Fellowship Memphis

The dates for the trip is Sep 1-Sep 10. We are being led on this trip by Elder Soup Campbell in conjunction with the Eikon Ministries where he leads. Fellowship Memphis has asked Soup to lead our foreign missions efforts in that Eikon is well versed in leading teams and does so several times a year. Also, our heart is to expose our people to the mission field and encourage our people as they play a role in discipleship outside of Memphis. Soup has developed strong relationships with many of the ministries, churches, and leaders that we'll engage, so this trip is sure to be a powerful experience. That said, this is a short summary of what our trip will look like.

We'll arrive in the Yoro Province of Honduras on September 1. This is a mountainous area of the country that has several churches, camps, and ministries that we'll visit. We will visit as many of these sites as the weather conditions will allow us. However, we plan on spending quality time between two sites. One site is the Camp Rancho Vida which is a youth camp some 2 hours outside of San Pedro Sula. This is where our FM youth just visited. As we spend time at the camp we will be involved in training, encouraging their leaders and children, playing games with kids during their VBS and other activities, and helping out with any manual labor efforts that we can. Soup says all the time that "Americans are information rich and commitment poor. But our brothers and sisters in the 3rd world are commitment rich and information poor. We hope to create dialogue and fellowship that will leave us all with a healthy exchange! Secondly, we will hike from village to village throughout the surrounding mountainous area visiting many friends of Soup who are making disciples in various church communities and ministries. We can expect 'adventure' as we sleep in hammocks, do some serious hiking up and down the mountains, and even some exploration as we plan to make a stop in the Mayan Ruins of Copan, Honduras. As we stop from place to place, we can expect some times of teaching, prayer, discussions on discipleship, and plenty of 'debriefing' times among our team to talk about the experience that God is giving us.

We can't schedule out everything so expect to hear 'the order of the day' in the mornings as Soup leads us. But we're asking every trip member to be prepared to teach a lesson. We'll talk more about this at our upcoming meeting as we did a couple of months ago. But in essence, if there is a 'talk' that you've used before to train others, a favorite sermon you've enjoyed recently at Fellowship that you can reteach, or whether you want to 'create' a talk/lesson on the basics like "God & Purity", "Faith & Works", that will be great. Every trip member should be prepared to share their testimony. Begin practicing telling your story as far as your 1) life before Christ, 2) How you came to Christ, and 3) How you are experiencing Christ and growing in your faith now. Good times indeed!

At some stops we'll be able to eat food prepared by our Honduran friends. But in some places we'll enjoy MREs. There is a list of 'best practices' and 'what to pack' that we'll discuss thoroughly at our meeting later this month to prepare. Otherwise, prayer is the main function right now. Towards the end of the trip around the 9th of September, we'll take a day at a cool Beach Resort that Soup is familiar with. We'll do some shopping and get pampered with some massages or whatever people do at Beach resorts. That'll help us rest a little before we get back to the States. We can expect tropical weather but we'll do a detailed 'heads up' on what to wear at the meeting as well.

This will be a GREAT trip!