Special to IFN

East Side Baptist Church in Statesville will hold Homecoming on Sunday, August 11.

Pastor Jim Park will be the guest speaker during Sunday School at 10 a.m. as well as the 11 a.m. worship service. There will be a meal after the morning services.

East Side Baptist Church is located at 310 East Side Drive.

Pastor Park graduated from Piedmont Bible College in Winston-Salem in 1974 and was called to pastor the Cochran Street Baptist Church in Statesville later that year. 

In 1980 Pastor Park was led to the Cherokee Indian Reservation in western North Carolina with his wife Shirley, and their son, Bradley. 

Camp Cherokee was organized in 1981 and was a great success for over 20 years, reaching the Cherokee youth and producing leaders in the churches and community. Shirley was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of 2004 and died in June of 2005. Bradley was involved in a car crash in 1994 that has left him needing constant medical care from family and care givers.

In 1999, Park traveled to the Philippines to visit Filipino missionaries supported by the Cherokee churches. In 2002 Park co-founded the Lagawe Baptist Bible College in the remote mountains of northern Luzon Island. The college has produced many dedicated Alumni that have started churches in remote villages. The college was renamed VizCar Baptist Seminary in 2015. Since 2002 this ministry has started over 100 missions and churches.

Pastor Park and Bradley reside on the Cherokee Indian Reservation, working in their home church, the Acquoni Baptist Church.