LYNN – East Baptist Church collaborated with Iglesia Fe Esperanza Amor to host a Touch A Truck event Tuesday during East Baptist Church’s Vacation Bible School program.
This program is running July 7-11 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. for children aged 2-12. There is also an air-conditioned nursery for children 0-2 and opportunities for children older than 12 to participate as leaders in training.
The Vacation Bible School is a free program which, in addition to the fun activities typical of a summer camp, also provides free lunches and snacks throughout the day to all children. Associate Pastor of Youth, Children, and Outreach Brian Gawlak emphasized the importance of ensuring there is no cost associated with participating in Vacation Bible School.
“We want everybody to take part. We don’t want there to be any boundaries on kids coming,” Gawlak said. “We want to make sure that the Love of Jesus is spread to as many people as we can, and we don’t want financial means to be a barrier to that.”
Gawlak said East Baptist Church has been “slowly but surely” forming a sister church relationship with Iglesia Fe Esperanza Amor. The relationship began forming, according to Gawlak, when East Baptist Church invited Iglesia Fe Esperanza Amor to join its international Sunday service, which is a bilingual service.
“It was the start of a really beautiful friendship between the churches, and so we’ve started doing events together, ministering together, so we invited them to be part of our VBS,” Gawlak said. “We’re just looking to branch out and connect with other churches.
“The Body of Christ is united in service to our community as well as worshiping the Lord together privately. The beautiful thing about being a part of the Body of Christ is you’ve got brothers and sisters everywhere, so you can cross cultural bounds, cross different language barriers, and we’re all serving together for the glory of God. It’s been a really beautiful gift to be able to minister with them.”
The Lynn Fire Department arrived at East Baptist Church Tuesday around 2 p.m. Gawlak said he loves having the Lynn Fire Department come to the Vacation Bible School. “It gives these kids some motivation and encouragement to see these guys,” he said.
Fire Captain Mike Noon and firefighters Chris McGinn and Tony Uva came out to Tuesday’s event. Noon said, “We’re happy to come down and show off the truck and let them spray the water.”
“We enjoy showing up for them, and they definitely enjoy seeing what we do, and they’re always very polite and respectful and happy,” Noon added. “It’s really nice that we can give back to the community (with) events like this. We’re absolutely happy to come out and do this.”
