July Update

When Women on Mission met July 14, Lance Dockery shared how Black Forest Academy in Germany provides a Christian educational and spiritual development environment for the children of missionaries serving in the eastern European region.
Lance and his wife Caroline are missionaries with Mission Venture and have served together in church ministry for 16 years. Lance related that Caroline knew she wanted to be in church service since fifth grade.  Both from west Texas, they planted a church in the Houston area and then moved into camp ministry.  Attending a missionary kid retreat gave them the opportunity to see that there was a huge need for care of missionaries’ children.
Black Forest Academy (BFA) enrolls more than 250 missionary kids, grades 5-12. Each of the 100-plus staff members is a missionary who is paid by their sending organization, not by BFA.  The school not only provides a quality American education but also ministers to the spiritual needs of each student.  Lance stated that at some point in their missionary service lives, missionary parents may determine that what they are doing is not necessarily best for their children.  Also, home-schooling is illegal in some countries, and students will need a U.S. diploma to continue their higher education in the United States.
BFA meets those needs, not just for American students but students from many other countries including Canada, South Korea, Italy, France, “and a lot of nations around the world that are not necessarily a safe place” for children.  “The Lord has called people to go into those places to share the truth of the gospel, and sometimes for their kids it’s scary, especially for young girls,” Lance said. “BFA is a haven.”
Lance serves as chaplain and boys volleyball coach and strives to develop a relationship with each individual student.  Caroline serves as Student Council advisor and coaches the girls basketball team.  Their athletic events take place at U.S. Department of Defense facilities in Europe.  He also leads a team of 30 students “blessed with musical skills” who help lead the weekly chapel programs.
He heads up service projects that have taken BFA students to such places as India, Central Asia, the nation of Georgia, and one location where they teamed with a student’s parents who were serving there as missionaries. Students especially love the international chapel program every November, he said, where the music team leads worship in as many as 16 languages because they hear worship in their “heart language.”  Lance noted that missionary kids are known as “third-culture kids” who don’t necessarily call their country of origin home but also aren’t part of the country where they live.
Lance shared that BFA is the culmination of something the Lord started in his and Caroline’s hearts and minds many years ago. “It made sense for us that not only was this something the Lord was calling us to but that He was equipping us for.  We kept doing the things that the Lord had called us to until he opened the doors to do something else.”  The Dockery children embraced the calling to BFA, he said, and are part of the mission.  “As a family serving as missionaries to missionaries’ kids it really is special to see how God uses people to accomplish His purposes,” Lance concluded.

Coming in August

Women on Mission’s August speaker Cherry Faile started her service with the International Mission Board (IMB) as a journeyman to Yemen for two years in 1978 after being licensed as a registered nurse.  In 1984 she was appointed and sent as a career missionary to Nalerigu, Ghana, as a nurse/midwife. She worked there to help build a community-based public health program and start Bible study groups in the Public Health area villages

In 2000 Cherry transferred to Niger, where she started language/culture studies with the Fulani Peoples in the capital, Niamey. In 2002 she moved into a small village of 450 people called Dantiandou to work as a nurse/midwife and assist with the sparse medical work being done in that area by one government nurse.

In 2015, after early retirement from IMB, Cherry continued to work in Niger then took two years off to work as a nurse in north Georgia to raise support.  She returned to Niger in 2017, but shortly after Islamic jihadists moved into the villages of western Niger and friends in the village asked her not to return due to increased risk of kidnapping. She stayed in the capital to help villagers find the best places to go for medical care.

Cherry has been back in the United States since 2021, making occasional visits back to the Niger capital. She continues her medical work using Fulani friends who live in the capital to help patients get to the right medical facilities/doctors.

WOM will meet Monday, Aug. 11, in the Buchanan Hall at First Baptist.  Following a covered-dish luncheon at 11:30 a.m., the speaker’s program will begin at noon.

Ongoing Activities

WOM also supports Hope House of Union County by collecting personal hygiene items such as shampoo, body wash, deodorant, etc., which are distributed free of charge to Hope House clients. Through offerings collected monthly and budget funding from First Baptist, WOM are supporting the following ministries:

  • Cowboy Church of Jerusalem to purchase food and new boots.
  • Pure Love Pure Water for more filters to be sent to missionaries.
  • The Clarkston After-School Ministry, which provides a meal for the children and to purchase supplies for the children.