WMU executive director Sandy Wisdom-Martin stands with a wall of the craft stick house boat currently in progress. (WMU photo)
By GRACE THORNTON, The Baptist Paper
A lot of little popsicle sticks can go a long way when they’re put together.
That’s what the Woman’s Missionary Union has been trying to show as they’ve been working on a craft stick houseboat for the past six months.
Back in May, WMU put out a request for churches, entities, missions groups, Vacation Bible Schools and others to put together small square panels with craft sticks, decorate them and send them to the WMU headquarters.
The idea was to build them together into a big houseboat and float it on Lay Lake in Alabama to demonstrate the way the Cooperative Program works — how when 47,000 Southern Baptist churches work together, they can accomplish a lot toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Some of the money given through the Cooperative Program in the past helped provide a houseboat for International Mission Board missionaries Don and Maria Friesen who live in South America among a people group that often moves when the water levels rise.
The couple’s story is featured in WMU’s children’s missions curriculum in November, so to coincide with that, national WMU staff and a team of volunteers from Texas and Illinois have been working this month to construct the boat on a pontoon platform.
More than 3,200 panels were turned in, including some from Southern Baptist seminaries, IMB, the North American Mission Board, GuideStone, and the SBC Executive Committee. (See video here.)
To learn more about the project, visit wmu.com/craft-stick-houseboat-and-the-cooperative-program. To see updates on the craft stick houseboat, visit WMU’s Facebook page at facebook.com/NationalWMU.
This story first appeared in The Baptist Paper.