This past summer the Lititz, Pennsylvania, Grace Brethren Church (Scott Distler, pastor) raised enough money in a love offering after the Operation Barnabas Service to buy O.B. a new bus for their next summer tour which will be to the west coast.
Operation Barnabas is a summer teen ministry training program run by CE National, the Christian Education wing of our Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches. The bus, named “Number 6” has been delivered and is in service. Here is CE National’s notice:
Thanks to generous gifts from individuals in Grace Church in Lititz, Pennsylvania, where OB orientation was held this past summer, CE National was able to buy a bus! The Grace Church family was challenged to give $14,500 to help finish paying for the needed $17,500 for the first bus (the first $3,000 was given through a generous foundation grant), and God provided!
The bus arrived on Friday, September 16, at the CE National campus in Winona Lake, Indiana, with a new coat of blue paint.
The bus is #6 for a two-fold reason. First, the first year the bus will be used on OB is 2006. Second, “6” represents a Bible verse. (In the past, buses 1123 and 1124 obviously stood for the theme verses of OB from Acts 11:23 and 24 and bus 214 was based on “We love everything” from Philippians 2:14).
This bus number was chosen for Philemon verse 6: “I pray that you will be active in sharing your faith so that you may have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”
Why this verse? As a certain Grace Brethren pastor likes to say, “Evangelism is the engine that must drive the church!” Amen. And evangelism has been, is, and will continue to be an integral part of Operation Barnabas.
For more information on OB, and to see additional pictures, click on www.cenational.org.