If you travel through the roadways in Albany and Clinton County often, chances are you may have noticed something a little different at times in some residents’ yards on entrances to their homes.

“The Traveling Toilet” is adorned with flowers and travels from one home to another (for those willing to participate in a cause), but it’s not a prank, but rather a fundraiser to send two local missionaries to work on a project to spread the gospel abroad.

Since 2016, the Kentucky Nazarene Missions International has been praying, funding, and building a District Center in Tanzania, Africa. The center houses and educates others in that area to help with sharing the gospel.

In 2020, a mission trip was planned, but cancelled due to Covid. When the call was placed in 2022, God placed it in the hearts of two Clinton County residents to pursue and help with finishing work on the building.

Brenda Brown and Tyler Parkhurst both accepted the call. They have been planning, praying, and working for months toward the calling.

To help them with their funding, they have chosen the “Traveling Toilet as a fundraiser. Below are the details on the Traveling Toilet and how it helps raise money.

How it works:

* $10 will have the decorative toilet placed in a yard;

* $10 to have it removed (once a picture is taken for social media);

* $15 to be added to the “clogged list” (so that it is not placed in your yard);

Bundle deals:

* $20 to have it removed and put in another yard;

* $30 for removal, replacement in another yard, to be added to the “clogged list” (good for two weeks).

Once the toilet is placed in a yard, a picture is taken, uploaded to social media and will remain in the yard for at least 12 hours.

Brown, who is now retired, and Parkhurst, an employee to Tyson Food, both are members of Albany United Nazarene Church, and although each have been on missionary trips in the U.S., neither have traveled outside the United States for missionary work.

During an interview this past weekend, Brown said that each Kentucky District is responsible for a particular project. The seminary in Tanzania is almost complete and the work she and Parkhurst and fellow missionaries from the state will be doing will be finishing the work.

The seminary in Africa, something like a Christian college or university in the United States, will help them teach their own people about the gospel.

She also noted only Kentucky Nazarene District missionaries were a part of this particular project in Africa. “Some groups (missionaries) built the men’s and women’s dorms, others, the kitchen, and so forth.”

Brown and Parkhurst are also well aware of the possible risks for Christian missionaries in Africa and other places around the world in this day and time, saying they still have tribal wars within the country itself.

Brown added the work she and Parkhurst would be doing in Tanzania would be manual labor, and basically help finish the project. When complete, the project will have taken about seven years.

The local pair will be leaving on June 29 for a 14 day stay, and prior to departure will attend a training meeting with other missionaries from the state that will be going on the journey, some 15 total.

The total cost for the mission trip for both Brown and Parkhurst is estimated at around $8,500–which is where a large part of the aforementioned fundraiser comes in.

Much is involved in such trips abroad, other than general expenses, including passports, vaccination requirements, among other criteria.

Tyler’s wife, Casie, was the one who came up with the Traveling Toilet idea, saying she had remembered the “pink flamingos” in yards, a similar fundraiser used a few years ago for Relay For Life.

Casie said she was originally going to do the Traveling Toilet a few years earlier to raise funds for the church youth, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic, so they are using it now instead–and it has been a huge success to this point.

As of this past weekend, the toilet had been placed in 75 yards, with 14 more on the waiting list. About $2,300 had already been raised by early this week.

In fact, with so many people willing to participate and help in the fundraiser, there are two such Traveling Toilets making their way throughout yards in the city and county, Brown said.

Brown also said the Traveling Toilet fundraiser would continue until there are no more yards (or participants signed up) left.

The “traveling toilet” has been all across the county and also been seen in some well known places, such as elected officials’ yards. “It’s been to many big places,” Brown said.

Brown and Parkhurst noted that practically everyone, with only a very few exceptions, have been supportive of the fundraising project, and especially what it stands for.

Currently, with money from the fundraiser and other donations, approximately $3,500 more is still needed to cover the total cost for the missionary trip for both local people.

Parkhurst will be on his second missionary journey this summer, but Brown has a lot of experience in missionary work in the U.S., with this being about her seventh time going into the field to do God’s work, helping to spread the gospel ,as well as doing labor while on the African trip.

Both local participants were the only volunteers from Albany United Nazarene, but had to fill out applications with the Kentucky Working Witness Coordinator and were selected for the mission trip.

“We’ve had a ton of fun,” with the fundraiser, said Brown.

About the trip itself she admitted, “I’m a little nervous, but I know God has ordained this,” she added. “He took a simple little porcelain toilet and made a way with it.”

She said she had to pinch herself to make herself think she was really going to Africa, thanking the Albany United Nazarene Church and all of the participants–and future participants–in the fundraising project. “We will take all of them to Africa with us in our hearts,” she said.

On the topic of possible risks or dangers involved on such a mission to a somewhat unstable country, Brown puts her faith above fear.

“Just like I told (Tyler) Parkhurst, we’re a winner either way. If I die in Africa or wherever, it’s just like dying in Kentucky…we’re still going to Heaven.”

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The Traveling Toilet fundraiser to help with the mission trip to Tanzania, Africa is still underway. For more information or to have the toilet placed or removed, see Tyler Parkhurst or call Brenda Brown at 606-306-7166.