Click here for sermon notes and discussion questions.

In addition, last year one of the most popular “Go Wild with Dad” events was shooting clay birds. So by popular demand the Men’s Council is pleased to announce another “Go Wild With Dad” clay bird shoot at the Middletown Anglers’ & Hunters’  Association grounds located at 1350 Schoolhouse Road, Middletown, on Saturday, June 9.

The shoot will be held from 9 a.m. to noon. Refreshments will be supplied and the cost is $5 per person, which includes some 12 and 20 gauge shells. If you have shotguns (or extra shotguns), bring them along. Bring ear and eye protection if possible; extras will be available for loan.

The event is for any guy accompanied by an child or grandchild (at least 12 years old). Sign up in the church lobby on May 20, 27 and June 3. Questions? E-mail Larry Mongold or call him at 533-6474.

We all experience good times and bad days, triumphs and tragedies. No matter what life throws at you, this is what matters: God loves you. (Always has. Always will.) You’re invited to be part of a very special celebration. Compelling stories, Bible-based teaching, world-class music, unstoppable inspiration, and a few surprises combine for an experience like no other. God loves you! And that means there is always a reason to celebrate.

We have reserved 50 seats for Hershey Free Church women. Seats cost $89 for the two-day conference. There is a $20 discount for women from military families and teachers, including home-school teachers. Overnight accommodations are available for $40 to $60 (including breakfast). For more information, check out the Women of Faith website.

In order to reserve your ticket, e-mail Carolyn Harris. You must register through the church to get the group discount. Deadline to purchase tickets is the end of July.

GraceWorks 2012

Mary Kelly and Esther Galt were best friends for nearly 50 years. They talked about many things: their homes and families, their faith in God and his promise of Heaven. The two friends had a favorite story about a dragonfly – just like the ones that buzzed around the Galt’s pond each summer in a distant meadow.

In the story, two small water-bugs were sitting on the bottom of a pond. They had noticed how – one by one – other bugs left the pond and never came back. The two water-bugs were curious about this, so they promised that when one of them left, he would return to tell the other what happens next.

A few weeks later, one of the water-bugs started to climb up a stalk of grass. Before he knew it, he was standing above the water’s surface, where he could see and feel the sun’s warmth for the first time. He was amazed when a pair of glistening wings popped open on his back as he was transformed into a dragonfly. Effortlessly, he spread his new wings, flying above the pond and beyond. He looked in wonder at the countryside beneath him, which he hadn’t known existed. All around him were indescribably beautiful sights, sounds, smells and colors.

Suddenly, the dragonfly recalled his promise to the water-bug at the bottom of the pond. Now that he had wings, the dragonfly couldn’t go back under water again. He realized he didn’t know how to begin to explain the miracle that had taken place, nor could his friend ever understand. The dragonfly looked ahead and continued to soar joyfully into the sunny, summer sky.

Mary and Esther believed the dragonfly story explained why no one returns from Heaven to tell others how glorious it is – for it would be impossible to convey – even to your oldest and dearest friend.

Shortly after Esther died, Mary went to her friend’s house. She stood on the porch, where they had sat together so often, sharing all the good times and the sad. Mary missed Esther so much she felt as if her heart might break. Just then, a dragonfly flew by, landing on the wall near Mary. The dragonfly sat under the window of the room where Esther had spent time each morning praying and reading The Bible.

Mary believed God had used the dragonfly to send his blessed assurance that Heaven does indeed await us. For the rest of her life, Mary shared this story of God’s faithfulness with many others. Today, Esther and Mary’s children and grandchildren continue to tell of our Lord’s great love and his glorious acts.

“Publish his glorious acts throughout the earth. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.” –Psalm 96:3

Click here for sermon notes and the quarterly Global Vision Project report.

This year’s trip will take place Friday, June 22 through Sunday, June 24 in Ohiopyle, Pa. We will be camping at the Ohiopyle State Park and Pastor Dave Hyatt has graciously agreed to be our speaker for the weekend. All single adults are welcome to join us for this trip. The cost is $65 if registered before May 20. Download the trip registration form for more information and to sign up. You will also need to download the release form, sign it and bring it with you on the trip. Questions? email Dave Rittger at drittge@hotmail.com.

