Mission team returns from Del Rio

By Sam Waller

A mission team from First Baptist Church of Albany returned Friday, July 1 from a weeklong mission trip to Del Rio.

This year’s trip was dedicated to Dinty Bowman, who has headed up FBC mission trips for the last couple of decades. Bowman, who had already done much of the organization work for the 2022 undertaking, died unexpectedly a few weeks ago.

Team member John Ross Reames said that as they have during several past trips, the local group helped renovate a house owned by City Church Del Rio. This one is used as lodging for workers in another of its missions.

“The church helps the people who come across the border,” Reames said. “After the Border Patrol processes the immigrants, they are taken to this church, and the members there get clothes for them, feed them and put them on buses if needed.”

Among the jobs handled were finishing out a bathroom and washroom in addition to repairing weather damage to a bedroom.

“They’d made a bedroom out of a storage room,” Reames said. “The roof had been leaking into that room and a new roof had been put on. We just tore the wall out and repaired it.”

Work included painting and paneling rooms.

“We put new insulation and new studs in the wall we tore out, sheetrocked it, and taped it,” Reames said. “We worked on another bathroom and got a ditch dug for plumbing.”

The team stayed at one of its earlier renovation projects, a house donated to River Ministry by the owner, who still lives there and helps mission teams. It is used as lodging for mission teams working in the Rio Grande area of Texas and Mexico.

FBC mission teams have traveled to the border often, as well as to other states and countries.

Other workers included Ramona Reames, Rick Davis, Kathy Herrell, Kyle Viertel, Amy Folsom, Jeff Turner, Nolan Turner, and Sue Brown.