Central Triad churches 'break down walls'

By Bob Burchette

Special to The Recorder

Murrell  Johnson of Green Street Baptist Church, High Point, moves trash at Ward Street Methodist Mission where Inasmuch workers from Green St. church did repair and cleaning work on April 19.

Photo by Don McSwain

HIGH POINT - Operation Inasmuch was a "great day of hands-on ministry" for the Central Triad Baptist Association and the 13 churches that did projects throughout the area according to Wanda Dellinger, project chair for the association.

Green Street Baptist Church, where Dellinger is a member had as many as 800 volunteers.

"We started working on this and making plans last October," Dellinger said. One of the 59 projects Green Street led with several other churches was making repairs, cleaning up and doing landscaping at Ward Street Methodist Mission, a place that serves many of the poor people in High Point's West End community.

While First Baptist Church had several projects none caught the imagination better helping to rebuild the home of wheelchair-bound Lee Griffith and his wife Chris that had burned last fall. The Griffith family had no insurance on the house.

Abby Williams of First Baptist was pleased with the work done by women from her church at Leslie House, a shelter for homeless women without children. "There were places for women to stay who had children but this is good for the other women," she said. "We fixed them lunch and ate with them."

Each woman was given a backpack with personal items and a shawl made by the women of the church.

Other projects included "little things that really count," like doing manicures for women in a nursing home and cleaning their glasses for them, Williams said. "We fed 36 families with four in a family for a week," she added. A neighborhood basketball camp attracted 20 children, she said.

Lewis Farlow, who was with a Green Street Church group that visited shut-ins, said, "We went to bless them and they blessed us. We need to do more of this type thing."

Oak View Baptist Church not only had about 200 participants on April 19 but continued to work on projects throughout the week, according to project coordinator Gale Stevens.

"This is such a good thing that our pastor, Steve Smith, wants us to do it every other month. There is such a big need for it," Stevens said.

Oak View had a variety of projects, and Stevens was especially delighted with the prayer ministry at High Point Regional Hospital. "Our prayers touched the lives of those facing trials but we left with many more blessings in our hearts,' she said.

To encourage volunteers before they embarked on their Operation Inasmuch projects, Green Street Baptist Church Coordinator Wanda Dellinger told them of a gift she received in 1992 when her family was about to move from Columbia, S.C. to High Point.

"With barely contained excitement, some friends gave us a 'going away' gift," she said. "When I unwrapped it, I found an ordinary-looking chunk of concrete. I didn't know what to say. I knew that it wasn't a joke, but I couldn't imagine why they would give me a chunk of concrete, or how to appropriately thank them for it."

"My friend explained: 'You remember that we are a military family. Prior to living in Columbia, we were stationed in Germany. We were there when the Berlin Wall fell, and what you hold in your hand is a piece of the wall.'"

"Wow! Suddenly this 'ordinary' chunk of concrete had become a piece of history. It represented the tearing down of a wall that brought physical freedom to many in bondage," Dellinger said.

"Today you may be serving someone who is in spiritual bondage. Although your task may seem 'ordinary' to you, in God's hands it can be used to tear down walls of indifference or hardness of heart. Your service can lead to spiritual freedom for those in bondage.

"So as you go out today, remember that you're not just doing a good deed. You are breaking down the walls in Jesus' name," Dellinger said.

(EDITOR'S NOTE - Bob Burchette is a former writer/editor for the News & Record, Greensboro.)