(The Evangelical Free Church of Hershey has been partnering for 10 years with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Pucalpa, Peru, to take the Gospel to jungle villages on the Ucayali River. The people group they have been meeting with is called the Shipibo. Pictured here is a hand-written and hand-illustrated Shipibo translation of Genesis 1 and 2.)

As Shipibo pastors and church leaders receive more training, they have realized that they will be the ones ultimately responsible for the continued growth of the Church in the jungle. Recently a group has been taking advantage of the time they are together for Oralidad (scripture memorization and oral Bible story telling) classes to begin work on translating key Old Testament Bible stories into Shipibo. The New Testament is available in their native language, but their training in the Old Testament has led to a desire to have these books also in Shipibo.

The group has completed the creation story found in Genesis 1 and 2, which will be sent to Wycliffe Bible Translators for their collaboration. It is great to see these indigenous leaders taking the initiative to move ministry forward.

Last November, Vincente, a Shipibo pastor from a village located about 2 days upriver from Pucallpa, came forward with a special request. His village is located at the mouth of a tributary that has several villages spread out upstream. One of them is an Asheninka community seven hours away and unreachable by the Evangelista. Vincente’s desire was to go to the village and share the gospel just like we had done in his village back in 2004. All he needed was a donation for gasoline and he was ready to go. Needless to say we gave him the donation and encouraged him.

In February, we received Vincente’s report and a receipt for the gasoline. He had visited the Ansheninka village, where he found 28 families and spent several days with them sharing God’s word. They invited him to return so they can learn more.

How exciting it is to see this multiplication of the ministry that has taken place over the past 10 years! A Shipibo missionary is now reaching out to another indigenous people group!

By Blair McWire
Missionary with EFCA ReachGlobal

For the past five years, a major focus of our ministry in Shipibo villages along the Ucayali River in Peru has been on pastor/church leader training. As people in villages respond to the love of God and churches begin to grow, the desire has been for these churches to develop under indigenous leadership. It has been great to see Shipibo men step forward to be trained as pastors in the Oralidad program. A team from the Pucallpa church is using the Oralidad teaching method to help them learn the Bible in a way that can be shared in their orally-based culture.

It also is exciting to notice how the Shipibo leaders are taking more and more responsibility for the growth of the church within their culture. Now we are seeing Shipibos taking more of a leadership role, allowing Pucallpa and Hershey to focus on encouragement and support.

El Misionero is a "taxi boat" that the Pucallpa church will use to finance its upriver mission program.

Young indigenous churches already are beginning their own outreach efforts to other villages. This February, the fourth Shipibo Christian youth camp to be held upriver in the past two years took place, totally organized, funded and run by Shipibos.

One of the important goals of this partnership has always been to see that the ministry be ongoing and self-sustaining, and recently the EMCP took a big step in this direction. They completed the construction of the El Misionero, that took her maiden voyage on January 20, 2012. This vessel will work daily as a taxi boat, earning money to fund ministry such as the Oralidad training by carrying people up and down the river.

The church also plans to do some remodeling on the Evangelista in the future, enabling the boat to carry cargo on longer trips in order to pay for her own fuel costs.

As the ministry continues forward, the funding given in the past by Hershey will be generated by these new means. There are many rivers that connect to the Ucayali, and possibly God will do a similar work using these resources in other jungle regions among different indigenous groups.

By Blair McGwire
Missionary with EFCA ReachGlobal

My wife, Joan, and I were attending the Hershey Free Church in 2001 when we first heard of a place called Pucallpa, Peru. Little did we know how much God would use our church in this part of the Amazon jungle.

Residents of a village on the Ucayali River listen to an evangelistic presentation.

