Butler Creek Health Center (edit, back)

01/01/2017

In April 2014 we held our first Butler Creek Medical Missionary Convention. Our conference ministerial director, David Hartman, was our keynote speaker. I warned him that our meeting room would be like a “sardine can.” Our lifestyle center lecture room normally accommodates about 25; on this occasion we crowded in 150 folks—a “cozy” experience for all who attended. Meanwhile, our one-year Health Evangelism School was expanding; it became a challenge to teach sewing class in a small classroom with 12 students and their 12 sewing machines. These and other “pressing” (no pun intended) needs led us to apply for a funding grant from ASI. We hoped to construct a building that would serve as a convention center, industrial classroom, and media production workshop. The generous response on the part of ASI has enabled us to complete most of the interior of our newest building, which appropriately bears the name of Grace Hall.

As 2016 comes to a close, we can look back over the past two years and praise the Lord for His mercies toward us. Butler Creek has hosted six Medical Missionary Conventions attended by earnest, receptive audiences. When we moved from our health center to Grace Hall it was just a shell of a building, something akin to an empty barn with three rented Porta Potties. The environment was rustic and seemed to blend with the message of simple country living. Harold Lance, one of our first speakers, told me that he had attended many meetings in “barns,” and had enjoyed those experiences. With the money donated by ASI we have added four bathrooms and transformed our “barn” into a nice meeting hall. We’re in the final stage of construction on the upstairs, which will serve as the industrial classroom and media room.

ASI has helped us to “upgrade” our facilities, but we realize it’s not “spit and polish” that gives success to a ministry—it’s the Spirt of God at work in the human heart. Unless, “the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.” (Psalm 127:1).