February 26, 2001
Houston experience launched Arkansan into missions
___NEW ORLEANS--A summer spent with a legendary Texas Baptist missionary changed the direction of Ginger Smith's life.
___The woman who now is a Southern Baptist missionary in New Orleans got her first taste of Christian social ministry working with legendary missionary Mildred McWhorter in Houston.
___The Arkansas native had always wanted to work with people, but she didn't know exactly how God could use her, she said. No one in her family had ever been involved in vocational ministry--let alone inner-city social ministry.
MISSIONARY Ginger Smith eats lunch at Brantley Baptist Center with Lou Hines. The shelter houses up to 230 individuals each night. (NAMB photo by Ted Jackson)
___She first applied for summer missions service while in high school. And when she was approved to serve at an inner-city ministry center in Houston, it was a shock to her parents--who told her she could not go.
___But they came around after a personal visit from McWhorter.
___"It was amazing to see how God worked all that out," Smith said. The three months went by safely, and when it was time to start her first year of college, "I knew that my life had changed forever," Smith said.
___She spent every summer of her four years in college doing a variety of mission projects, including two in U.S. inner-cities, one in a pioneer U.S. ministry area and her final summer in Hong Kong.
___Today, she serves as social services coordinator at the Clovis Brantley Baptist Center in New Orleans. She oversees the center's women's and children's shelter, supervises the self-assessment phase of a Christian rehabilitation program and leads Bible studies and classes on computer-skills, GED preparation, parenting skills, job readiness and anger management. She also is the center's community referral and resource specialist.
___The center is located one block off New Orleans' glitzy French Quarter district.
___When those who have come to New Orleans looking for good times hit bottom, Smith is waiting to take them in.
___Her work is featured this year during the Southern Baptist Convention's Week of Prayer for North American Missions.
___Smith is one of three NAMB missionaries at the Brantley Center, where "soup, soap and salvation" continue to play important roles in the work of New Orleans' only Southern Baptist homeless shelter, originally started in 1927.
___The Brantley Center features the preaching of the gospel as its central purpose. Besides the morning Bible studies, nightly preaching services are held.
___Attractive, energetic and patient, Smith might at first glance appear innocent to New Orleans' notorious "ways of the world." But she learned her lessons well in college and seminary, through her several mission trips and especially during her internship at Brantley.
___She now is described by the male staff members at Brantley Center's front desk as "an alcoholic and drug addict's worst nightmare."
___"Ginger has taught me you can't just read the Bible. You have to live it," said a fellow staffer at the center, who had endured hardships of the streets.
___In the late afternoon, the smell of bleach lingers upstairs on the men's floor and on the women's floor. A total of 232 guests can be sheltered each night at Brantley.
___Everything may be rough, but it is spotless. Smith works hard to keep germs away from her guests and to offer them a clean and safe place to stay.
___Over the years, faithful Southern Baptists have donated the mattresses, sheets, blankets, towels and clothing; but since the traffic is so steady and usually to capacity, Smith always finds herself in need of new items. Area restaurants often donate food. Nothing is ever wasted or taken for granted, Smith said with assurance.
___To the "shelter guests," Smith likes to offer a place "where we treat them like they're human beings," rather than a faceless number among hundreds of others.
___"People are people, regardless of their money or status," she insists. "I don't see them as homeless people."
___She works hard at remembering their names, making their birthdays special and helping them to become responsible and productive. But most of all, she enjoys helping them to know Christ as their Savior, to use his strength to overcome their addictions and to grow in knowledge and service to him.
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