Cool Things At Stampede

Our mission team from Anna, IL is here and we are working Stampede this week. Actually, we have the honour of serving over 100 volunteers at the Stampede. We are running a pilot project which is a volunteer lounge where they can come in, cool down and get something to drink.

Well yesterday I had 2 newspaper interviews not only about the lounge, but also about the church! These reporters heard the accents of our friends from IL and asked if they are the same group that comes up from GA each year! (My friends in GA, you don't know the impact you have made in this community.)

I let them know that they are a different group connected through the same denomination helping out the same way in Medicine Hat. They asked me more about the church and one of the reporters said that he didn't believe in organized religion but for some reason he ends up getting all the religious stories. I told him that was God trying to get his attention.

Since this is the first year for the lounge, not many people have been in yet since they don't know about it, but we have had 9 police officers come in for drinks, and about 10 other volunteers. I know that it doesn't sound like a lot, but all of them were placed there by God and we can see exactly how unchurched they are.

We had one lady named Barb who asked after she saw the mission T-Shirts from our team in IL, "Is your church new because it is Baptist?" She was about 45 years old and no clue about church. She is a very sweet woman, but totally unchurched and that is what we are finding her in The Hat. We have a lot of Church buildings, but a huge population of unchurched people that are wondering why people with Southern Accents are coming to Medicine Hat. Please continue to pray for more of these God moments.