By Nancy Bennett -
On May 2-3, 2025, NAMB and IMB partnered together to bring Send Relief Serve Tour to Evansville, Indiana. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet needs, show love, and share Christ throughout Evansville. Started in 2021, Serve Tours have been choosing cities around the world to bring hope and encouragement to communities with the help of local churches.

With over 700 volunteers from 14 states, we completed 41 projects (the most events that Send Relief has ever sponsored through its Serve Tours). 30 plus professions of faith resulted from projects like Neighborhood Clean-up efforts, high school courtyard clean-up for use in future botany classes, new flooring installed in a church sanctuary along with 230 chairs assembled, a neighborhood Grill Walk in a low income area, a block party helping a new church plant to launch in the fall of 2026, as well as many more ministry projects completed.

The hub churches were Oak Hill Baptist, First Southern Baptist, and Community Central where volunteers met each morning to get needed tools for their projects. Indiana Disaster Relief (DR) volunteers put together lunches for the individual project volunteer groups—500 plus for Friday and 700 plus for Saturday. DR volunteers from Indiana and Illinois cooked and served the meal to the volunteers prior to the rally on Saturday night. Northeast Park Baptist offered a free spaghetti meal to 75-80 out-of-town volunteers on Friday night.

Thanks go out to Send Relief National Project Director at NAMB Sammy Simmons, Southwestern Indiana Baptist Association Coordinator Kenny Kidd, and Evansville Serve Tour Project Manager Graham Avis. Our community was blessed as we were reminded that no act of love goes unnoticed when King Jesus is involved!

Click here to read NAMB's further write-up about the Evansville stop on the Serve Tour!

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Nancy Bennett serves as the WMU Director of the Southwest Indiana Baptist Association.