Rick and Sandy Redd - The Adventure Begins! Leave for
Long Island
Rick
and Sandy Redd are MM’s newest full-time missionary couple, and they
have had a very intense and fruitful introduction to ministry on Long
Island. They were in charge of the scheduled activities at our outpost
over the summer. We are very thankful that God sent them to help. It is
quite literally answered prayer. Five days after they landed they hosted a
construction team for the ministry of Young Life. Rick and Sandy were able
to build relationship with them as well as assist in their work. The Young
Life group was working on a project to refurbish an abandoned school
building for a youth meeting and recreation center.
Only one day after the Young Life team left the center,
Rick and Sandy picked up the Mechanicsville Christian Center children’s
outreach team arriving from Virginia. 
One
of the primary objectives God has set before us is to see Bahamians
getting into missions, and that’s what this outreach was all about.
Instead of a group of kids coming from the U.S. for ministry to Bahamian
people, this was a group of U.S. kids with a group of local
Bahamian kids partnering together for ministry. The result
was life changing for the kids of both cultures.
The MCC group joined up with a ministry from the island
called Youth United. There were six kids from Virginia, and seven kids
from Long Island as well as several adult leaders from both groups.
Everyone lived together for the week at our mission center in Salt Pond.
This mission trip was charged with the electricity of
God’s direct involvement. Both groups separately had been preparing
themselves over a period of months for the trip. Expectation and faith
were high. The group had evening meetings spent in seeking God. His Spirit
came on the group in extraordinary ways. Some were filled with the Holy
Spirit. Others came to really know Jesus personally for the first time.
The Bahamian children were quite significantly changed. They spoke with
new enthusiasm. Their faces were no longer downcast, but confident,
radiant, and full of joy. Some of the adults from the island who witnessed
it said they had never seen anything like this happening with children
before.
After these brushes with the Almighty, the team would
ask God where He wanted them to go and what He wanted them to do.
Amazingly, He answered them. He gave some of the children visions of
specific people and places. These visions were fulfilled as they followed
His direction. The team ministered in a number of settlements with songs,
dance, testimonies, and one-on-one sharing. There were divine
orchestrations throughout the week and much was accomplished for the
Kingdom of God on Long Island.
At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the
wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Matt 11: 25
Rick
and Sandy were also involved with quite a lot of meetings with the
Bahamian core group of Maritime Ministries. They covenanted with Jimmy Fox
to meet together on a regular basis three mornings a week to seek God.
They also had a very important “breakthrough” meeting at the base with
adult Long Islanders. One very important aspect of their work this summer
was the forging of some very key relationships. God seems to be “massing
the troops” so-to-speak. All who feel called to be here sense that God
is about to do something very big on this one little island, and we are
all waiting with baited breath to see His will accomplished!
