Day 2Tommy and Elizabeth Stevens
After five years, Tommy and Liz Stevens have grown accustomed to the echo of gun fighting, which they can hear from their front porch. Tourists come from miles around to see the old saloons and the daily reenactments of the shootout at the OK Corral. But the couple is working on attracting both tourists and locals to the love of Christ. Theyve made Tombstone, Arizona, their headquarters in the center of a 16,500-square-mile area of ministry.
Mission: To help plant churches and strengthen churches in southern Arizona.
Prayer request: Pray that God would fill the need for pastors and new churches in the Cochise Baptist Association in Arizona where a majority of the people are not related to any church.
Tommy is the director of missions for the Cochise Baptist Association where he works with nearly 200,000 people in the southern part of Arizona, a state 92 percent unchurched.
A lot of people came out here to get away from people like me, says Tommy. Weve come out here to get em.
When they arrived in the association in 1997, 13 churches and two missions were already established. The two missions have grown to two churches, bringing the number of churches to 15. Those churches started 33 missions. In addition, there are four active Bible studies. Altogether, the Stevenses serve 54 congregations.
Besides assisting churches and other congregations in the association, the couple operates a bed and breakfast in Tombstone named the Parsons Rest. This is a place the Stevenses have designed as a ministers family retreat and a place where missions groups stay when coming to work in the area. During the past five years, 2,400 people have either eaten or slept at the Parsons Rest. Last year, they lodged 24 teams.
Tommy and Liz Stevens take the reigns in southern Arizona where they are helping churches grow in the Cochise Association.
PHOTOS BY GIBBS FRAZEUR
God has provided everything we need, says Tommy. Were able to comfortably sleep 25 people. Weve fed as many as 107.
And while ministers and their families are not allowed to work while staying with the couple, missions teams that stay with them go directly to the field.
For example, during Hellderado Days, a yearly festival in Tombstone, Tommy and Liz go with missions teams to hand out gospel tracts, Jesus videos and Bibles. One year, groups passed out nearly 2,000 tracts in two hours.
We put a table out and give away free water and doughnuts, Liz says. Then we have a gospel band on the front porch. So for two hours while theyre standing in line, they hear gospel music, and were getting to share the gospel.
Tombstone is a microcosm of the rest of the association. While there is some resistance to the gospel from several groups in the areafor example, 13 witches covens practice in Cochise County aloneChrists love still has an audience. In 2001, 700 people in the area made professions of faith. Last year, the Cochise Baptist Association recorded more than 600 professions of faith and 257 baptisms.
Tommy also is at work with nine missions in Agra Prieta, Mexico, where he is working with the Convencion National, helping them form their own association. The Cochise Association has partnered with First Baptist Church of Agra Prieta and continues to reach Spanish-speaking populations that have never heard the gospel.