(WNY News Now) – Churches in Friendship, NY, are expanding their annual Missions Marching Forward Week, bringing together local and international speakers to highlight the power of Christian outreach.
FRIENDSHIP, NY – Speakers with Friendship ties will be among several local to international missionaries who will be helping to build awareness about the importance of Christian outreach during an extended Missions Marching Forward Week this month.
Former 1st United Methodist Church Pastor Robert Schooley, who has conducted a 20-year outreach to Uganda, and Calum Ruxton of Friendship, vice-president of a three-county pregnancy support organization, will make public presentations as part of a March 1521 awareness series at community churches.
The activity, hosted by the What God is DoingTM in Friendship ny alliance of churches, is being expanded this year from prior annual week-long events at the Friendship Bible Baptist Church.
Schooley, who now pastors the Centerville United Methodist Church, will start a week of nightly sessions with different speakers at 6:30PM Monday, March 17, at the Friendship United Methodist at 21 West Main Street.
He will talk about his experiences in working in various areas in Uganda through activities such as putting in wells, providing thousands of mosquito nets, involvement in health-related areas such as obtaining medicines for needy communities, supplying educational materials, and working with people with disabilities.
He and small groups which have traveled to that country, also have provided lunches for Beauty for Ashes School in a tourist area in “a very destitute part of town” where the parents of children are refugees from various places and work in nearby factories for some two dollars a day, according to the pastor.
Schooley served at the Friendship church between 2000 and 2012, before assuming his new pastoral role in Centerville.
He also is a former special edition teacher, whose work has included at-risk children, before retiring from the Pioneer Central School District in 2023.
Ruxton will speak at 6:30PM Wednesday, March 19, at the Bible Baptist Church, explaining how God led him, as a single, young male to be an officer in the nonprofit Bright Alternatives pro-life ministry.
The organization, based in Bradford, Pa., has outreach offices in Wellsville and Olean.
Also known as The Center for New Hope, it provides a wide variety of services to mothers and families in need.
Its purpose is to encourage, empower, and equip women and families to make strong choices for themselves and a better future for their families through use of evidence-based educational material and peer counseling.
This help includes services such as pregnancy tests and proof of pregnancy letters, community referrals, post-choice support and counseling, pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum care and parenting classes, Earn While You Learn and Beds for Babies crib programs, and workshops on various other topics.
The Missions Marching Forward observance schedule includes:
Saturday, March 15 – World Relief of Western New York will introduce the community missions week focus during 11AM weekly services at Followers of the Way – Nile Community Church at 4094 State Route 275 South.
The Rochester-based organization provides newly arrived refugees with access to basic necessities, starting them on the journey to belonging in new surroundings.
The Saturday Sabbath-observing Baptist church also will hold its free weekly after-service community soup and bread luncheon following the service.
Sunday, March 16 – Churches alliance participants will provide individual focuses on the importance of local to international missions during weekly services.
Monday, March 17 – Pastor Schooley will be at the 1st United Methodist Church at 6:30PM.
Evening public presentations through Saturday, March 20, also will start at 6:30PM, with all held at the Bible Baptist Church at 43 West Main Street, followed by refreshments.
Tuesday, March 18 – Karen Pennington, academic dean at Houghton Academy, will trace her lifetime involvement in ministry, from growing up in a family of Salvation Army officers, to public education and her new position at the Allegany County international boarding school where some 70 percent of the student population is from other countries.
Pennington has been involved in inner-city missions, headed lay leadership training for the Salvation Army on the West Coast, and is an author of Sunday school, Bible study, discipleship development and church leadership training curricula.
Wednesday, March 19 – Ruxton will speak.
Thursday, March 20 – Liberty Behind Bars of Belfast, a jail ministry.
Friday, March 21 – A missionary involved in ongoing Hurricane Helene cleanup relief in North Carolina.
Saturday, March 22 – Joe Keim, executive director of Mission to Amish People (MAP) of Greenwich, Ohio, will discuss the Amish religion and how to help those who have left those groups.
MAP presented a conference last year in Friendship.
Keim also will be present at 10AM Sunday School and 11AM church services on March 23 at Bible Baptist Church.
No third Wednesday of the month free community missions luncheon, normally held at The Mission House, will be take place in March due to the full missions week schedule.
Updates will be available on the alliance Facebook page at WhatGodisDoing@outlook.com or at (585) 664-9989.
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