Andy Postell’s Blog

I am constantly amazed at God. I was walking yesterday down a street in Staniard Creek on Andros Island in the Bahamas. As I walking and thinking, I was reminded that it was the actual anniversary of our church holding weekly services. Last year at this time, my focus and efforts were just on having weekly services and all of the energy that would take. I had never been to Andros Island – let alone heard of Staniard Creek.

Yet, God led us as a church to this small settlement and to a community that is starving for Jesus Christ. I think about the community that we live in Bartow County and how 66% of the community do not have a relationship with Jesus. I think about the passion that is growing in our church to reach those outside the church. Then, I think about how 95% of the people in Staniard Creek have no active relationship with Christ. If that is not frightening, 100% of the settlement down the island (which is 15 minutes away) are not connected to Christ. In the midst of the difficult situations that these people are living, they have no desire to be in relationship with God Almighty. To make matters worse – very few are trying to reach them.

Think about that. A short plane ride away is a community that is completely in need of Jesus’ love and mercy. One year ago, we had no idea they existed. Today, we do. We can no longer ignore them. We can no longer only worry about the unchurched in Bartow County. Our mission field has been expanded.

I continued to walk down the small road in Staniard Creek in order to get me a coke from J&J Foodland (not as impressive as it may sound – but a wonderful luxury) and found myself anticipating the miracle that God is bringing together. Will someone from our church be called into fulltime ministry on Andros Island? Will we put together some teams that will be able to build a camp to host larger mission teams? Will we return this summer and see adults come to know Christ. Only time will tell. The only thing that I am confident in is that I will certainly continue to be amazed at God.

We had an awesome meeting yesterday about our upcoming mission trip.  It is hard to believe that our new church is already forming a foreign mission team but it sure is exciting. We had 21 people (and we have more meeting on Tuesday) who are seriously interested in the mission trip come to the meeting. Of those 21 people, only four had ever been on a foreign mission trip. Isn’t that cool? People excited about sharing Jesus with people they don’t even know. People excited about taking the message of Jesus to a completely different culture. Now, we had our normal concerns - money, being able to dry our hair, and of course the bathroom and shower facilities but we talked about the transforming power that comes in sharing God’s love.  I can’t wait.  I believe that we are going to see some people experience some radical life transformation over the next few months. Stay tuned!