they come to their community, Lake Village, Arkansas on a Mission Trip. Though the film producers did not feature it in the video, it is along the Mississippi Delta and knows poverty's blight. The group decided their pastor, Dr. Tom Stringfellow, should study the situation and recommend an appropriate course of action.

With poverty's images etched on his soul, Pastor Tom prayed for direction. One sentence from the video stuck in his mind, "Children who wear nice school clothes out--perform those with tattered clothes." After flying to Lake Village, he asked the church to earmark $10,000 to purchase one pair of shoes and one set of clothes for every child whose family fell beneath the poverty line.

Lake Village has its share of poverty. The average per capita income in Chicot County is 50 percent of the national average. Upward to 59 percent of the children, according to the United States Census Bureau, live in poverty. Joyce Vaught, the Superintendent of Schools, reports that 85 percent of the children in her school district qualify for the government's free lunch program.

Compared with the glaring need, ten thousand dollars isn't much, but it is exorbitant to The First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills, a church running fifty-five in worship. After all, with only twenty people attending the Mission banquet, it represented about $500.00 a plate--not bad for beans and rice.

The church approved the plan, but God didn't. He had something bigger in mind--much bigger.

In June, Pastor Tom flew to Lake Village again to have a meeting with religious and civic leaders in the community. Ninety minutes later, the group organized seven committees and secured a promise of cooperation from everyone at the table.

The excitement was building, and so was the size of the project.

Members of the church cheerfully gave, not $10,000, but $15,000. Fred Wehba, a new member of the church, began to tell his business associates about the Mission project. They wanted to get involved and gave an additional $60,000.00.

With $75,000.00 in hand, Dr. Stringfellow began calling clothing manufacturers to see if he could purchase the clothing direct from the factories. The extra effort paid off; with the money they raised, he purchased merchandise with a retail value of $250,000.

Instead of giving some children one set of clothes and one pair of shoes, they expanded the project to give all 583 elementary children these items:

• Two pairs of shoes, one of them, LA Gear "Light-ups"
• Two pairs of slacks
• One pair of shorts
• Four shirts
• Six pieces of underwear
• Six pairs of socks
• toothbrush and toothpaste
• "Church" clothes
• NIVr New Testament, written on a 3^rd grade level

Thursday, August 20, 1998, Gayle and Brian joined the others from their Mission Team to ride to Burbank Airport to catch their flight. They boarded flight # 1339 for Little Rock, Arkansas, knowing they were in the center of God's will, ready to touch the lives of strangers.

After touching down, they transferred to a church bus for a 2 ½ hour ride to Lake Village. They arrived around 8:30 p.m. to a police escort that directed them through town to the Lake Village Baptist Church. That evening, they enjoyed a southern-fried catfish dinner, prepared by the Chamber of Commerce, and went to their host homes to get some rest. In about thirty-six hours 1800 people would inundate them, they needed all the sleep they could get.

The task was overwhelming. Preparing for the block party and distributing more than 15,000 items within a couple of hours demanded cooperation from everyone. Government and civic agencies joined the religious community in planning and implementing the block party.

Overnight, what looked like an outdoor flea market sprung up from the empty lot east of the New Hope Baptist Church. Five funeral home tents flanked the 80 X 12-foot National Guard tent to provide some shade for the 1,800 people who would beseige them the next day to receive school uniforms for their children. Workers unfolded eighty "fellowship hall" tables that they borrowed from surrounding churches and set them up under the tents.

Earlier in the month, several trucks delivered the merchandise to Ray McBride's office building. Collectively, it would have taken a standard sized moving truck to transport it all at the same time. Now, the workers had to haul all the boxes over to the church, carry them to the proper location and display their contents for distribution.

Friday was a busy day, but as the sun set over Lake Chicot, the Mission Team was prepared for the next day, or were they?

In the blistering heat, the next morning, the Mission Team arrived at the block party to begin their ministry. The crowds descended with a frenzy.

