15 Mar Newsletter from Karl and Mary Badalian – January and February, 2017
We got to spend a couple of days working at the Preach Evangelistic Ministry building in Seymour prior to leaving our home in Missouri on January 5th. As always it was tough leaving friends and family but the Lord is gracious in all things. He provided us a beautiful send off and answered Mary’s request to “see some snow”. On the day of our departure we woke up to several inches snow.
Our first stop was my sister’s in Willis, Texas where we had left our trailer for safe keeping. While there we were able be with the Grace Baptist
Church family in Porter, Texas whose building we helped erect in 2015. On January 10th we hooked up our trailer and headed east out of Texas driving to Picayune, Mississippi.
We were happy to be invited to Picayune to help construct new facilitiesnfor Heritage Baptist Church. Pastor Wilson and the church family here have been meeting together to worship for ten years and are currently utilizing rented facilities. God has allowed and directed the church family here to purchase some land and build. They had erected a 50 by 60 foot building and planned to use it as a sanctuary, Sunday school classrooms, nursery and bookstore, but God had different plans. Shortly after we arrived the church received some great news in the form of a grant that allowed them to build a second 40 by 60 foot structure to utilize as a sanctuary and foyer. This allowed the existing building to now include a fellowship hall, kitchen and pantry, another large classroom, larger bathroom facilities, and an office for the pastor.
God has blessed the congregation here in many ways, one is with talented men and ladies who are able to help in the ministry and also with the construction of their new facilities. God has also shown His grace by providing many free items to reduce the cost of the building, such as doors and windows.
God is still sending laborers into His fields for which we are very grateful. We were joined in February by Tim and Barbra McHatten, and fellow NTCP workers Doug and Margie Brown. Our friends from Wilson Creek Baptist Church, Darrell and Trish Miller came for about a week during which time we were able to pull a lot of the wiring in the first building. On February 13th the second building slab was poured. Within a week and a half we had the walls up which allowed the wiring to get pulled through that building by volunteers from Pensacola, Florida.
I want to thank you all for your prayers and financial support. Though you may never meet the folks here in Picayune, you have made a difference here for the cause of Christ.