Gwinnett County laypeople join festival where missions is a family affair

When LuAnn Marlow planned the family vacation this year, she wanted something a little different for her kids to experience.

That's how instead of finding themselves on the beach in Tybee or tubing in Helen, Marlow took her three boys and nephew to San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. It was there the group took part in FamilyFest, a missions experience geared toward families and sponsored by Woman's Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"Previously, I had gone on three different foreign medical mission trips - two to Guatemala, one to Haiti - and they had been life changing experiences for me," recollects Marlow, a member of First Baptist Lawrenceville.

"My children had been very supportive to me about those trips and I wanted them to have an opportunity to share those same experiences."

 

Vacation with a mission

It's that reasoning that brought about the creation of FamilyFest to begin with, says Kristy Carr, volunteer missions specialist with national WMU. By going on missions together, the expectation is that families will bring home more than a collection of sand dollars from the annual summer excursion.

"This is a pre-packaged missions experience for those in first grade and up," says Carr. "We welcome families because we realized that usually missions experiences are compartmentalized in churches among youth, adults, etc.

"We've had many families say they wanted to do a 'vacation with a purpose.' At the events there have actually been up to three generations of families working together," she adds.

Begun in 2001 in Little Rock, Ark., FamilyFest has grown to three separate summertime events around the country. This year more than 900 participants took part in missions in San Diego/Tijuana, Salt Lake City, and the "Triad" cities of North Carolina - High Point, Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

Next year, FamilyFest events are slated to be held June 30-July 5 in Hawaii; Vancouver, Canada; and Laramie, Wyo.

Marlow organized and worked at a pediatric clinic for the Tijuana mission. She says at no time did she have to worry about her sons and nephew getting in the way. In fact, the boys became invaluable missionary peers while she examined, diagnosed and treated patients.

"In Tijuana we set up an assembly line for people to come through and get bags of rice or beans and other non-perishable foods. My eight-year-old, Parker, and Carson, who is six, were a part of this distribution," remembers Marlow. "I'll never forget the image of Carson handing bags of rice to children and saying to each of them in Spanish 'Jesus loves you.' It brought absolute looks of joy on those children's faces to receive a bag of rice."

"The children only had a little bit of food and I gave them some rice. It made them happy," says Carson.

 

Love and pride

"I remember looking up from my clinic one day and seeing my fifteen-year-old son, Tyler, walking across the mission compound holding a small Hispanic girl by the hand and playing with her," continues Marlow, "or Zak, my 13-year-old, working to calm a particularly rough little street child and the look of pride on Zak's face when brought the child into the clinic smiling.

"As a mother, I could just feel my heart swell with love and pride."

"Everywhere we showed up there were always people lined up for medical attention," says Tyler. "It made me feel good that we were able to provide something they needed."

Ronnie Burel, a deacon at West Buford Baptist Church in Gwinnett County, recollects Marlow's anticipation of sharing the missions experience with her children.

"[The kids] had seen her pictures and heard her talk about previous trips, but she wanted them to experience it first hand," he says.

Burel's role as a pharmacist has proven helpful on previous mission trips. Prior to leaving Georgia, he worked with Marlow to help coordinate the medical clinic. The two inventoried and ordered medications to be shipped to San Diego for clinics operated on site.

 

A suffering world

Burel testifies that the destitution of the people in Tijuana struck him. Before setting up the clinic near one village, the minister accompanying the group, Fernando Martinez, insisted on taking them on a short tour. At one point he stopped and asked the group to jump simultaneously, which resulted in literally making the ground shake.

The minister explained that the people there lived in the city dump. Just beneath the dirt laid compacted trash, over which the villagers lived.

"I had seen poverty in Guatemala and Mexico, but the village near Miramar was almost more than I could stand," says Burel. "Pastor Martinez talked about how much the world suffers most not from violence or hate, but from indifference. We go to church and sing about the streets of gold in Heaven and forget the miserable neighborhoods where people live in extreme poverty."

Taylor Couch, a member of First Baptist Lawrenceville, had gone on previous medical mission trips with Marlow and Burel. The week before going to San Diego, she joined with members of her church to set up a medical clinic in Piedras Negras, Mexico.

Couch, a student at Georgia Perimeter College in Lawrenceville studying to be a nurse, says it's the experiences and the lessons learned on these trips that stay with her the longest.

"Every day we live our lives and cannot imagine ... what it is like to have to live in conditions that so many people live in daily," she states. "This experience definitely humbled me and helped make me realize that I would like to pursue a career in education or nursing so I can stay involved in missions throughout my life."

The trip left an impression on Burel as well.

"I will jump at the chance to share this experience with anyone interested," he emphasizes. "I did not go on my first mission trip until I was 52. If God wills, I look forward to any future trips with much anticipation."

Carr says the role of WMU in FamilyFest is to coordinate something that meets the needs of the local community.

"This is a partnership between the national WMU, state WMU and local Baptist association." She says. "When we are invited we ask them what dates they are looking for and how many days of ministry they need. We don't dictate to them what we will do."

Although individuals have the opportunity to attend a WMU missions conference at virtually any time, the planning for a family event had to jump some obvious barriers.

"There are other missions festivals throughout the year, but FamilyFest is geared toward the summer," explains Carr. "The way schools have their schedules, though, we only have about two months for the events."

While ministering, participants can expect to be involved in such outreach events as Back Yard Bible Clubs, VBS, block parties reaching out to the community, and survey work for churches in the area.

A typical FamilyFest will incorporate 2-4 days of ministry, excluding a day of orientation and day of departure. Lodging and most meals are included in the conference fee.

"We leave transportation arrangements up to the families," says Carr. "Many who come to FamilyFest add on another day or two for some personal vacation time."

Carr adds that the response from the communities has been a positive one.

"Oftentimes I think the recipients like to see families ministering together because they may see a lot of breakdowns in other families and their own.

"We've been able to meet needs in all the areas. The volunteers have been very diverse in age, ethnicity and background. They come together with one purpose - of meeting needs and sharing the gospel.

"The recipients of the ministries see believers as all different kinds of people. The common bond is Christ, but their background is diverse. They see that Christianity isn't just a type of person, but that it's worldwide.

For more information and registration materials on FamilyFest, please call WMU's Volunteer Connection at (205) 991-4097, email at volconnection@wmu.org, or visit WMU's Web site at www.wmu.com/getinvolved/ministry/volunteer/.