CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1463303
10 April 2022 FA SCINAT ING FAYETT EV ILLE Providing a helping hand Area churches work to improve the community through outreach, programs BY JAMI MCL AUGHLIN F ayetteville has many churches and faith-based organizations that reach out into the community to help others. Whether it is providing food to those in need or cleaning up blighted areas, stewards in Fayetteville are putting in the work to make major impacts in the community. Haymount United Methodist Church, for example, holds a churchwide garage sale three times a year to support its mission projects. It has raised more than $250,000 over the last several years. Its global-wide missions include taking medical and construction teams each year to Montero, Bolivia; contributing to the construction of a handicapped-accessible bathroom along with the purchase of smart TVs for a Methodist school in El Salvador; and supplying personal protective equipment for medical staff in Liberia. When Wes Jones, one of the leaders in mission work at the church and a local gastroenterologist, first heard about the mission opportunities in Bolivia, he says that he "felt a hundred bolts of electricity" and knew that God was calling him to be a part of it. He made his first trip to Bolivia in 1987 and took his first team from the church in 1993. "You don't realize how huge some of the things we do there is for some even when it seems so small to us," says Jones, who becomes emotional talking about the church's mission work and his 24 trips to Bolivia. "It's transformational to the people there." Locally, the sales support construction costs for Habitat for Humanity houses and the thri store at the Myrover Reese Fellowship home. Leover books are donated to the Cumberland County Public Library. More than 70 church and community volunteers donate their time at the sales. Whether the missions are in other countries or in our backyard, members of the faith community are striving to make a difference. Here are some others: Photo by Tony Wooten Haymount United Methodist Church holds a churchwide garage sale to support projects.