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STEPHEN McKenzie and Awesome O'Possum.
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Possum Kingdom tourists hear of another kingdom
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___PALO PINTO--Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Rhonda Harrison and five team members ministered to more than 200 people per week in campgrounds at Possum Kingdom Lake.
___Harrison, a kindergarten teacher, pastor's wife, mother and seminary student, spent more than four hours a day four days a week in a van as she and her team worked three campgrounds at the sprawling lake in the North Texas Hill Country.
___Possum Kingdom, called one of the prettiest lakes in Texas, serpentines for 65 miles down the Brazos River. It has more than 300 miles of shoreline and bends and twists upon itself like a Chinese dragon writhing across the rugged cedar-, mesquite- and oak-covered hills and mesas of semi-rural Palo Pinto, Young
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CHILDREN enjoy snowcones at a ministry event.
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and Stevens counties. Possum Kingdom lies about midway between Fort Worth, Abilene and Wichita Falls.
___Harrison and her team--officially called the Possum Kingdom Resort Ministry summer team--did day camps, Bible studies, story times, programs, puppet shows and worship services at campgrounds. The team also helped area churches with Vacation Bible Schools and conducted special programs on Wednesday and Sunday nights.
___Getting anywhere along the lake is a time-consuming task. The country is rough and hilly, and there are few direct routes from one point to another except by water or on the more highly developed peninsula area of the southeast side.
___"Up here, everything is a long way from everything else by road," said Cy Gibson, the coordinator of Possum Kingdom Resort Ministry. "To get anywhere, you have to go away from the lake and then go around it."
___The team worked Possum Kingdom State Park, a 1,500-acre park built in the early 1940s by the Civilian Conservation Corps on the lake's southwest side. They also worked two campgrounds managed by the Brazos River Authority on the southeast side, Sandy Beach campground and the North D&D campground.
___The team was headquartered at the Associational Retreat Center, a cluster of houses, barns, RVs and mobile homes on the waterfront not far from the Morris Sheppard Dam. The Associational Retreat Center also is headquarters for Gaines Bend Development, a
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RHONDA HARRISON (right) visits with someone along her daily route between ministry points.
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resort being developed by the the Gibson family on a ranch that has been in Barbara Gibson's family since the 1850s.
___"After working for years to provide housing for the team, we finally decided to build our own," her husband said. The facility also will take care of visiting youth groups who come to help each summer.
___Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning for the 15 weeks of the summer season, the team piled into two vans along with a carefully designed mound of equipment and headed for Possum Kingdom State Park. They traveled in almost every compass point as they wound their way to Highway 16, then to U.S. 180, then to Park Road 33, for almost 50 miles. It would be less than 10 miles by water.
___At the park, they sat up in a grassy, tree-shaded area near the camp store. After setting up the portable puppet theater (made of PVC pipe for easy assembly and take down), they staked out a huge tarpaulin as a seating area. Then they moved out among the campers to invite children and adults to the upcoming show.
___An hour later, after songs, puppets, jokes, a ventriloquist act, crafts and maybe snowcones, the group packed up, retraced its route, and went back to headquarters for lunch. The afternoon was much the same, except at half the distance and doing two shows instead of one.
___"The heart of resort ministry is to get out of the church and to go out to where the people are," Gibson said. "We are trying to do something to interest them, where we can give a witness to Jesus Christ."
___Evenings featured a show at one of the campgrounds, where team members sang, danced, did puppet routines, the ventriloquist act, and gave a Christian testimony in a low-key style.
___Many of the skits conveyed a strong Christian message, as did the songs. For instance, the team gave Christian words to familiar music.
___These shows may be the only time some of the campers ever were exposed to a presentation of the Christian message, Harrison said.
___While the team ministered to more than 200 people a week in the various campground presentations, Harrison said she has no idea how many accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. "We get asked a lot how many professions of faith we have had, but we honestly don't know. The campers go home, and generally we never hear what happens."
___She did recount a story about meeting a man last summer who told her he had been coming to the Saturday puppet shows for years. He generally sent his kids over, so they would be out of his hair, leaving him free to drink and party.
___"One Saturday, he stayed and listened to the program and later was saved. He told me he is now a member of a church in Mineral Wells and has his own puppet ministry with the people of the church," she said. "He even brought his church group to help us out in the day camps last year."
___But mostly, this is a seed-sowing ministry, she added. "We sow the seeds, somebody else waters and someone else is there at the harvest."
___The 2001 team was led by Rhonda Harrison, a three-year veteran. Her husband, Terry, a Mineral Wells postal carrier and former pastor, helped out most evenings and at the worship service at the state park. He is known as "the volunteer" because he does not get paid. The others are paid a small salary.
___Harrison teaches at Harvest Christian Academy in Watauga and is a former member of The Company, the drama team at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She still is working on a master's degree at the school.
___The associate director was Stephen McKenzie, a resident of nearby Millsap and a student at Howard Payne University in Brownwood. He is a ventriloquist and performed routines with two puppets, Awesome O'Possum, and Cornelius.
___Other members were Melissa Frame, also a teacher at Harvest Academy and a resident of North Richland Hills; Melissa Stuhff, a freshman at Hardin-Simmons University from Mineral Wells; Jesse Porter, a junior at Mineral Wells High School; and Kelsey Wolfe, a junior at Graford High School.
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