Gayle passed out Bibles at the first table. As she handed a Bible to each child, she said, "Here, I want you to have this Bible; it is from the First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills, and it is just for you."

Her husband, Brian, was a "guide" who escorted the families through the maze to help them go to the right place in the correct order. One young precocious boy came up to him and said, "Where's my shoes, Man? I want my shoes!" Apparently, the child had already heard about the light--up LA Gears that the Mission Team was giving out. He didn't care about the clothes or other items he would get, and he just wanted to get his shoes. Brian helped the boy get his shoes and everything else he had coming to him.

Brian helped another man take his children through the line. Throughout their time together, the man gazed straight at the ground and wouldn't look Brian in the eye, that is until they were done. "God bless you all for helping us," the man said, "I don't know what we would have done for clothes for the kids without your help." "No," Brian said, "God bless you and your children."

The Mission Team impressed Principal Tim Watkins, "They didn't just write a check; they came here themselves and handed the clothes to the children personally. What the Mission Team was really giving away, was love." The school uniforms, according to Superintendent Joyce Vaught, were "their passports into the city." After distributing the clothes, and validating their "passports," the real ministry began.

Following the block party, some members of the Mission Team and the community went to Crickett's, a local restaurant for lunch. With the spiritual adrenaline still pumping, someone began to sing a hymn, and everyone else, even the other customers, joined in. It was a revival meeting on Main Street.

The owner of Crickett's Restaurant, Crickett Burnes fell under the Holy Spirit's conviction when the Mission Team was in her restaurant. She and her daughter, Vicki Suitt, opened their entire inventory of beer and poured a thousand dollars down the drain. She closed the Sports Bar in the back room and opened the doors to Pastor Larry Coulter to start a church in the restaurant.

"When the Mission Team was here," Crickett said, "I learned that God can be in the public without hurting your business." The first thing a customer sees when they walk into Crickett's is a 15-foot mural of the Last Supper her daughter Vicki is painting.

Following an interracial worship service Sunday morning, five pastors donned baptismal garb from the era of slavery and walked into Lake Chicot--four black Pastors, along with Gayle's pastor, Tom Stringfellow.

While the choir sang an old Negro spiritual, Brian Finke, Gayle's husband, walked into the water. Yes, Gayle's husband had accepted Christ.

One Sunday morning, in April 1998, Brian drove his wife to church in his newly restored 1961 Corvette. The Pastor, a car buff himself, wanted a closer look when he saw the car. With a 300-horsepower 350 CID Chevy V8 under the hood, and a Borg Warner 4 speed, close-ratio-manual transmission attached to the drive train, the Pastor couldn't resist, "Can you give me a ride around the block?"

Gladly, Brian took him for a spin. When they arrived back at the church, the pastor had another request. "Why don't you come on up for my class on Basic Baptist Principles? I'd love to have you in the group." Brian excused himself, "I haven't shaved in three days and I plan on detailing the car this morning." Pastor Tom wouldn't take no for an answer. Reluctantly, Brian acquiesced.

Brian describes the class as the "turning point" for him. After the class was over, he started attending worship on a regular basis. During the invitation, he kept feeling twinges of guilt and urges to go forward but he resisted them.

Slowly, Brian was getting involved in the life of the Church. He agreed to go on the Mission Trip with his wife and agreed to be the webmaster of the church's website (http://www.firstbaptistbevhills.org).

A couple weeks prior to the Mission Trip, he met with Pastor Tom to discuss the website, but the Pastor had another agenda. "Have you given any consideration to becoming a Christian? If so, I could baptize you in Lake Chicot on the Mission Trip." Under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, he prayed with the Pastor to receive Christ.
 

Gayle watched from the amphitheater as Brian walked into the water. "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I baptize you my brother . . ." She'd signed up for a Mission Trip to help others and found that she received more than she gave. The blessing she meant to give boomeranged and came back to her. She couldn't receive a greater blessing than a born-again husband.

On the Mission Trip, she and her husband were ministers--touching the lives of others while shaded under the umbrella of God's blessing.

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