Missions
Join us as we spread the word of Christ through our community, nation, and around the world.
This Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. join us as we hear reports from our Mexico Mission team as a follow-up to the their recent trip to Mexico.
COME JOIN THE FUN!
June 7th- 11th from 8:45 a.m. – Noon
To register, or for more information, call us at the church office! 376-4531
Thursday, June 10th at 6:30 p.m. our VBS kids will be presenting for Family Night!
“We can do this.”
With those four simple words, two couples sought after the divine leading of God, said “Yes” to His will, and established a motorcycle ministry called F.A.I.T.H. Riders in February 2002 at First Baptist Church at the Mall in Lakeland, FL. What began as a four-person step of faith has grown into a team of many dedicated believers committed to the cause of Christ and to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ on and with their motorcycles to any who will listen. The ministry has expanded to over 120 churches with more chapters about to begin across the united states.
Each Commissioned Chapter of F.A.I.T.H. Riders has a special responsibility to “set the standard” for the Ministry. We only accomplish this through obedient surrender to the voice of the Father, and NOT by our own efforts.
This is only a little portion about what makes F.A.I.T.H. Riders the active ministry it has become. To learn more, join Ron Deak and Keith Burkhart for an informational meeting at the Deak home Jan 10th at 7:30 p.m.
Jan 17th will be a F.A.I.T.H. Riders service during our evening worship at 6:00 p.m.
FOr any questions please call Ron Deak at 834-5193
“We can do this.”
With those four simple words, two couples sought after the divine leading of God, said “Yes” to His will, and established a motorcycle ministry called F.A.I.T.H. Riders in February 2002 at First Baptist Church at the Mall in Lakeland, FL. What began as a four-person step of faith has grown into a team of many dedicated believers committed to the cause of Christ and to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ on and with their motorcycles to any who will listen. The ministry has expanded to over 120 churches with more chapters about to begin across the united states.
Each Commissioned Chapter of F.A.I.T.H. Riders has a special responsibility to “set the standard” for the Ministry. We only accomplish this through obedient surrender to the voice of the Father, and NOT by our own efforts.
This is only a little portion about what makes F.A.I.T.H. Riders the active ministry it has become. To learn more, join Ron Deak and Keith Burkhart for an informational meeting at the Deak home Jan 10th at 7:30 p.m.
Jan 17th will be a F.A.I.T.H. Riders service during our evening worship at 6:00 p.m.
FOr any questions please call Ron Deak at 834-5193
Hello Everyone,
Hopefully you have read the last updates and know that Ray and I are back in Dar es Salaam. We will be here for the remainder of the trip which is until next Thursday the 17th. There will not be real exciting things happening during this time. We have many appointments with banks, the university, and some other organizations this week. The big meeting will be with the Prime Minister of Tanzania next week. This will be exciting and it is our hope to have him pave the way for the company’s non-profit status in Tanzania.
We expect it to go well.
I will not send you the meeting updates but will let you know how we are doing over the next week. My health has been great and the meetings to this point have gone very well.
I asked that you continue to pray for me and for the meeting with the Prime Minister.
God Bless you all and thank you for your prayers,
Russ Myers
Vice President Development
Hello everyone,
Today we are riding a bus back to DAR. We have booked a set on the “High Class Bus”. This has assigned seating and Ray and I got the last two seats they said. We are up front right at the door. Great for watching the traffic and people.
We now have three big suitcases and our backpacks that we are taking back to DAR, a lot of stuff.
While we are waiting on the bus to leave the gathering area, a minivan pulls up from a town that is 2.5 hours away. The van in the USA would be an eight passenger van. They have modified the seating some. It has seating for 13 people but I counted 25 people that got out of that van. Imagine riding with 25 people for 2.5 hours in that van. It makes me tired.
We are setting in the front seats and there is the steps that lead up to the seating area and the flat area between the steps and the driver. Why is that important. Well we start off and there are three men in the area who are the managers of the ride. I actually think we took their seats. Pastor Kiwanga has a lot of pull.. So we started with three people in this area but before we had made two stops there were 8 people in this area. When we arrived in Morogoro a little over half way back we unloaded some passengers and added some new ones which left only 5 people in the front area.
A new passenger was a young man that spoke some English and he was a talker and becoming a good con-man. He was “my friend” immediately and wanted to know my name, phone number and where we were staying. He wanted me to sponsor him to the USA because life is hard in Tanzania and live is easy in the USA. I told him it was probably the other way around. Anyway it was fun to banter with him for the next two hours or so.
We arrived at the bus area in DAR. Wow, I say that a lot but Wow. There were lots of people, buses and taxis. We negotiated a ride to the Cefa Hostel.
We have a dinner arrangement with Tom Dixon a man that works with a Danish company that gives money away. What a job. He has been in TZ for 10 years and has almost raised his family. His oldest daughter is going to be going to USA for college next year and he has a farm in Costa Rica where his family is living now. He is going there for Christmas.
We had pizza at the place I talked about earlier and it was good again.
Wednesday is a national holiday in TZ and we will be working in the room getting ready for the upcoming meetings and catching up on updates and emails. I will skip tomorrow unless something exciting happens and update you on Thursday
God bless you all
Russ Myers
Vice President Development
Hi Everyone,
Today we didn’t start until 8:30am. Got to sleep in until 7am how nice after the long ride.
