14 Jul Newsletter from Karl and Mary Badalian – May and June, 2017
Mary and I started May in Picayune, Mississippi working on the Heritage Baptist Church building along with the Browns and the Crouches.
We left the work for a few days, driving to Kansas City, Missouri to be at New Hope Baptist Church on the first Sunday the of May. When Mary’s mom passed away back in March the family decided instead of flowers people should donate money to the prophet’s chamber at her home church, New Hope Baptist Church. Seven children along with various grandkids had returned to spend a weekend with Mary’s dad, John Roberson, as the newly remodeled prophet’s chamber was dedicated and renamed the “Linda Roberson Lodge” in honor of Mary’s mother. It is amazing how the love of God’s children abounds one to another.
Back in Picayune, Mississippi we had to say “goodbye” to Dewain and Linda Crouch on May 9th (after the radio tower was completed). Dewain and Linda have been such a blessing to us and to the church family in Picayune. We plan on meeting up with them again as soon as God allows. Mary and I along with Doug and Marjorie Brown continued to work on the facilities alongside the men and ladies of Heritage Baptist Church. Sheet rock was hung and textured, lighting was installed in the sanctuary and fellowship area and rooms were painted. It was on May 20th when we left Picayune, Mississippi and the new friends we had made. We arrived back at Wilson Creek Baptist Church around four AM Sunday morning. Pastor Moody had called us while we were still in Mississippi asking us to go to Oklahoma City when we returned, so on Wednesday we were off again on another adventure. Mary and I, along with Brad Lowery, Missionary to Croatia, went to Oklahoma City where a large office building was being remodeled. The three of us, along with a couple of good friends, Gary and JoNelle Luno, who live there were able to remove the hardware from 250 doors so the doors could be moved to Seymour, Missouri for use in later NTCP building projects. With the cost of fire rated doors being so high the potential savings to new churches would be well over $25,000. Praise God for his provision.
We always plan on spending June in Missouri to help our home church. Mary and I got to help with our junior camp. We had over 40 young kids, mainly from our church, and about a dozen adults who spent three days and nights at camp. It was a pirate theme so we got to help decorate and set up the camp then dress up as pirates and help with games and serving food. The last week in June we got to go to Silver State Baptist Youth Camp in Colorado with the older kids from church. We got to help with driving the bus out to and back from camp, and in between got to listen to a lot of good preaching and interact with the kids.
Thank you so much for your kindness to us, thank you for your prayers, and thank you for the financial support you give to the New Testament Church Planting ministry. Please continue to pray as we try to get to Arkansas and also over into Alabama and Pennsylvania to help more new churches get into their first buildings.