Orrick Christian Church recently held a fish fry featuring fried fish with all the fixins and plenty of live music. Jenny Gordon played and sang contemporary Christian music, and Pastor Art Endsley and the Gorsettes brought the Gospel Bluegrass! The event was free but donations were collected for the Migrant Farmworkers Association.
The congregation has focused on this underserved population in its outreach ministry for years:
The migrants in our area work mainly in the peach and apple orchards, plus some vegetable farms. There are about 50 permanent families that live in the area and find other work in the winter time. About 400-600 travel to our area every year to work in the orchards from August - October. Migrant farmworkers are an unseen population for the most part, because they don't have transportation and they live in housing in the orchards. When they get here they have to depend upon their crew leaders, other migrants in the area or landowners to get them places to do grocery shopping, laundry etc.
Our church collects beans, rice, and clothing for them once a year. When they arrive here they have very little because they are not able to take much with them from place to place. They usually travel in large vans that are full. They can come to Lexington every Monday from Aug - Oct to the Migrant Head Start Center from 5pm - 8pm for food, clothing and other essentials. Usually one or two will come and get food for several in their orchard. Our church has a cookout for them once a year during this time. The migrants that come to our area are mainly families. They are very family oriented and are a joy to serve. They move about every 3 months to different parts of the country, so education for their children is very challenging. The rural public schools do a great job in educating them for the time that they are here. Suzanne Gladney, immigration attorney, has done an amazing job at organizing services for these families while they are in our area. She worked tirelessly to start a Head Start center for the kids under the age of 5 in Lexington, MO. They usually get on a bus at 6 in the morning from the orchard and go back to their families in the orchard around 5:00pm, even tiny babies are bussed to the Head Start for childcare. Before having the Head Start center the kids care, while parents worked, was not good. They were mainly watched by an elderly person and that person would watch up to 20 kids at a time.
Thank you to Missions Team Chair Deanne Townsend for this information and photos!