July 31, 2000
Job Corps empowers women for lives of faith & fulfillment
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___KERRVILLE--Some are unemployed single mothers with small children, and some are underemployed grandmothers. But all the students in the Christian Women's Job Corps are looking for a better life.
___"We're seeing God's handprints all over this program," said Patty Crick, project director for the Kerrville Christian Women's Job Corps.
PATTY CRICK (center), project director for the Kerrville Christian Women's Job Corps, poses with several members of the May graduating class--Betty Bayer, Becky Way, Jean Teanry, Robin Firmin and Tommi Benson. (Photo by Ken Camp)
___Christian Women's Job Corps is a ministry of Woman's Missionary Union. The program helps women in need learn life skills and job skills within a distinctively Christian context.
___"They're learning self-sufficiency one step at a time," Crick said. Eight women, ages 21 to 60, graduated from Kerrville's first Christian Women's Job Corps class in May. Two earned Graduate Equivalency Diplomas.
___Texas Baptists help support Christian Women's Job Corps through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions. Christian Women's Job Corps operates training programs at 14 sites throughout the state.
___The Kerrville program offers a full-scale daytime ministry. It meets five days a week in the storefront facility of New Hope Baptist Fellowship, where Crick's husband, Ricky, is pastor. New Hope is a mission of First Baptist Church of Kerr-ville.
___Each day begins with breakfast and a morning Bible study. The daily curriculum includes computer instruction, communications, money matters, family and child care, health and nutrition.
___To help working women stuck in low-paying jobs, the ministry also offers scaled-back night classes. Evening courses are limited to computer skills and a Bible study.
___"There is so much healing going on through the Bible studies," Crick said. "That's where the transformation takes place inwardly. The skills they learn help them deal with outward circumstances, but the real change takes place in the heart.
___"Their outward circumstances may be one crisis after another, but God's word becomes ingrained in their hearts."
___By the end of the semester, all eight members of the first Kerrville graduating class had started attending church. Half participated in a women's Bible study at New Hope Baptist Fellowship.
___Graduates of the weekday program receive letters of reference and a certificate of completion from Christian Women's Job Corps. Night class students receive a certificate of merit from the Christian Women's Job Corps technology program.
___Just prior to graduation, participants in Christian Women's Job Corps are treated to a "pamper me" day at a beauty salon, Crick said. They also take a field trip to several San Antonio thrift stores. Participants are given $25, along with helpful hints about how to put together a wardrobe suitable for job interviews.
___Twenty-three volunteers worked as teachers or mentors with the Kerrville program during the spring semester. Other volunteers from Baptist churches in the area prepared and served home-cooked noon meals.
___The nutritious meals are served family-style, allowing students to develop their social graces as they eat alongside the volunteers. Meals are never served on paper plates, and participants wash their own dishes, underscoring the idea of self-reliance and individual responsibility.
___"We always set an open space at the table for anyone who walks in the door," Crick said.
___Women come to Christian Women's Job Corps from a variety of backgrounds. Some have been victims of spousal abuse. Some have husbands who are in prison. Some have no husbands.
___"They come here looking, searching for something," said Crick, who relates to them from her own experience growing up with a suicidal, alcoholic mother.
___"When they come here and I sit down across the table from them, I'm able to look them in the eye and say, 'I understand.'"
___Jean, a 60-year-old May graduate of Christian Women's Job Corps, had worked for years as a licensed vocational nurse. That career ended when an injury left her unable to do heavy lifting.
___When she came to Christian Women's Job Corps, Jean had been living in a trailer home for three months without a refrigerator, hot water or electricity. The ministry helped her secure a refrigerator and had her utilities restored.
___"Christian Women's Job Corps turned her life around," Crick said. "She went from completely hopeless to having hope."
___After graduating from the program, Jean secured a job as the camp nurse for a Christian encampment.
___Another May graduate, Robin, left Christian Women's Job Corps with a clear sense of direction.
___"I'm going to get a bookkeeping job until I can go to school and get an accounting degree and become a CPA. That's been my plan since I was in the ninth grade," she said.
___Somewhere along the line, before coming to Christian Women's Job Corps, she lost sight of that plan. Robin is the mother of a 2-year-old, and her husband is in prison.
___But Christian Women's Job Corps helped Robin reclaim her dream. After graduation, she went to work as bookkeeper and secretary for a construction company.
___After the first semester, Crick realized one of the great needs of unemployed young women was quality child care. Christian Women's Job Corps started a child care program using the preschool facility of a neighboring church. Tommi, a May graduate, was hired as day care director.
___While Christian Women's Job Corps is sponsored by Woman's Missionary Union and supported by Texas Baptists, the Kerrville program draws volunteers from various denominations. Partners in Ministry, an organization headed by Bill Blackburn, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, helped secure computer equipment.
___"It's just wonderful to see the churches coming together, being Jesus in the flesh," Crick said. "That's what it's all about."___
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