Today I wanted to share with you a letter from Randy Chestnut, lead pastor at Church of the Hills in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. We have partnered with them and helped to sponsor this new church plant.  They are a part of our mission triangle emphasis this year. We sent a team up there just a few days ago to help conduct a baseball camp and share the Gospel. This is a great example of how the Lord blessed through the partnership of our church and COTH. Here’s the letter:

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayers for the Church of the Hills Baseball Camp at Ledgeview Elementary, July 21-24!  A team of 10 volunteers from Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida, led by Scooter Tucker, OBC Minister of Missions, conducted the camp with the assistance of local volunteers from COTH.  The OBC team spent their mornings working at the local YMCA, painting and cleaning a newly acquired home.  

We had 75 kids in attendance on Monday night and 91 on Tuesday night.  The weather was bad all day on Wednesday, and we had to cancel because of rain.  But we were back at it on Thursday night, and we had 70+ children in attendance.  Scooter shared his testimony (Scooter played for the Cleveland Indians in 1995) with a group of 9-12 year olds.  Seven children indicated they had prayed to receive Christ as their Savior!   Many parents came to the camp each evening and our staff/volunteers had many opportunities to spend some time getting to know them and answering questions about Church of the Hills.  Many parents expressed their gratitude for the camp.  Some even tried to give us money.  What a joy it was to say the camp was a gift to the community that we could give because of the generosity of our partners like OBC!

Please continue to pray for us as we begin the follow-up process with these families. We could not do what we are doing without God’s power and anointing and the prayer, personnel and financial support of wonderful partners like you. God bless you all!

In His Service,

Randy Chestnut