Long Hollow White House Campus Blog

Part Dos!  In this edition of the blog, we’ll look at the beautiful village of Ventilla where hiking takes a while as every turn makes you stop to whistle at the beauty of another sweeping view of mountains, valleys and sky.

In this first picture you can see two things, one is an example of the views that surrounded us constantly.  Crazy right?  The other is our fearless leader, Mr. Terry Parks.  If you don’t know his name now, you will in Heaven cause he’s going to be really important. 

After going on a similar trip to Honduras several years ago, Terry left his job as an architect for a successful firm in northern Louisiana to lead these trips full time.  Though a father and husband he has chosen to spend his days either raising support to go on trips, organizing teams or actually out on the field.  Throughout the trip, we stood in awe of this humble servant.  At the end of the trip before we left Ventilla to head to Ocotal and on to a hotel, I jokingly suggested we cut out the free day and hit another village.  It was obviously a joke as we were all dying and suddenly Terry looks up and excitedly says, “I’m in.”  To think that God would honor Terry’s sacrifices by making him such a joyful servant, so ready to fight for the Kingdom, made us feel like small potatoes indeed.

And here’s Ventilla!  This is us at the school we stayed and showed the film.  Here you see the soccer field and the extreme version they played.  Not only did they play barefooted or in rain boots, they played dodging playground A-frames, a shed, and two or three foot rocks.  Needless to say, we held off.

Here’s a shot of some of the wildlife in the area.  I think this monster is called a Madagascar and yes those are standard size bricks.  After the picture someone killed the bug and before we knew it one of the locals had taken it away.  Apparently they eat these bugs and who can blame them?  It looks like a great source of protein.

Here’s the picture that should get you excited.  This picture best captures the blessing of being there.  In this photo, Alex (the man with the longer hair who the kids are facing) is sharing the gospel with several children and they are responding!  Who knows how much the little one’s understood or if they really were giving themselves to the Lord, but even just to see the excitement with which they listened and tried to grasp Alex’s words was a loud testimony to the grace of God. 

Lastly, I wanted to show you this shot of a cross situated at the top of a volcano that overlooks the capital city of Managua.  On the last day as we finished up our trip and began the process of flying back and re-acclimating ourselves, we praised God.  We celebrated because God is working in the backwards country of Nicaragua and He decided to use us!  God used us to continue His work of redemption in the midst of such a dark city and country.  I count myself honored to have the privilege to sacrifice my time and comfort to see His salvation come.  Here’s the final count:

El Coco - 1st night - around 300 attended with 11 (adults and kids) accepting Christ.  2nd night - over 600 attended with 12 kids accepting Christ, one lady advised she would open her home for a church plant

Ventilla - 1st night - 130 attended with 8 adults accepting Christ.  2nd day/night - 29 kids accepted Christ when Alex used the Evangi-cube, around 300 at the movie that night with no one accepting Christ

Hey everybody!  I wanted to put together a picture heavy post as a semi-guided tour of our Nicaragua mission trip.  The goal of this post is to encourage you about missions around the world and to thank you for your prayers on the team’s behalf and making everything run so smoothly while we were gone! 

This first picture is an introduction of the team.  We had 10 Americans (Gringos to the locals) travel down to hike up into the mountains.  The two guys in the front who don’t look like their from Middle Tennessee are in fact Nicaraguan Pastors who accompanied us as guides, translators, and as spiritual leaders.  We are standing in front of First Baptist in Ocotal.  Pretty cool.

In this picture, you can see some of the locals at the first village we visited, El Coco.  We are on the Soccer/Baseball field in the village, a pretty nice one too.  They are gathered facing some of our team playing some game with the younger El Coco children.  This picture also expresses our value in a place where only one of our team members spoke Spanish.  We were a spectacle.  The curiosity that 10 Americans draw in the severely rural Nicaraguan town can be a huge tool. 

