By Gregg Woodall
“And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27, ESV).
Last Sunday, Chris Pegg, Dave Benner, and I were worshipping with the West Side Church of Christ in St. Croix. There were 31 brothers and sisters in Christ glorifying God and giving thanks for the privilege to openly worship. Clancy Etienne gave a great sermon from Luke 16 about making friends that can have an eternal impact on our lives and theirs.
We visited the day before with Arnold Dickson, the minister for the Sunny Isle church of Christ located about 6 miles from the West Side congregation. Arnold is a graduate of the Trinidad school of preaching where Bill Nicks had served on the island of Trinidad at one time. Arnold has been preaching for the Sunny Isle congregation (having 41 members) for more than 35 years. Our own Deb Hibbert has ties to Trinidad. It is such a small world when you start making brotherhood wide connections with people.
Both Clancy and Arnold work well together and the church at West Side and at Sunny Isle are familiar with one another just like sister congregations. These two congregations serve the island of more than 55,000 people. They regularly have 5th Sunday fellowships together.
Just as Paul often tarried long enough in his travels to worship with the local brethren, we were privileged to worship with West Side. Often, when you seek to encourage someone, it is you who also receives encouragement. The church at West Side was very glad for the brethren from Karns to be there with them and we were very glad to be there too. Their singing was uplifting and the message was well delivered and gladly received.
We can rejoice and give God the glory that the work in St. Croix is going well!
“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11, ESV).