Ocean City, Md.—If you want to see a story about what the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s new partnership with the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware means, look at Cathy Chinn’s face.

The member of Living Faith Baptist Church in Hartford is still smiling after leading a young boy to faith in Christ this summer during a visit to a campground in Ocean City, Md.

A 14-member team of Acteens and leaders from three churches led children in Bible studies, stories, crafts and games at several campgrounds during their nine-day trip in late June.

Working with North American missionaries Terry and Lynn Davis, the team also helped with a dinner for lifeguards, another for international students, distributed toiletry kits to internationals and witnessed on the beach.

“I’ve been in Maryland before but never for a mission trip,” Chinn noted. “This is a wonderful place for any church to go. There’s a lot of needs there.”

“A lot of seeds were planted at the campgrounds and with international students and lifeguards,” added LaRaine Rice, youth/college consultant for Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union.

Although this is the first year of the three-year partnership, 2008 appears to be primarily for planning, according to a check with several directors of missions around the state.

No teams have coordinated visits through the state partnership missions office, although Director Scott Pittman said that is the way he wants it.

The state convention is moving toward mobilizing churches and associations to form their own partnerships, Pittman explained.

“With our theme, ‘All the World,’ we’re focusing more on training,” he said. “We had 60 come for training (in September) to be volunteer team leaders. There are definitely signs of teams going out.”

Grassroots partnerships are forming too, such as one between Western Maryland Baptist Association and three in Kentucky—Knox, Three Forks and Bracken.

A team of seven women from Three Forks Association traveled to western Maryland in mid-August to help operate a baby comfort station at the Garrett County Fair.

In addition to operating two areas where parents could change diapers and feed infants, volunteers handed out balloons and stickers to children, and did some prayerwalking.

“For four of them, it was their first time to do anything on a mission trip,” said Three Forks’ team leader, Shelby Castlen. “We came back and the women are exceedingly zealous to do more mission work.

The partnership works both ways. A group from a Western Maryland church, Grace Baptist, visited Owingsville Baptist Church in June to help renovate its youth center.

A year ago, a local business donated an old grocery store to Owingsville Baptist. A team of 10 from Grace Baptist helped erect walls in the back part of the building. That portion of the facility is being divided into a multi-purpose computer lab, office and two classrooms. It also will have new handicapped-accessible bathroom facilities.

Owingsville Baptist also has started showing family-friendly movies in the space periodically, a feature Collins said he hopes will become a weekly attraction.

“It was very positive,” Collins said of the Maryland residents’ visit. “It gives us a better perspective on outreach and some things they were doing in Maryland that we can incorporate down here, such as visits to fairs and leisure ministry.”

“That’s what we wanted, a two-way street,” noted Bill Boldt, Bracken Association’s director of missions. “We have gone on record as forming a five-year partnership with the Western Maryland association, starting in 2009.”

The first group to form a partnership was a group of African-American churches. They invited 24 Baltimore-area pastors and their spouses to the annual meeting of the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky last February.

Lincoln Bingham, pastor of St. Paul’s Missionary Baptist Church in Louisville, said the Kentucky pastors invited the group in an effort to get to know them better.

The two groups plan to help five struggling congregations and plant five new churches in each state, Bingham explained.

Members of the Maryland/Del-aware convention plan to return to Louisville next June for Crossover prior to the 2009 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, and to participate in Kentucky Changers.

The first mission endeavor saw a six-member team from El-Bethel Baptist Church in Fort Washington, Md., and Christian Bible Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., come to Louisville in mid-July.

Part of the team led a vacation Bible school for children at Nicole’s Place, a crisis pregnancy and community center.

The others conducted a Bible study for adults. Five participants in the adult class accepted Christ as their Savior, according to James Dixon, cooperative ministry consultant for the Maryland/Delaware convention and pastor of El-Bethel Baptist.

“I feel good about it,” Dixon said of the partnership with Kentucky. “I see some exciting things we can do together to impact the Kingdom of God.”