Over the weekend of July 27-30, 2023, members from the Rhinelander district came together to share the good news with attendees at the Oneida County Fair. In preparation for hosting a booth at the fair, church members got together and assembled gift bags filled with Amazing Facts health magazines and either The Desire of Ages or The Great Controversy books. They were able to hand out 200 of these bags to people who stopped by their booth!

The main focus for the fair was the health message and they were able to bring in two massage therapists who gave free massages at their booth. They also offered for people to sign up for a cooking class and eight community members signed up to attend!

An additional highlight of the weekend happened on that Sabbath when around 80 people from the four district churches and beyond,  gathered together for a joint worship service. During Sabbath School they enjoyed a presentation by members of The Royal Way Ministry, a medical ministry with a small home-based wellness center in Arkansas. The guest speaker for the church service was Josh Jersey who presented on the need for mission work the world over.

The district is looking forward to two additional county fairs happening this summer in their area and are planning to host booths at those venues as well. By the end of summer, the whole north woods will have had a chance to meet their local Seventh-day Adventists at three different county fairs! God is going to do great things!

**Update after attending the Vilas County Fair in Eagle River:

Members who manned the fair booth were able to have some really powerful conversations with people that stopped by!

Highlights include a conversation with a Catholic seminary student who stopped by for a long chat and left with a copy of The Great Controversy in hand. Also, a former Baptist pastor and Eric Anderson, district pastor, chatted for close to an hour about some major life challenges he has been facing that forced him out of ministry. And lastly, a couple of our church members had a wonderful conversation with a Lutheran ministry student that works at a local Lutheran summer camp. He also left with a copy of The Desire of Ages and The Great Controversy.

Anderson says, “It has been a joy to watch our church members come alive and get excited to do evangelism! I have witnessed church members that are generally quite shy around groups of strangers, blossom into gospel sharing ministers for Jesus!”

Keep the Northwoods District in prayer! God is still working here. Our next Fair is the Lincoln County fair in Merrill, and that begins on Wednesday August 16.

 

Eric Anderson, District Pastor
Laurella Case, Communication Coordinator