The day is filled with business meetings at the Tumaini University. We are meeting the Dean of the Law school and the Dean and a professor of the Business school. We are finalizing the documents for submission to the government to establish the company in Tanzania. You do not care about the meetings. They lasted until 6pm.
We then went to dinner with the Dean of the Law school to an Indian restaurant. India style. Continuing the research of restaurants around the world. I had a Russian egg salad, butter chicken, vegetable fried rice a thing called a sambosa. This sambosa was lamb filled in a pastry shell, kind of an spring roll feel and very good.
We have finished our work this trip to Iringa today much to our surprise. We will return to DAR tomorrow on the bus. Oh boy this is going to be fun.
God bless you all,
Russ Myers
Vice President Development
Hello Everyone,
Today our friend Randy is going home so he got in a taxi for the airport at 6:15am and Ray and I headed back to Iringa at 6:45am.
We stopped and had lunch at the Morogoro hotel and then went to the local marketplace. We were looking at spices and beans. I have some of both that I purchased.
The marketplace is just what you might think. Crowded, narrow walkways and people everywhere. You have two Mzungu (white people) in the market and you get a lot of attention. What a neat experience and fun haggling. I did not feel in danger or threatened at any time during our visit.
We loaded up and finished our trip to Iringa. The national park was on the way and we saw many elephant and giraffe today along the road. WOW….
We have dinner arrangements with the man that owns the local travel agency. Ray and Anna Getterland.
When we arrived at the Lutheran hostel, Pastor Kiwanga said we had to go to a 12 year old boys confirmation party. I took some spices as a gift but to give the gift, Ray the pastor and I formed a conga line and danced slowly to towards the young man to shake his hand and present the gift. That had to have been quit a site. The locals clap and laughed. We also had to introduce ourselves and make a short speak to everyone. Oh yes, we had to eat a meal at this reception, remember we are going to a dinner at Frank’s just after this.
Anna cooked BBQ pork ribs, rice, beans, cream corn, spinach and had chocolate cake with apples for desert. She also made cinnamon rolls in case we did not like the chocolate cake. We took the cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next morning.
Good night and God bless all,
Russ Myers
Vice President Development
Hello Everyone,
When we last visited I had just had NY style pizza. Today is Randy’s last day with Ray and I so we thought about going over to Zanzibar to look around. We left the hostel at 6:45 to catch an early fairy across to the island. When we got to the fairy location we could not by tickets there but had to go to another location to purchase them. This location was a taxi ride away. When we finally arrived it was a circus atmosphere, guys trying to hustle you into their office to purchase a ticket. We found a fast boat but we had just missed the 7:15 departure and it would not depart again until 9:30 and the last return was a 3:30. This would give us about 4 hours on the island. Of course the guy said that is plenty of time there.
There are three speeds to get to the island. The fast boat at about 45 minutes, the medium fast that takes 90 minutes or the slow boat that takes 4 hours, priced accordingly. The fast boat was going to cost us about $100 each round trip and so we decided that was too much for a 4 hour trip. If it would have been like Gilligan’s island it would last a lot longer and the price would have been okay……….
So we decided to have a nice breakfast downtown at a place Ray new and it was a good relaxing time and the food was good. We then headed back towards the hostel.
Peter, one of the gentlemen from our bicycle factory has his welding shop on the way so we stopped by and he was there and showed us his work. He was making some decorative bars for windows at the time. He then took us to a place called Wonder Welders.
Wonder welders is a place that employees disabled people that do artistic work. They make metal art, paper and glass art. I have some items to show all when I return.
I called dad and mom and told them I was fine and having a good time. I then called Bro. Dave to have him print out my daily updates for them. I was finally able to call Janis last night and talk we talked for a while. It was good.
Tonight we went to a very nice hotel on a peninsula overlooking the Indian Ocean and had a wonderful seafood dinner. I have to keep up my reputation and check out all of the restaurants over the world.
God Bless you all,
Russ Myers
Hi Everyone,
Well it is Friday and we are starting out at 7:30am to go to a 9am meeting. The traffic is generally worse than New York, but we actually made to our appointment at 9am. So, we were early by African time which is slower than Mexican time for those who have travelled there.
Our first meeting was with a company that makes Bio-diesel from used cooking oil. He is the first to do this in Africa we think and his business is growing. We had a meeting with a lady from a Dutch company that provides business planning assistance. She and a professor from the University of Dar es Salaam met us at the bio-diesel company.
We went to the airport and I picked up my bag that had arrived. YEA, a new pair of pants….. a toothbrush and deodorant. It is amazing what we can do without and what can make us happy. Oh yes by the way, the hostel we are at in DAR has an air conditioned room when it works and hot water for showers.
Our next stop was a textile factory. This man has 65- 1950’s style loom’s for making fabric. It was loud in that building. We are advising him on his business.
We went to the University of DAR and had lunch with the Dean of Post Graduate Studies and the Director of the Business School. Both had studied in the USA. We will meet with them again next week after we return from Iringa.
We stopped at the Mall (Not bad) to look around. I have seen worse in the USA. After the mall we headed back to the hotel for an early day.
This evening we walked about a mile to a pizza place. Great New York style pizza.
God Bless you all,
Russ Myers
Vice President Development