April 14, 1999
Students meet God in St. Louis
___ABILENE--St. Louis never will be the same, and neither will the 37 Hardin-Simmons University students who traveled there during spring break.
___Baptist Student Ministry Director Palmer McCown set a goal of 50 students for the trip, but now he believes the number who signed up proved to be God's goal.
___"Very early in this trip, it was evident I was not in charge of this venture. The Lord made it very plain in numerous ways that he was in control," McCown acknowledged.
___The 37 students who went on the trip signed up quickly, and then there was no one else, McCown said. He had to release reserved train seats or risk losing money on them. It was only then that he learned their accommodationswould sleep 36, and one of the students was planning on staying with her parents who live in St. Louis.
STUDENT Tate Ellison poses with a new friend during HSU mission trip to St. Louis.
___Training and preparation followed the 15-hour train ride, but the students were ready when the opportunity to minister came at two St. Louis churches on Sunday. Willot Road Baptist Church and Jewel Baptist Church, where the group stayed, both allowed the students to have a lead in services.
___On Monday, the real work began. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day, the students were engaged in the manual labor of helping renovate an old public school building which has been closed for years. The facility has been given to St. Louis Metro Baptist Association.
___Students knocked down walls and carried out the debris in an effort to make the building available for ministry.
___The students had planned to lead a program for the children and youth of the area in the gym each afternoon, but on the first afternoon there were no children. So the student missionaries went out into the community to invite children to come. Thirty minutes later, 125 children were in the gym.
___Another group of students repaired and repainted a portion of Jewel Baptist Church, while another portion of the ministry team knocked on doors and invited area residents to come to services where the students would lead worship in conjunction with showing the "Jesus" film.
___"We will have other volunteer groups who will come here and work, but none of them will do the work these students have done," said Doyle Echols, missions coordinator for the association.
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