Mission Fest focuses on global, local missions

A mission may be as big as joining a group of volunteers in Haiti or as small as pushing an elderly person's grocery cart through the parking lot.

Learning about various missions or starting one yourself will be the focus of MissionFest 2013 from 2 to 5 p.m. Nov. 3 at the Osage Centre at 1625 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau.

Expecting 50 exhibitors from churches, youth groups and other ministries, the second annual MissionFest offers free booth space at missionfestcape.org or by calling 450-6269.

Organizer Cheryl Mothes said the Haiti missions in which she has participated with the Zonta Club of Cape Girardeau will be featured, as will the Paid-in-Full initiative pursued by Jay and Lori Blankenship of Benton, Mo.

The entertainment of Mike Dumey & Friends will open MissionFest with an hourlong show at 2 p.m.

Mothes said the event is designed "to show believers how they can pray for, contribute to and participate in local and global missions.

"It's to promote attendance within your congregation or ministry and to pray individually and corporately that God will use this to stir people to serve Him in a big way," the financial adviser said.

Jay Blankenship said he and his wife have been anonymously paying for people's lunches since early this year, leaving behind Paid-in-Full cards "to remind them Jesus died on the Cross to pay our sin debt and mark it 'paid in full.'"

Blankenship said people who wish to follow suit may obtain free cards from his website at paidinfullmission.org.

"We ask them to use the cards to pass it on to the next person and to keep passing it on," he said. "We're not asking for money."

The Auto Tire and Parts warehouse operations manager said the couple "first felt led by the Holy Spirit" to pay for a couple's meals at the Olive Garden in Cape Girardeau and followed up with people who looked as if they could use the help at the McDonald's Restaurant drive-through in Cape Girardeau.

"It doesn't have to be financial," Blankenship said. "You can see an elderly person pushing a cart and stop to offer a hand. People should do whatever God leads them to do and be willing to be vessels God can use to bless other people.

"We're hoping to help unite the body of Christ to spread God's love," he said.

Lori Blankenship is a nurse practitioner at the Missouri Delta Medical Center clinic in Charleston, Mo.

The couple's cards cite 1 John 4:9-11: "This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

Dumey, choral director at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School, said MissionFest's opening will feature up-tempo songs like "Lean on Me."

Others performing to instrumental soundtracks on the Osage Centre stage will include Brodrick Twiggs, Matthew Holman, Elizabeth Orr, Caitlyn Dumey, Drew Kasten and Mia Johnson.

"We'll be doing material supportive of the spirit of this event," Dumey said. "It lends itself to being inspiring, and yet you think about the pacing. So it will not be all slow songs."

Pertinent address:

1625 N. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.