“Into All the World” Exhibit Will Celebrate World Missions Centennial
This year’s theme for the Heritage Exhibit at the Church of God Internationa General Assembly will focus on 100 years of missionaries in the Church of God. The exhibit will be on display at the Orange County Convention Center on July 27-30, 2010.
By David G. Roebuck
Excitement swelled the hearts of Robert M. Evans and his missionary team as they first spied the sandy beaches of New Providence Island on January 4, 1910. Evans, his wife Ida, their adopted son Robert, and the young Carl M. Padgett were about to begin their missionary ministry in the Bahamas. Their journey from Miami to Nassau had taken just over four days on a schooner appropriately named Fearless.
When Evans’ team arrived in Nassau, they immediately sought out Edmund and Rebecca Barr. The Barrs were Church of God ministers who had returned home to the Bahamas the previous November and were already preaching in Nassau. Together they began the international ministry of the Church of God as we have endeavored to obey Christ’s Great Commission to go “Into All the World.”
Their stories and many others will be told at the Heritage Exhibit in the exhibit hall. “Into All the World” utilizes photographs, artifacts and video to tell how Church of God men and women have taken the Gospel to 180 countries and territories outside the United States and Canada during the past century. The exhibit continues the year-long centennial celebration of World Missions. Along with our first international ministry in the Bahamas, the exhibit will feature the sacrifices of numerous men and women who have left their homes to travel to foreign soil, testimonies of persecution and provision, the role of youth in spreading the gospel, the importance of education in making disciples, the explosive growth of the Church of God around the world, the exciting development of mission fields becoming mission forces, and a tribute to leaders who have emphasized the ministry of missions.
Visitors may tour the exhibit anytime during the hours the exhibit hall is open. The Church of God Historical Commission and the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center have produced “Into All the World” with the support of the International Executive Committee and the Department of World Missions.
