News from a far country

Encountered in the hallway -- Van Freeman, Steve Smith, and their pastor Boyd Dellinger from Heritage Bible Fellowship Church in Fayetteville. Van recognized me from a talk my wife and I gave for the HOPE support group in Fayetteville last year, and he flagged me down. They brought no less than 17 people from their church, which will be celebrating their third anniversary as a church this January (at the same time that South Smithfield Baptist Church is celebrating its first). Our church has three here; our sponsor for the trip, Hope Baptist Church in Rolesville, brought at least six adults and as many children -- not counting their pastor, Scott Brown, who doesn't count since he's the director of the National Council for Family Integrated Churches and it's his conference, after all.