Until All Have Heard

Tuesday March 6th, friends and family of Blue Mountain’s BSU gathered to celebrate and support students going to serve this summer as they participated in the annual Summer Missions banquet.

In order to raise funds for travel expenses, etc, each summer missionary sold tickets to friends, family, and staff, for a seat at their table. Each student hosted a table decorated to depict the culture of the country or state in which they’ve been called to serve, along with other personal touches.

The night began with a meal catered by Chef Brett, followed by desserts donated by the generous women of Pleasant Hill Baptist church — the highlight of the meal being Mrs. Beverly Moffat’s famous bread.

Fearless leader of the BSU, Mrs. Tracey Moser, took the podium to introduce the men and women going to serve the nations this summer. Summer missionaries include: Canton Foley serving in Texas, Tyler May serving in Tennessee, Zackary Ainsworth serving in South East Asia, Brianna Schmidt serving in Chile, Jacob Heffner serving in Brazil, Victoria Kinsey serving in Kentucky, Abigail Keathley, Sarah Ward serving in Canada, Tyler Hunt serving in South East Asia, Jamie Mott serving in Canada, along with me who will be serving in Kenya.

As a first time summer missionary, I was asked to speak about my personal call to missions, followed by special music sung by Sarah Ward, who performed a beautiful praise ballad with her ukulele.

Tyler Hunt closed out the evening with his own testimony regarding a moving experience he had on the mission field last summer with a young boy. Working in a Canadian sports ministry camp, Tyler and the staff he served with had a unique opportunity to reach kids from various cultures who had yet to be exposed to the gospel.

Hunt shared that he noticed a young boy being ostracized by his peers, so he approached the young man. Upset and hurt, the boy vocalized that he wanted to make the bullies pay for how they made him feel.

Tyler used this one on one opportunity to share the gospel with the young man and offered him a small, seemingly insignificant Gideon bible; he described the boy’s uncontainable excitement at the thought of owning a real bible as moving enough to bring the college student to tears.

Hunt concluded by highlighting the fact that encounters like he had with the young man are why we serve, “We as southern American’s that go to a Christian college cannot begin to grasp the need for the spreading of the gospel until it’s witnessed firsthand.”

In Matthew 28:19, we’re commanded to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Through every generous donation, we’re one step closer to being able to sharing the gospel with every tribe, every tongue, every nation - until all have heard.