It all started when Larry Buckman, one of our church’s long-supported missionaries, requested that the church purchase some libraries for pastors who would attend a training conference where he was teaching. While he was at that conference, Larry met the pastor of the Evangelical Missionary Church of Pucallpa (EMCP) who expressed interest in having a group of teenagers come from the U.S. to work with their youth on presenting evangelism programs in communities close to the city. This is what brought about Hershey’s first team to Pucallpa in 2002, of which I was a part, and began developing our relationship with the EMCP. We began to understand their vision to evangelize the many isolated villages located along the 300-mile stretch of the Ucayali River south of Pucallpa.

The team returned with mixed emotions to the United States after two weeks in Peru. Many of us had been sick due to not knowing how to deal with the challenges of eating and drinking in such a different setting, and due to the Pucallpa church not understanding how to care for Americans. However, our physical discomfort was greatly overshadowed by the growing relationship with our Peruvian brothers and sisters, as well as the strength of the vision to bring the gospel to an unreached area.

Around this time, the Hershey Free Church mission council was interested in becoming strategically focused on global outreach in a few areas in order to more effectively use the resources that God provided for missions. As a result, I was asked to develop a partnership with the Pucallpa church to work together on taking the gospel upriver.

Interestingly, the Lord had me in a period of transition at the time. I had left my teaching position the year before and was attending seminary, believing that God was calling me into some type of vocational ministry. But serving in the Amazon? Could we combine the Peruvian church’s vision and cultural understanding with Hershey’s experience and resources to serve the Lord together among the indigenous people living along the Ucayali? It sounded like a huge undertaking, but it was clearly God’s plan to bring these two churches together, and he has definitely been leading us every step of the way.

As we began our partnership, three important points were obvious from the beginning. First, we needed help in knowing how to stay healthy and effective while serving in Peru. Second, everything we would do would need to be done by boat (there were no roads in the jungle). Third, we needed to understand the indigenous Shipibo culture.

To fulfill our first need, we asked Ruth Hidalgo (now Ruth Hidalgo de Robinson) to consider becoming a missionary to function as our liaison with the EMCP. Ruth is the sister of Ricardo Hidalgo, who now serves as mission pastor of the church. She came to the Hershey Free Church for several weeks in 2003 to learn about us and about America. She has been a very valuable part of every aspect of the ministry, from organizing logistics to training indigenous pastors.

The second need took five years to fulfill, but God provided the funds and resources to build the Evangelista, a 100-foot ministry boat that would replace the Peruvian church’s much smaller boat and be able to provide many functions, including housing the over 60-member, multicultural teams serving upriver.

For the third point, an important part of our first visit to every new village has been a needs assessment, which helps us learn more about what it means to be a Shipibo and allows them to get to know us.

Multicultural Cord of Three Strands

Looking back over the past 10 years, it is wonderful to see how God has directed this partnership that started with Hershey coming alongside the Pucallpa church and has now become a strong multicultural cord of three strands made up of Shipibos, Pucallpinos and Americans working together.

Through the ministry of more than 20 teams that have included over 120 different Americans (many serving on two or more teams) and hundreds of Peruvians, the partnership has visited 60 villages traveling up to three days on the river from Pucallpa. Every visit has included an evangelism component, but certain teams have also focused on training, health care, installation of BioSand water filters and construction, based on the results of the needs assessments.

A great deal has happened in the jungle over the past 10 years, and at the end of 2011, Hershey Free Church completed its formal partnership with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Pucallpa. Nevertheless, the ministry continues. Our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Pucallpa has changed from being partners to ministering together as friends.

We look forward to continuing to serve together, though less formally. Teams are being organized for 2012, some from Hershey and others from throughout the EFCA, while Pucallpa is continuing the pastor-training program, with the next session set for February.

It has been a joy for Joan and me to be part of this grand plan that the Lord has for Pucallpa and Hershey working together. It is exciting that he has brought us to this point where the Shipibos are seriously involved and EMCP is able to keep the ministry moving ahead. Thank you to everyone at Hershey for supporting this work. We look forward to continuing in what God is doing in the jungles of Peru.