And we used that tool to draw folks to the movie.  All day we would do publicity for the Pelicula Americano (American movie) to be played at 6:30, which was about when the sun would set.  In El Coco, a big village for the area, we had 100s of folks turn up to watch the film.  Seriously.  The movies we showed were evangelistic and we showed one each of the nights we were there.  As we went to two different villages, we watched the same two movies in each village.  I wasn’t particularly excited about re-watching the movies but couldn’t complain when I found out the missionary had watched the other movie called Last Flight Out litterally over 100 times.  Probably a world record. 

At the end of the film, Alex Rodriguez, the other handsome fella in the green shirt seen in the first picture, would give an invitation and we watched all the crazy junk we had gone through, all of our discomfort and anxiety, washed away in a beautiful flow of God’s grace.  Over the course of the trip we saw 60 Nicaraguans come forward.  In El Coco, we saw 23.

This is a picture to show you a little of the Village life.  You can see two different homes in the background and this fella crusin’ the strip.  A bit of a show off really.  The villagers would have these animals, and more, just walking around everywhere.  The bulls were pretty big, but nobody seemed to scared of them so we acted tough too.

 I’ve realized that this trip is a little too big for one post.  You’ll have to tune in next week for Bueno Vista de Ventilla, the Village of Beautiful Views, the second part of our Nicaraguan adventure.

We had some winners at the ol chili cook off and these are them.

At the top, in third place was the Male Chauvinist Chili presented by Rodney Hatfield

In the middle, in second with the stunning jersey was the Hammer presented by Dalton Worley (Whose mother produced this excellent photo)

and lastly, right in the front, holding the most beautiful trophy ever created, Mr. Ian Slunaker with the first place Famous Chili.

Great job everybody, one wild and crazy night in the books!

Ben Heile

PS, if you have any pictures of any of our events, please don’t hesitate to send them on to me at ben.heile@longhollow.com 

That quote sends shivers down my spine, what could possibly be worse than being sticky?!?  This post has a couple of announcements for the little ones.

• Friend Day   Sunday October 26 is Friend Day!  Invite a friend and wear your favorite team jersey, unless it’s not Tennessee.  In that case you can donate it to third world countries.
• Celebration Service!!!   We will have a celebration service for all children who would like to be baptized on Sunday October 26 at either 9:30 or 11:00 service.  We would like to have as many of our kids participate in this special service as possible.  if your child is ready to be baptized at the celebration service, please email Jason.Underhill@LongHollow.com or call 824-4006.
• Fall Festival!!!   As we draw close to the end of the month, we want you to know about the Fall Festival that the church will be putting on at the Hendersonville campus.  Its a night of jumps, games, food and candy.  A healthy alternative to some of the other October 31 activities out there.  It will run from 5-8 and all are welcome!

I’ll leave you with this quote:  There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.  ~Frank A. Clark

That’s what our children’s ministry is all about, empowering parents to evangelize to their little ones as effectively as possible.  May these events and the tireless efforts of our nearly divine children’s workers be of much good to you and your family!!!

Ben

Hankies in hand, we sidle up to the last week in our small groups fair.  If you haven’t gotten into a group, this is the single best way for you to meet the leaders of the different groups and find out where you will fit in most comfortably.  I strongly encourage any of our small groups, they wouldn’t be groups otherwise, but there is definitely a bit of an art to picking the right one.  Make sure you stop by and check it out and meet these fine folks.

And as for the folks who are already in a small group, here are some words from our Small Groups Pastor, Terry Hadaway:

“Trailblazers. That’s the word that comes to mind when I think about the Small Groups in White House. It seems like just yesterday we were plotting a strategy for making groups work in White House and, in a couple of days, we will have approximately 90 new small groups meeting all over the area. So much of what is happening with new groups today was piloted with many of you. You should feel a sense of satisfaction knowing that your commitment to make groups happen proved to us that groups work. As a result, we will see about 600 new adults in Bible study this week! You are a testimony to the fact that life change happens in Small Groups. Just think about what God is going to do in and through the lives of people who are following your example. It is definitely a God thing!”

