March 17, 1999
Acteens dig in to ministry needs
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___WACO--Teenage girls from around Texas returned home from Acteens IMPACT with broken fingernails, rough hands and a deeper appreciation for missions.
___About 1,200 girls from more than 100 churches spent the Saturday morning of IMPACT (In Missions Preparation As Christian Teens) working in various community service projects throughout Waco.
___"All Things Become New" was the theme of the statewide missions event, March 5-6 at Baylor University, sponsored by Woman's Missionary Union of Texas.
___In addition to conducting backyard Bible clubs in low-income neighborhoods, the girls also visited nursing homes,answered phones and filed papers for local community ministries, cleaned house and weeded flower beds for homebound elderly widows, picked up trash along the Lake Waco shoreline, and planted trees and flowers for a city of Waco beautification project.
PLANTING SEEDLINGS of flowers that eventually will beautify public areas throughout Waco was one of the hands-on ministry projects undertaken by Acteens at IMPACT. Gretchen Eikenburg of McQueeney Baptist Church and Kristy Nelson of Valley Grove Baptist Church in Stephenville work on the seedlings in a city greenhouse. (Photo by Ken Camp/BGCT)
___After lunch, many of the girls sorted and sacked school supplies and baby care items for Mission Waco and Mission Arlington.
___"I purposely went after assignments where the girls wouldn't just be in 'churchy' situations. I wanted them to be out in the community," said project coordinator Judy Patterson, an Acteens leader from First Baptist Church of Lorena. "I wanted the city of Waco to say, 'Why are these teenaged girls doing this?
___A group from First Baptist Church of Kerens visited residents at a nursing home. The girls decided to nurture the relationships they established, committing to send cards to the people they met.
___Beth Eikenburg, an Acteens leader from McQueeney Baptist Church, believes her girls learn about missions most effectively by doing missions, working in the community.
___"They'd rather do hands-on ministry than sit around hearing somebody tell them about it," she said. "They came to get down and dirty."
___Eikenburg's group worked in a greenhouse owned by the Waco Parks and Recreation Department, planting flower seedlings into growing trays. When they mature, the flowers will be transplanted at sites around the city. A parks department representative said that in two hours, the girls accomplished what it would have taken three city employees a week to finish.
___In addition to the hands-on missions projects, the Acteens met missionaries Dorcas and Emerson Byrd from the Baptist centers in Houston, as well as Ron and Joan Capps of Japan. They saw displays related to state, national and international ministries at a "Missions Mosaic" exhibit hall and learned skills such as clowning, drama and personal witnessing.
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