May 27, 2002
Texas Men working from New Mexico to Gaza Strip
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___Felling trees to keep a New Mexico Baptist camp from flooding, playing games with Palestinian children at a day camp in Israel's Gaza Strip, building student housing at a seminary in Canada and providing schoolbook bags for Serbian children are just afew of the ways Texas Baptists are "responding to God's invitations."
The loss of trees and underbrush due to a recent fire has put the Sivells Baptist Retreat and Conference Center in New Mexico in danger of floods.
___That's the perspective of Texas Baptist Men President Leo Smith of Alvin, and it is borne out by a recent flurry of ministry in which Texas Baptist Men have been engaged.
___Texas Baptist Men volunteer chainsaw crews from the Collin, Smith and Hill Country Baptist associations have been working in rotation for the last couple of weeks at Sivells Baptist Retreat and Conference Center, located in the Sacramento Mountains of south central New Mexico.
___The camp is owned by the Baptist Convention of New Mexico.
___Wildfires threatened the conference center last month, destroying 12 cabins and two bathhouses but leaving the main buildings unharmed. However, since the forests around the camp burned, the erosion control the dense undergrowth offered was lost, meaning the conference center stands in danger of flooding when it rains.
___Texas Baptist chainsaw crews are cutting burned trees and creating dams and berms to hold the soil and channel the anticipated floodwaters. Crews will continue working until the camp reopens the second week in June.
___"Their efforts are not only helping the camp to prepare for a safe summer season but also benefiting the entire mountain community," said Sheila Klopfer of Sivells Conference Center.
___The Natural Resource and Conservation Service requires the residents of burned land to either pay 25 percent of the reclamation costs or provide manual labor toward the clean-up effort. Officials told the mountain residents in a meeting that the logged hours of volunteer work at Sivells exceeds the camp's responsibilities and can be used toward helping neighbors pay for their portion of fire recovery.
___Meanwhile, Texas Baptist Men volunteers will brave fire of another kind when they travel to Israel's Gaza Strip this summer.
Texas Baptist Men are working hard to help prevent floods in neighboring New Mexico.
___Jered and Kay Sellers and Marc and Zanna Traweek from First Baptist Church in Plains and Mike and Sandy Brittain from Morton Baptist Church in Diana will work with Baptist volunteers from North Carolina and Tennessee as part of a food distribution team June 7-22.
___Texas Baptist Men also is mobilizing another volunteer team to lead day camps for Palestinian children, teaching English by using songs, games and crafts. They will work July 19-Aug. 3.
___On another front, about two dozen Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builder couples will work all summer at Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary in Cochrane, Alberta, building 18 student apartments.
___Bob Woodard of Sadler Baptist Church in Sadler will coordinate the building project, and Jerry Dill of Gladewater Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant will be the lead carpenter.
___In addition to building the student housing units, the Texas Baptist volunteers also anticipate building a 6,000-square-foot storage building, landscaping the grounds and organizing the library.
___Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders provided most of the labor for the seminary's first major building project in 1995.
___"Churches, individuals and groups like Texas Baptist Men have literally built this seminary," said Richard Blackaby, the school's president.
___Texas Baptist Men also is entering into a long-term strategic project in Serbia that involves concerted prayer efforts, agricultural and economic development, medical assistance and providing school supplies for orphans.
___Working closely with Ben Hanna, a native Texan and International Mission Board representative in Serbia, Texas Baptist Men is calling the strategy "Ready, Set, Go."
___"Ready" represents preparing the field through prayer. Two Texas Baptist Men teams already have conducted prayerwalks in Serbia. Hanna wants to enlist 200 individuals who will pray daily for Serbia and 50 churches who will "covenant" to pray.
___"Set" stands for "strategic equipping training." Working under the auspices of the Agency for Baltic Community Development, Texas Baptist Men plans to send in equipping teams to build greenhouses and teach Serbians how to use them.
___Serbians who agree to maintain the greenhouses will give 10 percent of all the crops to community development, providing vegetables for hospitals and children's homes. Each greenhouse gardener also agrees to help others build two more greenhouses.
___Texas Baptist Men also anticipates sending one medical/dental team into Serbia each month for the next year to help Serbian physicians, and the missions organization wants to send successful Texas Baptist entrepreneurs to mentor small-business owners in Serbia.
___"Go" stands for "gospel outreach." One aspect of this includes providing book bags and school supplies for Serbian orphans to use next fall. Each book bag will include a children's Bible.
___The cost of providing one book bag is $20. The cost includes the book bag, a Bible and set of school supplies. Contributions to the project may be directed to Texas Baptist Men, 333 N. Washington, Dallas 75246-1798.
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