Ben

Men, get ready to break in the White House Community Center/City Hall (The nice building next to College Street and Hollywoods) with the Men’s Prayer Breakfast!  We’re going to bathe the campus in prayer and eat some excellent prayer foods created by our own Women’s ministry.  Come Saturday the 18th at 8:00 in the am.  Contact me with any questions at ben.heile@longhollow.com

Benj

Sunday was just bonkers.  We had our very first baptism!  Write it down, the Rachel Hatfield was the first ever to follow our Lord in baptism at the White House Campus followed shortly by Mr. Michael Powers.  Both presented a strong testimony to the power of God in regeneration, the mercy and wisdom and justice of God in salvation, and set themselves firmly on the narrow path before our humble congregation.  Are you next?  Have you put yourself out there as a follower of Christ?

Baptism is an ordinance set in place by our Lord in order to show a picture or a physical analogy of the spiritual reality of salvation.  Piper describes it like this:

“We are not mainly talking about religious ritual here. We are not mainly talking about church tradition here. We are mainly talking about Jesus Christ and his magnificent work of salvation in dying for our sins and rising for our justification. Talking about baptism means talking about how Jesus taught us to express our faith in Jesus and his great salvation. So don’t have small thoughts as we begin. Have large thoughts. Great thoughts about great reality—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified to bear the sins of millions and raised to give them everlasting life in the new heavens and the new earth.”   –John Piper, read more here.

The question then comes, have you been baptized?  If not, be honest with yourself.  Why?  If you want to talk about it more, email me at ben.heile@longhollow.com. 

Your friend and servant,

Ben

The greatest with a capital G.  We are going to test our whits and chili recipies against the hardest and most specific panel of judges ever to walk the world of men, the small group leaders and me.  That’s right, its a Chili Cook-off.

I know, you’re thinking we aren’t ready.  “It’s only been a couple of months, there’s no way Ben would try a Chili cook off.”  But I’m just that crazy so warm up the crock pots, kiss your spouses, make sure the will is up to date and prepare for battle.

At 5:30 on Saturday, October 11th 2008 we will meet at the play ground area in the Northwoods area and have a great time.  Bring a pot of chili and be creative with it.  If you aren’t into cooking chili, bring crackers, cheese, or a two liter of cola.  Any questions can be directed at me at ben.heile@longhollow.com, but I warn you, any pre-cook-off bribes will not be tax deductible but will be accepted. 

Much love,

Ben

It kind of feels like Beatle-mania right?  I mean David is coming to White House to do our first New Comers live!!!  AHHHH!!!  

Instead though we are going to push the New Comers in White House back to September 14th.  I had announced last week that we were going to have the class on the 17th but no, and the anticipation builds.  This way we will have a little more time to figure out who’s coming and let folks get a better taste of who we are.

Seriously though, if you are seeking membership at Long Hollow Baptist Church or want to learn more about what that entails, please let us know by calling the church office at 824-4006, signing up at a host desk this Sunday, or emailing me at ben.heile@longhollow.com.  For clarification, if you are a member of Long Hollow, you are a member at all three campuses because we are one church. Please don’t try and join again because you are coming with us to WH.  Keep me up to date with questions or comments with an email, call or letter. 

Much love,

Ben

…come right in and have some pizza.  Truly a day of firsts, yesterday was also our first youth service! 

The White House youth, along with a healthy dose of our Hendersonville faithful, met at the H. B. Williams Elementary school last night to officially begin our youth activities.  We had Lovingood himself come and give an excellent sermon on Peter getting out of the boat to meet Jesus on the water.  With his unique flair and discerning leadership, Jeff taught us that we have to have the faith to get out of the boat to meet our Lord.  The message hit me right between the eyes as I really needed to remember and be freshly encouraged to step up my efforts to follow our Lord.  It’s not about doing what Jeff, John, Travis, David, the Easter Bunny, Condoleezza Rice or anyone else says, it’s about following where the Lord has led us, and when we do, miracles happen.

I’m pumped about next week, to hear about what God has done with our students this first week of school and to see the miracles that resulted.  If you have or are a youth (in 6th-12th grade) come out next Sunday night at 6:30 and see what all is going on.  I know you will be blessed.

For any more info email me at ben.heile@longhollow.com. 

Ben