Houston youth rally for missions
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___HOUSTON--Chewing gum and stick-to-itiveness helped the youth of First Baptist Church in Houston provide blankets, food, shoes and money for mission efforts local and worldwide.
___The youth group, under the leadership of Student Minister John Durham, took on four mission projects simultaneously during the month of January and surpassed their goals in every area.
___Throughout the month, the students worked to collect items for a food pantry for the needy, collected blankets for people in Sudan and the money for shipping, gathered shoes for a variety of ministries and raised money to build a church in Ukraine.
___The youth had a goal of 1,500 cans for the Missions Training Center's food pantry, but were able to collect 3,900 cans and an additional $1,500.
___The blankets were gathered in conjunction with the Voice of the Martyrs ministry to be given to persecuted Christians. While they were trying to accumulate 1,500 blankets and $2,000 to ship them, the final totals were 1,675 blankets and $3,400.
___The youth had taken an earlier mission trip to Santa Rosa, Honduras, in the wake of Hurricane Mitch and seen the multitudes of people without shoes or much of anything else. The youths' desire to meet that need led to the collection of 2,027 pairs of shoes for Honduras, as well as more than 500 pairs for the church's clothes closet for the needy and 50 pair of shoes for a missionary couple who run a basketball camp in Latvia. Another $1,500 was sent for the missionaries to use for any special project.
___The youth also wanted to send $10,000 to a missionary couple to build a church in Laviv, Ukraine. "I had read that people in America spend more on chewing gum in a year than they give to all missions organizations combined," Durham said. "We took that and turned it around--we sold little 25 cent packages of gum for $5 each. Some people would give us $20 or $100, though."
___The result? More than $32,000 raised during the month of January to help build a church in Ukraine by selling chewing gum.
The Baptist Standard
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