One of the last things Jesus said before He was take-up into heaven was “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” – Mark 16:15The only purpose of the Christmas Outreach to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is to share the love of Christ with the people. For the past six years, the Bigfork Chapel has been involved with the outreach. It started in a small Assembly of God church in Hays. Pastor Amy Fulton started the outreach many years ago. Her church could hold about 30 people but on the night of the outreach, they would pack a 100+ people in the same space. Five years ago, the outreach moved to a bigger building, and since that time, it has moved twice in to bigger building. Last year there were 250+ people at the Christmas Gathering (outreach). Three years ago, we started taking the puppet team and the people loved them.
For the past three years, the outreach has grown to two services. One service at the Lodgepole Assembly of God church for their morning service and then the community service in Hays that night, the two towns are only 10 miles apart.
For the past six years the people of the Bigfork Chapel has supported this outreach with their prayers and resources buying gifts for the children of the reservation. When we first started there were just a few gifts, now we fill a trailer. Every child gets a gift, for many of these children this will be the only gift they get for Christmas.
This year the Christmas gathering (outreach) will be Sunday the 20th of December, at 11:00AM in Lodgepole and 7:00PM in Hays. If you would like to get involved in this outreach and buy a gift for the children, wrap the gift and mark on it if it is for a girl or boy and the age group of the gift. All gifts must be at the Bigfork Chapel by December 16th so they can be packed and ready to leave on the 18th.
Please include this outreach in your daily prayers, pray for the people on the Reservation that their hearts and minds would be open and willing to receive the word of God. Until you have been on the reservations and talked with the people do, you start to understand the reasons they are so hard to reach. All we can do is pray for them and ask the Holy Spirit to bring alive the words of God in their lives. Our responsibly is to take the word of God to them, the Holy Spirit will do the rest. Thank you for your faithfulness,
Gordon & Penny
