July 29, 2002
MICHAEL Yocum, Abby Yocum, Elizabeth Sparks and Kristen Holden play a game of Duck, Duck, Goose with children at the San Carlos Community Center during a Vacation Bible School. Members from Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas traveled to South Texas to host the VBS along with Buckner Children and Family Services. KRISTEN HOLDEN (above at right) and Abby Yocum help children with crafts during a Vacation Bible School.
GIVING THEIR ALL:
From Park Cities to colonia
___By Scott Collins
___Buckner News Service
___SAN CARLOS--When Sam Silva says the young married adults from Park Cities Baptist Church gave their all to help a poverty-stricken colonia in South Texas, he means it.
___As mission team members prepared to leave the Lower Rio Grande Valley and return to Dallas, they handed Silva bags containing their shoes and other clothing.
___"They went back home with only the clothes they had on," Silva said. "They truly gave it their all."
___As part of a four-day summer missions experience, the Park Cities team worked with Buck–ner Benevolences to minister in the San Carlos colonia. San Carlos is one of several colonias in Texas where Buckner provides a variety of programs to help struggling families living in poverty.
___"I believe every mission trip should exhibit, illustrate and live out Christ's love, and the Park Cities team did exactly that and more," said Silva, border ministries coordinator for Buckner Children & Family Services.
ELIZABETH KNIGHT (inset) talks with a child at the San Carlos Community Center.
___The team of young married adults from two Sunday School departments led Vacation Bible School each morning at the San Carlos community center and again in the afternoon at the Rio Grande Children's Home in Mission.
___While part of the group led VBS, two smaller teams worked with hammers, saws and paint brushes to improve the living conditions of two families in San Carlos. The construction workers "transformed the two houses they worked on," Silva said.
___John Parker, director of one of the Sunday School departments, said the Buckner mission trip fulfilled a call he felt nearly two years ago to involve young adults from the church in missions.
___"I really felt God put it on my heart that the young marrieds should have an opportunity to experience missions," Parker said. "My hope was that they would come back home to our church in Dallas and be real fired up for missions and look around with new eyes and a new heart to see what needed to be done there in Dallas with some of our ministries."
___Erin Heslop, who worked on one of the construction teams with her husband, John, said her hope was to provide"a place to stay in the winter that is warmand water-tight and that they are proud of their home that they are in and at the same time, hopefully who we are, being Baptists and witnessing to them, would rub off."
T.J. KENDALL (with saw), John Heslop and Brad Martin were part of a construction team from Park Cities Baptist Church that worked on houses in the San Carlos colonia in South Texas.
___Heslop said her experience on the trip affirmed her desire to use her talents in missions.
___"That's part of what mission is," she said. "Do whatever you can whenever you can and that makes it easier when you go back home to help people because you're not so scared anymore."
___For Brad Martin, the mission trip was "a good opportunity for my wife and me to get involved in the church and at the same time help out some people who really needed it."
___Conditions in the colonia were worse than Martin anticipated, he said. "They are a lot more needy than we expected. We had no preconceived notions about what it would be. But the main thing for me is to make an immediate difference in that we've improved their living conditions."
___Martin said the trip showed him "how great God is and the things he can do by us putting a wall on a house and the changes he can make, not only in us but in the people around us." Now, he hopes to communicate that back to the church "so that when people are giving tithes and offerings they have a better concept of what's going on and where the money is actually going and what is being done with it."
___Jeff Byrd, missions pastor at Park Cities, said most of the volunteers never had been on a mission trip. He described the group's experience as "wonderful, a blessing and very tiring."
___Nevertheless, the team already is asking when they can return to the colonia.
___"As missions pastor, I had two goals," Byrd said. "First, for our church to be involved in serving the needs of the people in the colonias, and second, for our young married adults to have a great missions experience. Buckner was the key to meeting both these goals."
___Along with ministry through the San Carlos Community Center, Buckner also partners with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to operate similar programs in the Progreso colonia. In addition, the Rio Grande River Ministry of the Baptist General Convention of Texas provides funding for a portion of Buckner's work.
___"There are vast needs in the Valley waiting to be met," Silva said. "But they can only be met when a church begins to pray to be used by God to meet these needs and fulfill Jesus' words when he said, 'When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.'"
___
Want to go?
___ Buckner is looking for other church groups wanting to participate in Valley mission projects. Information is available by calling (956) 585-4847, ext. 225, or through email at ssilva@buckner.org or borderministries@buckner.org.
___
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