'Joy in Serving Jesus' in Athens, Alabama

Pastor CW Kennedy

This past Friday evening the missions conference started at Madison Street Baptist Church in Athens, Alabama. Pastor CW Kennedy has been leading this church for the past three years. The theme for the conference was "Joy in Serving Jesus". There were four missionaries present for this conference and they kicked off Friday evening with a meal and then had a missionary presentation before Pastor Kennedy preached the opening message.

Missionaries with Pastor's family

On Saturday morning two bus loads of soul winners headed out to hit the street after a short meeting. My two daughters split up and went with the pastor's daughters. I got to go with my favorite partner, my wife! As we knocked we met a man named James who invited us in. He was already saved (actually attends another Baptist church in the area), but extremely heart broken about having lost his wife recently to cancer. We spent about ten minutes visiting with him and I prayed for him to have comfort of heart. He thanked me for taking the time away from our soul winning to talk with him. We continued on and eventually met a man named Cosby who invited us inside his house as well. He attended a church in the area, but was unsure about his eternity. He allowed me to present the Gospel to him and then bowed his head and asked Christ to save him. Praise the Lord.

Mrs. Painter getting info for potential bus rider

On Saturday evening we had two services with an international dinner squeezed in the middle. In the first service we had a missionary presentation and then he preached. Then the dinner followed by another missionary presentation and more preaching. It was two great messages by Brother Chris Lanier (Mexico) and Brother Brandon Murdock (Germany). God really seemed to bless the entire evening! 

Preaching Sunday morning

On Sunday morning I presented my ministry to the adults and teens in the auditorium. After showing my video I gave my testimony going all the way back to how I got right with God when I was a deputy sheriff and surrendered to the ministry; later becoming a pastor and then a eventually a missionary. Hearts seemed stirred as many came up to me after the Sunday hour and told me that it touched their hearts. I then preached the morning service and turned the invitation over to the pastor. 

Choir singing

On Sunday evening there was several more good music specials. We had seen good music throughout the day and the conference. Then we had the final message preached by Missionary Mike Williams. He preached an excellent message on giving and how it is intended to work. Hearts were definitely stirred as many came forward at the invitation time.

Pastor's daughters singing a special

After the invitation time closed out they collected the Faith Promise commitment cards. The pastor told us that they would like to take on all the missionaries and we should know in about four weeks or so. We will be traveling back to Kentucky for our next meetings this week. We also bought our airline tickets this week for our departure. We are flying out on January 27th! We are excited but still in need of getting the rest of our support. I know many that we presented to earlier this year told us that they decide at the end of the year which missionaries they will be able to support. We are hopeful that this works out for us along with some of the meetings we have left. It is not necessarily that easy to get the timing down. We have preparations that have to be made in order to move to the other side of the world along with trying to get this ready and then coordinate this with having our support raised as well. Please pray for us about this and of course for traveling safety. We are getting to the time of year when weather can become difficult at times. May the Lord richly bless y'all and thank you for your prayers.