Inasmuch efforts perfected at Snyder

By Steve DeVane

BR Managing Editor

Sylvia Strother puts a ribbon on one of the hundreds of bears stuffed during Operation Inasmuch at Snyder Memorial Baptist Church.

Photo by Steve DeVane

Biblical Recorder

FAYETEVILLE - Anyone walking through the fellowship hall at Snyder Memorial Baptist Church April 19 could see the congregation has Operation Inasmuch (OIAM) down to an art.

OIAM, the one-day community mission blitz, started at Snyder in 1995. Since then the church has refined the process, which is now used in churches across the country.

On April 19, Snyder Memorial was one of more than 900 churches participating in a statewide OIAM effort with N.C. Baptists in all 100 counties.

Over the years, OIAM has become known for construction projects among its many creative efforts. Teams repair roofs, replace rotten wood, paint faded houses, fix leaky pipes and take care of numerous other problems.

But the mission efforts also include numerous other projects.

At Snyder's fellowship hall dozens of church members performed various tasks to help people in the local community, state, nation and world.

On one end of the fellowship hall, volunteers packed lunches in hundreds of brown paper bags for the construction teams and other workers.

Nearby several ladies addressed boxes to go to deployed soldiers. The packages had been put together earlier by the church's youth group.

Long lines of tables occupied much of the room. Church members stood at the tables forming makeshift assembly lines.

One group was making "back pack buddies" for a local elementary school. They were filling large plastic bags with juice, Pop-tarts, nuts, oatmeal, small cans of beef stew and other items. Teachers at the school give the bags to students who otherwise might not have anything to eat over weekends.

Another set of volunteers was making hygiene kits for homeless people.

Stacy Swinton, the Fayetteville Police Department's homeless project officer, was there to thank church members for their efforts.

Swinton, who keeps track of homeless people in Fayetteville, said the kits with wash clothes, deodorant, socks, toothpaste, shampoo and other items, make a difference to those without homes.

"It means a lot," she said. "It helps a lot."

Swinton said that the first time she gave one of the kits to a homeless person, he immediately took the washcloth and went to a faucet at a nearby gas station to wash his face.

"I said, 'You know what, this is my calling,'" Swinton said.

One of the ways the kits help the homeless is by reducing odor.

"They don't want to smell," Swinton said. "They don' want to be known as homeless."

Down the row from the people making the hygiene kits was a group putting candy, lotion, Kleenex and other items in colorful paper bags with ribbons for residents of a local nursing home. Other volunteers were placing coloring books, crayons, wash clothes, toothpaste, toothbrushes and other items in large plastic bags for children in Kenya.

Other bags were going to a mission in Miami.

One side of the fellowship hall was filled with sewing machines. Church members stitched together bears, stockings and pillows. A group nearby, including the first and second grade Girls in Action, stuffed them and returned them to those at the sewing machines to be completed.

Faye Maxwell was sewing stockings at one of the machines. She said she can't climb on a roof, but she can sew.

"There's always a need for something we can do," she said.

Maxwell has been involved in OIAM since it began at Snyder. Four years ago, she went on a mission trip to Miami. The group gave some stuffed bears made during OIAM to some of the children there.

"They loved them," Maxwell said.

She said it was wonderful to see how the kids appreciated the bears.

"It makes it worthwhile," she said.

About 15 feet from Maxwell's sewing machine, Sylvia Strother was putting ribbons on the finished bears.

"It's a fun day to help someone," she said.

Jerry Odom was overseeing the sewing operation. She said some of the bears will go to nursing homes.

"A lot of people in nursing homes like to have something to hold," she said.

The church members were also making white pillows for children to decorate, Odom said.

Tammy Laurence, the executive director of the Child Advocacy Center in Fayetteville, thanked church members for making the pillows.

"I just want you to know that what you're doing really matters to these children," she said.

Laurence said the pillows will be given to children of parents taking part in a "non-offending caregivers support group." The meetings help the parents of abused children understand and deal with what happened to their children, she said.

The children will decorate the pillows while the parents are in the support group meetings.

"We're calling them their dream pillows," she said. "They decorate them with what their dreams look like."

Laurence said the center is a safe environment where the children feel protected. The pillows can serve as a positive extension of that safe feeling, she said.

"It's amazing that something so small and so simple has such a big impact," she said.