The following is a Christian Work Project sponsored in part by a grant from the Boston Baptist Social Union.

First Baptist Lynn Ethnic Church Ministry

Overview

First Baptist Church of Lynn has been supporting ethnic churches for many years as one of its ministries. This support is in the form of sharing our facility ranging from no charge for a new start p church to a nominal donation for the more established church. Our costs far exceed the donations from these churches.

Karen Church

As we look at this past year our newest start up, the Karen Baptist Church of Lynn Massachusetts, is the poorest in terns of resources. They have been using our facility sine August of 2007 and with the help of sister churchers, ABC USA, CYC, and for the most part BBSU, they have been able to become somewhat stable here in Lynn as a church and community. Their members are refugees from [ a people group in ] Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) known to us as the Karen and are able to secure only low paying jobs. The cost of living is high here in Lynn and jobs are scarse when compared to other parts of the country. This past year we have seen some families migrate to the mid west where [ there are ] better paying jobs and the cost of living is lower.  At the same time we incurred an influx of new families thus keeping the Karen community stable (60-70) but requiring help to become established in the community in the form of food, clothing, etc. We expect this will continue this year.