Our Ministry Center, which houses the church offices, has been a hive of activity and energy this week! We have been blessed to host a youth missions project. Over the past few days, they have taken on several projects, the biggest of which was the task of building a wall, or, as the local building inspector informed me, a ‘decorative bulkhead’. What a blessing this team consisting of three adults, seven students, one babysitter, and two young children has been! In their time with us, they have not only completed the wall, but have also painted two of our ‘Conex’ storage units and cleaned up the area around the building. There are still several more projects planned for Friday.

As we were outside pulling stumps, clearing ground, and moving brick and fill materials, I couldn’t help but think of Nehemiah. Of course, our 60-foot wall is nothing compared with the project that he and his men tackled, but it is teaching us some of the same lessons that the nation of Israel learned many years ago.

God raised up Nehemiah to lead His people in a reconstruction process that would secure the city from outside threats and would support consistent worship of God at the rebuilt temple. In 539 BC, God began the work of restoring His people to the land from which they had been removed 70 years earlier. God used a decree by Cyrus (king of Persia) to allow Zerubbabel to lead the first group of Israelites back to their homeland to rebuild the Temple. It would be another 82 years before a second reformer, Ezra, would lead a group that actually completed the temple. Finally, 13 years later, Nehemiah led a third group to rebuild the city walls.

As one studies the history of God’s faithfulness in returning His people to the land given them, there are many lessons to be learned. In light of our wall project, the one that stands out from the book of Nehemiah is the power of teamwork. Certainly, a project does not stand on teamwork alone; the first four chapters of Nehemiah remind us that any successful project must first include prayer, then planning, partnership, and finally perseverance.

Many, in reading their Bibles, view Nehemiah 3 as one of the ‘boring sections’ of Scripture, like those that contain genealogies. And yet Nehemiah, in his ‘grocery list’ of families and their responsibilities, reminds us of how important it is to work together. While not one family was responsible for the entire wall, each was responsible for one section, that directly in front of their own home. It is amazing that what could not be accomplished (building the wall) in over 90 years of living in the land, was completed in 52 days! “So the wall was completed… in fifty-two days” Nehemiah 6:15.  And the benefits of this partner are highlighted in the next verse “When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.” (Nehemiah 6:16)

I encourage you, if you are not already involved, to roll up your sleeves and get ‘plugged in’ to your local church. Your involvement will lighten the load for others, allow much more to be accomplished, and also provide a testimony to the world of what God can do through His people when they work together!

- Pastor Joe Parkinson

Post Script from Anne Marie Ezzo - After reading Pastor Joe’s encouragement and reminder that the responsibility of rebuilding of the wall was not placed on just one family, the long time theme for GFI:  reaching our Nations “one family at a time” came to mind. As each of us diligently apply the Truth God reveals to us through His Word in our individual homes, accompanied by prayer, partnership with likeminded families and perseverance, we can, together make a difference that others can see. “Realizing that this work had been done with the help of our God.” (Nehemiah 6:16)