Missions Walk February 2021

MASTER Provisions was officially established in June 1994 and is headquartered in Florence, KY.  SHCC has “walked” with and supported MASTER Provisions since 2001.  It started (through chance) when the President and Founder Roger Babik needed a place to stay on a trip to Oklahoma.  After making a call to a church halfway to their destination they ended up staying with the late Bill Adams and Frances Adams.  This lead to SHCC's involvement with this mission.  It's difficult to condense all our involvement, I will try to take this marathon of a task down to a short walk.  A book by Roger titled “Call Against the Will” is an easy and very interesting read about Roger's decision to end a successful career and go into full time mission work.  SHCC's involvement with MASTER Provisions is mentioned twice in the book,  We have the book in the church library.  It will be at the Resource Center for review or to check out to read and return.

MASTER Provisions serves God by connecting resources to needs on five continents while sharing the gospel in many countries. They send shipping containers filled with unique resources such as clothes, shoes, sewing machines, etc.  Bill and Frances headed up the collection of clothing for MASTER Provisions for many years; however, this process changed and our church no longer collects clothes.  In addition to collecting clothes Bill and Frances and myself, Rexanne Willis, also collected sewing machines, coordinating with Jay Reynolds, a local sewing machine expert, to refurbish machines that ended up mostly in Togo, Africa, with Kpowkie Daniel (remember him from the last article).  After Bill's passing, the sewing center (that provides jobs for women in Togo) was named in his honor.

In 2007, seven members of our congregation went to the Ukraine to see first hand the clothing distribution and visit orphans who had been placed in Christian homes through the orphan care program called “My Home.”  After staying with our sponsored child, we ended up sponsoring her through the orphan program for 10 years.  Others on the trip did the same.  SHCC sponsored an additional five children in this program for many years and continues supporting that effort.

I need to mention another significant event so you can see how missions coordinate, support and interact with each other. I mentioned 2 mission trips in the first “Missions Walk” article on His Eyes (2014 and 2016 mission trip to Honduras).  His Eyes is a partner of MASTER Provisions and they  work together to get resources to people in need while sharing the gospel.  These mission trips lead to SHCC providing additional direct support to His Eyes.

Roger is a dynamic speaker, I hope you get to hear and meet him when he visits SHCC.  He has blessed this church with opportunities to be involved in God's work.  Please pray for him and the operations of MASTER Provisions.

 I hope you will continue with me on this walk through missions that SHCC supports.  Involvement with missions can be a great exercise that puts muscles in your faith and exercises your mind in searching how you can support God's work.