Campers on Mission
Kansas-Nebraska Campers on Mission keep busy serving the Lord in a variety of settings.
In the spring and summer, they have a regular rotation of work projects, including:
- Webster Conference Center, Salina, Kan.
- Weir Baptist Camp, Weir, Kan.
- Riverside Baptist Church, Independence, Kan.
- Alpha Christian Children’s Home, Perry, Kan.
- Salina Rescue Mission, Salina, Kan.
During the winter months, numerous COM members serve in warmer climates.
In the winter of 2010-2011, COM members served in Arizona and Texas. One group served at Valley Baptist Retreat, Mission, Texas. The other group served at the New Tribes Mission Aviation Complex in southeast Arizona, 20 miles north of the Mexican border.
In Texas, the men did such tasks as maintenance along with harvesting and packaging fruit. Valley Baptist Retreat has a citrus orchard, and fruit sales are a source of income. Visit the VBR Web site
The women joined with other volunteers to make 250 quilts to give to people in need. They also sewed 2,000 stockings for the “Stockings & More” ministry.
“For the past 20 years, Edweina Peroni and volunteers from across the nation put together more than 200,000 Christmas stockings for children along the Texas-Mexico border and deep into Mexico giving meaning to Christmas,” the Valley Baptist Retreat Web site says.
“For most of the children, these are the only Christmas presents they will receive. And for many of them, this is the first time they learn that Jesus’ birth is the reason for the holiday.
“Stockings have done far more than brighten a child’s Christmas. They’ve opened avenues for churches to share the hope of Christ. I’ve heard stories of families coming to faith as a result of the stocking outreach,” Peroni said on the Web site.
Some of the women also sewed dresses for girls in an orphanage.
In Arizona, COM members performed tasks ranging from scraping and painting awnings to constructing a house for a missionary. The COM women helped support a local Southern Baptist church by painting a classroom.
In other activity, Campers on Mission women recently began a project to help raise funds for Webster Conference Center. They decorate flip flops to sell in the WCC Snack Shack.
During the 2010 spring rally at WCC, the women decorated 150 pairs of flip flops to sell in the Snack Shack. Each pair sells for $6, and campers snatch them up. They continued this project during the 2011 spring rally.
The fall 2011 COM rally was held Sept. 23-25 at Weir Baptist Camp, 12 miles southwest of Pittsburg, Kan. COM members eagerly tackled a variety of projects during a work project held in conjunction with the rally.
The group installed cabinets in Adam’s Cabin, the new cabin at the camp. COM member Bill Streeter, a retired carpenter, made the cabinets during an earlier work project.
During the September 2011 work project, Streeter and Curtis Kirkley made and installed the cabinet doors.
Paul Wade, Deen Satterlee and Gary Shaw installed new chain-link fencing along approximately 500 feet of the camp frontage along Kansas Highway 103.
The COM group also:
- Installed vinyl siding on one cabin
- Installed a new ice maker in the kitchen.
- Refurbished the walk-in freezer in the kitchen
- Built storage cabinets were built for the kitchen
- Installed guttering on the home of Delbert and Diane Callaway, camp managers
- Applied polyurethane on all outside pews, benches, picnic tables and two bulletin boards in the chapel.
- Repaired the chapel roof and the entry doors in the dining hall
In addition, two of the COM couples worked at First Baptist Church in nearby Cherokee, Kan.
To learn more about Kansas-Nebraska Campers on Mission, contact Gary Shaw, COM president, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Campers on Mission is open to all interested people. You don’t need to own an RV or a travel trailer to participate.