First Baptist
Church of Eagle Butte
P.O. Box 170, Eagle Butte, SD 57625
(605) 964-3617 (Office) / (502) 891-1704 (Pastor’s Cell)
January 30, 2017
Dear Friends,
Snow.
Buckets of it. Piles of it. Mounds of it.
Mountains of it. Eagle Butte has
become our nations’ top supplier of snow, Snow, SNOW!!!!
How much snow, you ask? Last week, I had to help a man tow a car out
of HIS DRIVEWAY. There is a six-foot
drift running down the middle of Main Street.
Yesterday, Yukon Cornelius organized a posse to kill the abominable snow
monster. That’s how much snow there is.
I am grateful to our Lord, who
invented such wonderful things as “clothes”, “propane”, and “indoors”. I am at a loss when I try to imagine the
lifestyle of the Lakotas of the 1850s, who braved these winters with little
more than what we would call camping supplies.
The people of this reservation truly have a heritage marked by fortitude
and strength!
But while the wind howls outside,
the Lord’s work does not wait. We
anxiously press forward in His service, and I rejoice in the opportunity to
share our news with you!
Off-the-Wall
Ministers to the Youth of the Community
Our Off-the-Wall youth ministry
continues its outreach to the community by providing the young people with
something fun to do on Friday night, all within a safe, Christian context. There are board games, outdoor activities
(depending on the season), movies and food.
Although Off-the-Wall is not an explicitly religious activity, we find
opportunities to share with the youth, and to teach them about the love of God.
The Annual
Feast of Thanksgiving
Wherever you are, and whatever the
troubles you face, God is always deserving of thanks. So when Thanksgiving rolls around in
November, we pull out all the stops.
With the help of our friends at Hamilton Baptist Church in Virginia, we
put on a meal for the entire community.
Everyone is invited, and everyone enjoys the feasting and general
merriment. This year, we enlisted the
help of some of the Off-the-Wall youth to help serve the food. When all the plates were counted, a record
number of people had been fed-over 300!
Everyone enjoyed themselves, and felt supremely festive that evening. What a lot this church has to be thankful
for!
Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas!
I.
Love. Christmas. Next to Easter, Christmas is the greatest of
Christian celebrations. And at First
Baptist Church, we celebrate the greatness of the holiday with gusto. We decked out the sanctuary in boughs of
holly, set up a light-up nativity scene at the church’s front, and put
Christmas lights on EVERYTHING.
But there were some pretty terrific
Christmas activities that we pursued, as well.
In our Christmas tradition, we put together boxes for Operation
Christmas Child. This charity, operated
by Samaritan’s Purse, distributes Christmas presents to children living in
third-world countries, in places where even a tube of toothpaste is seen as a
priceless treasure. Members of the
church donated presents to be put in the children’s shoeboxes, and some of the
youth packed them up. Sixteen young
children had a very merry Christmas indeed!
Each December, we host a cookie
swap at the church, so everyone can enjoy each other’s special confectionaries. But this time, we had a special treat! Rebecca Yu, a young woman who has been
attending this church for two years, recently went on a missions trip to
Jordan. There, she administered medical
care to some of the women, and prayed for them.
I requested that she give a presentation to the church on what she saw
and did, and she agreed. So while we all
munched on our cookies, Rebecca told us all about Christian missions in the
middle east, and what it means to be a short-term missionary. We are all very proud of her.
Remembering
those Less Fortunate
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
is a poor church, and is often in need.
It is for this very reason that we must make a habit of seeing the needs
of those who are less fortunate than ourselves, and doing what we can to
help. It was because of this that we
devoted a couple of Wednesday evenings toward working for a charity called
“Sole Hope”.
My wife, Tiffany, stumbled across
this charity. It is based out of Africa,
and ministers to a very specific and terrifying need. It seems that on the African continent, there
lives a monstrous little insect called a jigger. It lives in the dirt, and if you step on it,
it will burrow inside of your foot. It
will then lay eggs in your foot, feed off your blood, multiply, and eventually
make it impossible to walk. The process
of removing a jigger is almost as painful as not removing it. So for those who live in jigger-infested
areas, they’re in an awful fix.
The jigger problem can be solved
using a simple material that America has in abundance: denim! Sole hope asks its donors to collect denim
and cut it into shapes, which can then be made into shoes. The Africans wear the denim socks/shoes, and
never have another jigger again! We saw
our opportunity, and we jumped at it!
Over a period of weeks, we
collected loads of worn-out jeans from the community that were no longer being
used. Then, on two separate Wednesday
evenings, we cut them into shoe shapes.
Once we are finished with this process, we will send them all over to
Africa. I will never meet the men and
women who will benefit from this, but I am happy that I and my fellow
Christians could be used in this way.
Clothing
the Needy
Every now and then, people ask me:
“Can you find a use for donated _________?”
And I always answer the same way:
“If you can get it up here, we can get it into the hands of people who
need it.” Recently, we were able to make
good on that promise by putting together hundreds of donated clothing items and
having a massive giveaway here at the church.
Many, many people went away happy, and I was grateful to have the
opportunity to help in this way. None of
it could have been possible without the generosity which God inspired in the hearts
of people like you. Thank you all.
So
perhaps you are wondering how you can become a partner with us in our ministry
here in Eagle Butte? If so, then we are
happy to tell you, since we welcome assistance from the body of Christ. Here is
what we need the most:
Prayer.
It may be true
that our church is getting along very well at the moment, and that God is doing
great things here. But it is precisely
when a church is being used by God that Satan does all in his power to destroy
it. So please pray, my brothers and
sisters. Pray that our leadership will
keep their hearts pure and humble, and that we will live at peace with each
other. Pray that we will be protected
from the power of the enemy, and that God’s Holy Spirit will shine through in
our lives. Pray that the Lakotas in the
community will come to know the Lord, and that the commitment they make will
not be a superficial group of words, but a real change in their Spirits that
will alter the course of their lives for eternity.
E-mail addresses.
For those of you who have e-mail addresses, please send them to me. That way, these monthly newsletters can be
forwarded to everyone in your church who wants one-and you can get it in
color! Just send your name and e-mail
address to me at benfarrar777@hotmail.com, and I’ll make sure you receive this
newsletter as often as it comes out.
People With Construction Experience. If
any of you are skilled with masonry or concrete, and you would like to use that
gift on the mission field, please contact me.
There is a retaining wall in the front of our church that needs to be
built by next June, or we will face consequences from the city. Any help in this area from any of you would
be deeply appreciated.
Financial Assistance.
Our church is fortunate to have members who are generous in their
giving. But some of our most generous members are, nevertheless, very
poor. We have long been blessed with assistance
from outside churches and individuals, and we try to use those gifts wisely and
well. If any one of you wishes to bless
the church with a financial gift, you may send it to:
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
P.O. Box 170
Eagle Butte, SD 57625
In the last month, a financial gift was
made in honor of Miles Pinckney Farrar, Elizabeth Henkle Farrar and Joseph Webb
Farrar.
May
God bless you all, and draw you closer to Himself each and every day.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Ben Farrar
Pastor
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
