Wonderful Fellowship with Ben Mathes
By
Ben Mathes, founder of Rivers Of The World (www.row.org), spoke at our Wednesday night service and in his humorous and enthusiastic way described how God is working miracles in people’s lives along the remote rivers around the world. The youth joined the adults to hear Ben’s message of hope, light and outreach.
The night began with the unveiling of a new fundraising project for ROW that Pastor Gary Howse and James Randall have been working on. The plans were to create a full sized Christmas tree and then sell the lights on the tree for $20 each with the money going to ROW to purchase solar light bulbs to be delivered to people in the darkest jungles. James did an awesome job of cutting out a huge wooden tree and drilling one hundred holes to insert Christmas lights. Pastor Gary then painted the tree and made it look fantastic. As individual lights are sold, they will be lit on the tree to show our progress. By the end of Wednesday nights’ service, we were a quarter of the way to our goal and we were able to light the first 25 lights!
Ben then took the stage and gave us the details about all the ROW projects taking place around the world. The tour included the Congo, Vietnam, Belize, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iraq and the Dominican Republic. He told us about the dangers he has encountered and the miracles he has seen. He reminded us that we should not underestimate the power of God to work miracles through items as simple as bubble gum.
Then he opened up the floor to questions and answered any and all questions from the youth and adults. Including the questions that made some people a little queasy!
The night was a great blessing and on the way out, Ben said that Lauderdale UMC was a very friendly and welcoming church that he had enjoyed his visit. Based on everyone’s reaction to Ben’s presentation, we found him just as friendly and just as enjoyable!
Be sure to help us light our Christmas tree and help ROW take God’s light into a dark world!
Paul/Pam Thank you for introducing lauderdale UMC to Ben and all his wounderful works He and ROW does around the wourld. He was great!! This light bulb ministry would not had happened at LUMC without people like YOU and PAM who care about others around the world. Together with ROW and LUMC we can make a differance.GOD is always with us in all we do. Let the LIGHTS shine for him.
[...] November, Lauderdale United Methodist Church (LUMC) enjoyed a visit from Ben Mathes and during Ben’s time with LUMC, members of the church unveiled their goal to raise money to [...]