Blog Post 12 April 22 2013 September 1969

"Love Can Be Practical"


         Okay, just so everybody knows, I was ten years old in 1969. I am so old! It was refreshing to read an article in The Other Sheep, that actually had a story of missionary work within the United States. Not sure if I missed other articles in the paper on missions in America, but I think this is the first one I have come across. With that said, it is a story about a young college student form North Western Nazarene College, who finds out that a church called Douglas Mexican Church in Arizona disparately needs an overhaul of their church, as in major construction. They talk about how they are going to paint the outside of the church and put new carpet and wood paneling for the indoor project. I remember the days of "wood paneling'" that was the craze of the 60's and 70's. I still see it in some rooms of older churches built around the 70's. It just reminds me of being a kid. So, the Bisbee church of Arizona, is going to help the Douglas church and although I think its good that the construction is needed, I wonder if it was the best way to spend the money. Granted, it was all college students that helped this project and all the work was for free but I wonder where else the money could have been used. As we read in countless articles in The Other Sheep, throughout the years, the money from The Other Sheep was primarily used for over seas missions. Here we find a group project and I suppose it was well worth it, to fix up the Douglas church because the students became really close and had so much fun doing the construction project. They got to sing Christmas carols and also conducted a service at a church too. The supplies, like paint and the "wood paneling" were donated from a company in Oregon too. Businessmen donated air conditioners and other construction articles. I think this article was trying to show us that missions can be in our own back yard.

         Overall, I liked The Other Sheep, it had a tendency to be corny at times and it was always positive in the stories. We got the news in a most positive way, never knowing if the missionaries got along on missions and that there was no arguing among the other missionaries. We never got to hear of the bad stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I think that is due in part of the times in that it was written, In the early days it was an almost make believe America, that "every thing was swell" and "gee Mr.Wilson," type mentality. I would have liked to read more of the personal struggles that went on with the missionaries, especially those who were married and had children over seas. What was it like for them to sacrifice everything to go and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a people who never heard of him before? Therefore, I think that The Other Sheep was necessary for the church of the Nazarene's mission. The newspaper raised a lot of money for the missionaries to go to safe and dangerous countries around the world and it did give us information on how those missionaries were doing. I noticed towards the 1950's and up, the newspaper was getting smaller and that the request for missionary money also dropped significantly. Color photos were used for the covers of each month which I thought was cool too. I enjoyed reading The Other Sheep. Amen!