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Road Progress

As we have been saying for years, one hurdle to RV’s and larger campers on our road is a steep gravel hill ending abruptly at a low water bridge.  While these rigs might make it down this hill into the camp, there is question if they could make it back up the hill and even they could most owners are not willing to risk finding out.  There are also lesser challenges (a narrow road with overhanging branches, flash flood prone areas, stretches prone to washing out), but the hill remains the formidable hurdle to making this go.  As we pray and attempt to connect with groups who have retired but active Christians who have skills/ knowledge to pass on to a younger generation of Christians, it is crucial that there is no problem for them to get their equipment easily and safely to the site.  We continue to pray for a miracle to solve the road problem(s).  We have a few options in mind each of which has its pros and cons, and all of which include a price starting at $20,000 for materials. 

Fourth Pinto Baby!

What a miracle it is; six and a half years ago we were told that we might not be able to have babies.  When after much prayer by us and others, God blessed us with our first son, we wondered if Josiah would be our only biological child.  Nineteen months later Isabelle came along.  After suffering the pain and disappoint of several miscarriages, finally Jairus was born.  On November 22, our third son was born.  Asa Titus Pinto is healthy and strong with the usual healthy, seemingly insatiable appetite that all our babies have had.  (We look forward to finally being able to sleep through the night soon!)  Still, we are grateful that God enabled us to have any kids at all, and we accept with humility the great challenge with which He has entrusted to us to bring these kids up in a godly home showing by example and word what it is to have a love relationship with our Creator God that leads to an exciting life of service in His kingdom. 

One of the amazing things we have noticed is that since we have started having kids our income has never changed.  The only change came when Melissa quit her teaching job to stay home and train our own children when Josiah was born, and that was a major decrease.  We cannot explain how the bills are paid every month based on our annual income except that God enables our money to stretch beyond what it would otherwise.  It is a principle He used as the Israelites lived forty years in the desert walking on sandals and wearing clothes that never wore out (Deuteronomy 29:5).  God provides in other ways than just giving us huge financial and material blessings.  The challenge is recognizing that just because we don’t have large or even “comfortable” income or maybe we don’t have all the things we really want, God provides in ways we may miss if our expectations are out of line.  While it seems it would be nice to have more income from Pilgrimage, God continues to provide primarily through off-camp carpentry jobs, so Pilgrimage ministries and development often take a back seat. 

Volunteer Opportunities

In many ways raising funds, which for Pilgrimage has been a very slow process, is easier than getting volunteers.  But being part of God’s work whether through giving money, giving material things, or giving time back to Him is exciting and rewarding.  So when we say “volunteer opportunities,” it is not from a perspective that it is an opportunity to help Pilgrimage, but that Pilgrimage can be a vehicle through which you serve God and become part of His work, while at the same time He works in you.   Talk about an opportunity! 

Weekly Teen/ Young Adult Outreach

In 2001, God gave us a burden for the youth of the Ravenden Springs area.  We began opening our home a couple times a month for teens to come hang out, play games, and have Bible study.  That became a weekly Friday night event, and soon moved out of our house into the make-shift meeting building we used to call the pavilion.  Improvements to the pavilion (now the Cary-Grove Center) have dramatically increased capacity and options for activities.  Still, for the past couple of years we have thought God might have been closing this ministry down as we have seen decreasing interest.  We maintain a small group of faithful guys some of whom are now in college.  A few new teens who God brought to our first teen daycamp last summer, seemed to bring new life to this ministry.  And so, Friday nights continue to be dedicated to free activities for the youth of the area and have resulted in a group of that in many ways is like a church (although we certainly don’t call it that!). This also affords new opportunities to mentor some of these young men at other times during the week.  One older teen, now in college, has been “riding along” as I have been discipling a young believer.  This is the group of guys (the girls have been absent from the group for a few years) that have been involved in mission trips and other service opportunities.  We do not claim to have a clear understanding of God’s long range plan for this ministry, but we continue to pursue it for as long as it is apparent He is in it. 

Connecting

Connecting with the right people and resources to achieve the organization’s goals and mission – certainly, it is the key to the success or failure of any organization.  Over the decades of Pilgrimage’s existence, this has been the critical factor of the work.  We have connected with only a few [small] churches at a time.  I have been able to speak at a handful of churches to share the vision and ministry.  Several families and numerous individuals have contributed financially and with labor or donated materials and items.  The work has progressed at a seeming snail’s pace since Pilgrimage was incorporated in 1979. 

As we have become involved with training local youth in mission work by connecting them with various ministries, God has begun to expand our connections.  Two organizations in particular (or at least some people of influence within them), the Arkansas Baptist State Convention (SBC) and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, are interested in using our model and our facilities to accomplish the Lord’s work.  We are trying to connect their youth missions work and their retired Christians with RV’s with the vision God has entrusted to us of a place where retired Christians come to train the next generations of active Christian “soldiers.”  This seems like a good fit, but we are also praying and looking for more such connections, while maintaining the link to those few faithful churches, families, and individuals that have been the backbone of the ministry for so long.