Members of a Weatherly church are gearing up for a mission trip to Africa later this week.

Nearly two dozen Faith Church Weatherly congregants will leave for Mombasa, Kenya on Thursday and travel around the region over 10 days to help construct a tabernacle church site, bring the word of God to children and widows and take part in a mission project that started several years ago with one man’s dream to help the world.

Sal Reyes, pastor of Faith Church, will lead the group on the mission.

He said that the tabernacle church they will be helping to build is called the Coral Kenya Assemblies of God.

“From my understanding, they have been meeting under a tree,” Reyes said, noting that in Africa, it has been shown through previous African Missions Projects that if a church is built, people come.

“I’ve seen it personally where we build the tabernacle and then you come back a year or two later and they have the walls built and they have it open. It really impacts the community greatly,” he said, “because an actual building exists.”

Faith Church has paid for this tabernacle that will be used in the construction and will help support Guy Scatton’s mission to bring God to the people. Scatton is the executive director of African Missions Project.

Sean Culp, a parishioner who will be traveling with his family on the mission trip, said that Faith Church aims to do missions locally, nationally and globally and this is one way of following his faith.

“Our goal is to share awareness to the community and reach the people,” he said, adding that the places they will visit are out in the bush lands where there is not much in the way of developed communities.

The church that will be built will also become Faith Church’s sister church and the Weatherly congregation will support them financially as the parish grows.

In addition to the construction, Culp said that the group will visit orphaned children and HIV infected widows.

“There’s 2.5 million orphans in Kenya,” Reyes said. “Half of them are from HIV infected parents that have passed away so it’s pretty incredible over there because they are the poor and the needy. They are the hungry and they have no food or supplies.”

The group will also visit the Mully House, which was formed after an orphan was saved and turned around and started this house for orphans.

Other destinations along the way will include Instanbul, Turkey; Tel Aviv, Israel; Jerusalem; Nairobi, Africa; Mombasa; and Kisumu before returning to New York just before July 24.

In addition, the church’s youth pastor, Kelly R. Janner, recently returned from the Yukon Delta, Alaska, where she took part in a mission trip to Camp AN. The camp aims to bring the Gospel to the Native American children and teens living in the villages in that area.

Janner worked to raise new leaders in these villages since churches are not formed in the remote areas of Alaska. Because of this, rape, crimes, suicides and teen pregnancies are extremely high.

Donations for missions like this through Faith Church are still being accepted at https://faith-ag.com. Select GIVE from the main menu and then Weatherly Missions in the drop down menu to earmark where your donation goes; or mail a check made payable to Faith Church Weatherly to 202 Carbon St., Weatherly, PA 18255.

“Our missions model is to follow after Mark 16:15 about going to all the world and making disciples so for us that is local and then domestic and foreign. That’s why we have Alaska, which is in America and Africa,” Reyes said.

He asked that people send prayers to those traveling for the trip.

“It’s great to see God’s work at hand and I am blessed to be a part of his plan,” Culp added. “ ... Through these ministries I pray that God will bring me closer to him and give me more confidence and boldness in my faith to share with others.

“In addition to my prayer, I would like to ask for your prayers to those who we minister to, pray that God will soften hardened hearts and heal broken hearts. Pray that God will give us wisdom, strength and discernment throughout the mission. Pray that God will keep us safe, healthy, motivated and focused on his will and purpose.”