Missions Impact – Harei Yeshua tagged: , ,

Missions Impact – Harei Yeshua

Posted by in IMPACT Features

Our guest author today is Laura Baggett, the daughter of IMPACT! contributor Geoff Baggett. You met Laura a week or so ago when Geoff posted about sending her off on mission for the summer. She is currently serving with the Sierra Butte Baptist Association in the Sacramento Valley of California. Her primary work will be doing Vacation Bible Schools and ministering to children in communities throughout the region. Lately, she’s been enduring evacuations and confusion brought on by a terrible wildfire. Please continue to pray for her during this tumultuous time.

Laura is blogging about her experiences this summer on her missions blog, California Dreamin’. Feel free to visit and interact. Meanwhile, here are a couple of incredibly moving excerpts from her blog.

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Our first church we are working with this summer is a Messianic Jewish church called Harei Yeshua. It’s been a very different experience for me mostly because my favorite song from the Outrigger Island VBS curriculum is, “I Know My God Is Real,” … and it says Yahweh probably like 50 times. Yahweh (being the covenant name of God) is one of the words that the people at this church believe that it is disrespectful to say. It’s hard to remember! However, the kids are the same and they still respond to the gospel the same way as any other kids. I haven’t been able to experience in their worship or anything, because they worship on Fridays rather than Sundays. We will be attending their services this Friday.

This little girl (in the picture) is named Tirzah. She is my new hero. She is 12 years old, and is serving God completely. In September, she will be going on a mission trip to Rwanda with her aunt and uncle to work with the orphans there. This trip will actually be her birthday present.

She needs $3,000 to go, and has already raised over $1,000 by recycling cans. This is the missions project that the kids at the VBS at Harei Yeshua are working on this week: recycling cans and bottles to slowly raise money for Tirzah.

She said one thing to Gus (a guy on my team) that I cannot get out of my mind. He was talking to her about her life and her trip, in particular. He asked her if she wanted to be a missionary when she grows up. She confidently responded, “You don’t have to grow up to be a missionary!”

What a testimony!