Building houses, leading children’s camps, ministering to tourists. Georgia Baptist associations work together across the state to make a difference.

“The Baptist association is important to the fulfillment of an Acts 1:8 missions strategy as its leaders guide churches to work together in reaching their Jerusalem with the gospel of Christ,” said Frank Nuckolls, associational missions specialist with GBC.

Troup Baptist Association, made up of 41 churches in the LaGrange area, had never done a joint project that required raising $50,000. Quite a few people thought it would never happen.

But it did.

Troup Association, led by associational missionary Aaron McCollough, decided to participate in a Habitat for Humanity national project. Each year former president Jimmy Carter puts his name to a one-week emphasis where chosen towns do a “blitz-build” with as many as 2,000 volunteers.

“It was a huge project and they asked us to sponsor one of the 32 houses that were going to be built in a week. I was told by several people that they didn’t feel we’d be successful raising that kind of money. But I told them that if we aim high, we’ll certainly get more than if we aim low – or don’t aim at all,” McCollough said.

With a $5,000 gift given through the Cooperative Program, McCollough asked each church to provide $1,250. Of the 41 churches, 38 agreed. Some gave more, some gave a little less, but in the end Troup Association was a sponsor of one of the houses built in the new Hillside Place community.

“We didn’t know this going into it, but it turned out that the house we built went to Hugo Oropeza and his family. Hugo is the pastor of our Baptist Spanish church in LaGrange,” McCollough said.

The experience gave the association spiritual momentum, McCollough added.

“We have a cohesiveness that we did not have before. We saw we can do things together and we are continuing to do just that.”

This summer members from several churches will be in New York on a Georgia partnership mission trip.