Denton volunteers dig in at North Texas camp
___Eighteen men from McKinney Street Baptist Church in Denton took their faith into the trenches last month and helped North Texas Baptist Encampment save $80,000 in labor costs.
___Joined by one man from Oklahoma and 12 men from the camp, they dug 3,800 feet of trenches three feet deep, assembled and installed six-inch water mains and covered the new
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JOE BLACK and Max Bellar work on a mechanical joint T connecting the primary water main to the swimming pool.
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lines with fresh dirt hauled in for that purpose.
___The massive job on the six-inch mains was completed in three days, from Wednesday, April 18, through Friday, April 20.
___But some of the men went back again Saturday, April 21, and added a four-inch feeder line and two-inch irrigation lines.
___All the work was hard, physical labor, using a trenching machine, a backhoe, front-end loaders, picks, shovels, wrenches, welding torches and earth-moving equipment.
___The men were in and out of the trenches time after time, happy to be putting their faith into practice as volunteer laborers.
___Four men with previous construction and repair experience spearheaded the effort, but there were many other workers.
___Some of the men worked alone on tasks which were their specialties, such as welding, while others worked in groups of two, four, six or more assembling the pipes.
___One of the volunteers was Joe Black of Durant, Okla., who works for Interstate Contracting, which constructs roads and bridges. He previously has installed irrigation systems at two golf courses.
___Black had accepted Jesus Christ as Savior just one month before becoming a missions volunteer. After working in the trenches, he was baptized Sunday night, April 22, by his brother, Bill Black, pastor of the McKinney Street Church.
___The new water lines are part of the camp's ongoing improvement program.
___The work would have cost an estimated $80,000 if it had been done on a commercial basis.
___North Texas Baptist Encampment is scheduled to start a fund-raising drive May 19, to help pay for phase two of its current development program.
___When completed, this phase will have provided the new water lines, a dining hall and 12 new dormitories with beds for 244 people.
___Phase one of the camp's master development program already has been completed. It includes a new auditorium, administrative offices, a first aid station, a recreation pavilion and a sewer system.
___Phase one cost about $700,000, not including the volunteer work performed by Texas Baptist Men, who still are working on the new dormitories.
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