The following are comments made by David Litton on behalf of the Shiloh elders on Sunday, October 28, 2007 announcing Shiloh’s support of Team Arequipa. (All the elders stood at the front of the auditorium and were joined by others during the service.)
“When a country goes to war today, national leaders stay on home turf and send young men and women into the battlefields. It takes many people to provide food, weapons, transportation and other support for each person on the front line. In a parallel sense, we are in a worldwide spiritual battle, and the Shiloh elders today are announcing our decision to support and send young men and women into the spiritual battlefield of Arequipa, Peru. (The team was asked to join us up front.) Many of you know them already: Greg and Megan McKinzie and Kyle and Larissa Smith.
To Team Arequipa – On behalf of this church family, we are announcing our support for the team for at least 5 years. The financial amount is being determined during our budget process, but more importantly, we pledge to support your work in prayer. A mission support team is already forming to provide advice, encouragement and other means of support.
This is an exciting time for Shiloh. One of the priorities of this church is that we are committed to teach and prepare the next generation. We love and appreciate all of the kids that grow up here. We have been blessed to see an increasing number who choose full-time ministry whether in the inner city, in youth ministry or going to the mission field. And now Greg, Larissa and Kyle are added to that list. Megan, we know Cedar Lane is equally proud of you.
Speaking as a parent, what greater blessing could there be, besides really cute grandkids, than to see a child grow in faith and make such a courageous commitment to go and share the good news of Jesus. As I look across the Shiloh family this morning, there are many faces who have been a part of raising these team members. Thank you.
There are two that I would like to ask to join us here and stand beside the team – Tim Henderson and Bill Richardson. Tim through high school and still today has been and is a mentor of 3⁄4 of the team. He led Greg, Kyle and Larissa on numerous mission trips and helped nurture a servant’s heart. Bill has been a mentor during their college years. During the summer of 2002, Bill led a Caleb project where he took a number of Harding students to South America where they spent the summer spying out the land looking for receptive places to go and take the good news. Greg was one of those students and that was the genesis of Team Arequipa. Please join me in showing appreciation to these two men and their families for the way that they influence hundreds and literally thousands of students to have a closer walk with God.
Although our youngest students, whom we call ‘Shiloh Souldiers,’ have already left the assembly, there are many other students here that we hope someday will be deployed all over the globe in various vocations and ministries to be about God’s mission. Will the Shiloh family please stand with us as we pray for Team Arequipa?”
To the readers of the newsletter, please join us in praying for the Team and what God will do through them in the coming years.
In His Service, David
(For those of you that don’t know, David Litton is Larissa’s father.)