funding, such as purchases of strategic adjacent property, and renovations to the Crossings building. • Ensuring congregant safety.** • Clearing snow from the STARS houses. ** Each Sunday, there is a dedicated group of men and women who serve on the Life Safety Team (LST) at College Church, to ensure a safe, welcoming environment. The LST consists of nurses, a fireman and numerous individuals with life skills and experiences which lend themselves to this safety and security ministry. Under the auspices of the deacons since its inception in 2018, this dedicated group quietly safeguards your worship experience and can react quickly to urgent medical or other incidents.
suffering. We saw total surrender and reliance on God and his promises to sustain through the darkest moments. We saw a renewed reliance on prayer and seeking the comfort of our Father. We saw creative new ministry ideas and implementation. We saw deep compassion for the “least of these” who were hungry and homeless, and tangible action to help. As with the list of sufferings, these examples of perseverance could go on and on. Praise be to God for the exceptional individuals and families that have answered God’s call to serve him as College Church missionaries! I believe one of the reasons our missionaries fared so well during this past year is due to the preparedness received through our Missionary Prep Program (MPP). The MPP is an intense one- to two-year program designed to train and prepare College Church missionaries for a career and life in missions. While Board of Missions members come and go through lim-
Brad Bailey Board of Missions Chair When I look back over the past year and think of our missionaries, Romans 5:2b-4 comes to mind: And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (NIV) There has been plenty of suffering to go around–sickness, death, mourning, loneliness, isolation, stuck in-country, stuck out of country, a missed wedding of a daughter, prevented from being at the deathbed of a loved one, delayed or rejected visa applications, uncertainty, ministry disruption—the list could go on and on. The encouraging part is that over the past year, we have seen time and time again the perseverance of our missionaries in the face of 29
