Happy Birthday Operation Inasmuch!!

 

   Inasmuch Celebrates 20 Years

 

“We now have an entire generation of young people who have experienced Operation Inasmuch,” said Rev. John Cook, Pastor of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church, Fayetteville, North Carolina. His comment came at the end of the morning worship service at Snyder Memorial on March 22 at which the 20th anniversary of Operation Inasmuch was celebrated.

Inasmuch began in March, 1995, as a fresh approach to church renewal by Snyder Memorial. It was intended to be a single event for the church, or, as David Crocker, Pastor of Snyder at the beginning of Inasmuch and now Executive Director of the Inasmuch ministry, says: “We had no idea, . . . but God did. We had no intention of beginning a movement of compassion, but God did. We were simply doing what God has been telling the church to do for 2000 years, only in a way no one else was doing it, and God has grown it into something none of us expected.” Crocker was part of a roofing project in Fayetteville this year just as he was in the initial Inasmuch. “It was great to work with some of the guys I’ve worked with over the years,” he says. “Brought back lots of memories.”

Snyder Memorial marked the anniversary by conducting what is estimated to be their 30th Inasmuch Day (twice each year for the first 10 years and once a year since) on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, as they did in 1995, they celebrated what God has done with Inasmuch, both in the first event when footings were dug for a Habitat House for the Jimmy Grant family and in the 2015 buy valtrex online version when a new roof was put on a house in Habitat Village. 

Part of the celebration was a video prepared by the Inasmuch ministry and shown in both morning worship services at Snyder. It may be viewed by following this link, 20th Anniversary Video.

Stimulating John Cook’s comments above was the story of Meredith Hurley who was five years old in 1995. “One of the very first OIAM’s I can remember was on a Saturday in the spring” Meredith said. “I was in GA’s, and we planted flower pots and then delivered them to people in the poorest part of our community. This was the first time I remember being truly outside my comfort zone. My eyes were opened to see that not everyone was fortunate like I was to have the family blessings and physical blessings that I just was born into.”

She continued: “As a little girl I participated in yard work and flower pot planting. As a teenager in the youth group, I learned how to roof and helped roof a house several years in a row. A couple of years I helped make life books for the children of teenage mothers, and now as an adult I have been able to serve alongside the man that will soon be my husband.

Hurley concluded her story by saying: “The only life I’ve known is a life of serving others. . . . and it started when a 5 year old girl got to experience for the first time through Operation Inasmuch being the hands and feet of Jesus.”

“And THAT,” says David Crocker, “is what Inasmuch is about.”