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All classes spent Wednesday night packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Operation Christmas Child, a mission of Samaritans Purse, collects shoe boxes full of gifts for children around the world, ages 2 through 14. Collection week for shoe boxes is November 12-19. We currently have 132 boxes.There's still time to pack your box! Get details here. 
On October 21, the Baptist Men of First Baptist Four Oaks dedicated the Shirley H. Banks Missions Trailer. Shirley Banks was a member of First Baptist for fifty years, a deacon, a Sunday School teacher, and Women's Missionary Union Director for over twelve years. She believed strongly in local missions. She and her family made it possible for the Baptist Men to purchase and outfit a trailer to aid in disaster relief, handicap accessibility, and building projects for people in need. Such was her love and her faith, that it continues to heal the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’--Matthew 25:31-46
On July 20th, a group of twenty-eight from Four Oaks traveled to Browning Montana to spend a week working on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The area was pounded with winter storms from January through February. According to the Great Falls Tribune, parts of the reservation received as much as seventy inches of snow in February alone. Repairs and rebuilding from the winter storms were still under way when the group from Four Oaks arrived. The worked on several parts of the reservation but focused their efforts on building a barn to store farming equipment. The local church hopes to help rejuvenate the reservation by raising horses and growing hay and alfalfa to feed them.
On September 12th, the Blackfeet Mission Project Leadership Team decided to return to continue the mission effort from July 6th to July 15th of 2019. The dates for the 2019 Blackfeet Nation Mission Project are Saturday, July 6th-Monday, July 15th, during the North American Indian Days Celebration in Browning, Montana. Twenty eight airline tickets have been reserved and a deposit of $50 will be due the week of October 8th. If you are interested in going on the mission trip please contact the church office by phone or email. If you would like more information, or have questions concerning the trip, please contact the church office. Testimonies Allen Martin: “It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our everyday lives and focus on ourselves and our family. I thought this would be a great opportunity to unplug and focus on the needs of others. It was also a good opportunity for us to be role models for one another. I was very proud of my family’s hard work.” Several children and teenagers volunteered, either with their families or individually. Ben Martin: “I learned that a lot of people live very differently than I do. Seeing the daily lives on the reservation was very shocking and jarring for me. I had never experienced a community dealing with such poverty.” Phyllis Toothman: “I have come to see this mission trip to the Blackfeet people in a different way than I had originally thought. We went out there planning to help the Blackfeet people but really it was about building relationships with them, listening to them, and trying to understand things from a totally different perspective. We did a lot of work out there, but I think the most important thing is that we all came away changed and changed in a way that we were not expecting.”
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