March 17, 2003

HARDIN-SIMMONS UNIVERSITY students Hollie Aycock, Kendra Ernst and Jonathan Storrie (above) paint at Calvary Baptist Church as part of HSU Baptist Student Ministries' Mission Abilene project. (HSU Baptist Student Ministry Photos)

HSU students discover ministry not far from home
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___ABILENE--As their counterparts across the country headed for sunny ski slopes or balmy beaches, scores of Hardin-Simmons University students immersed themselves in ministry to their adopted hometown.
___Eighty-two HSU students spent the first six days of their spring break staffing Mission Abilene '03, a first-of-its kind ministry blitz throughout the West Texas college town.
___"HSU students have taken mission trips all around the world, but this spring break, we are focusing on Abilene," reported Chris Sammons, Baptist Student Ministry director at HSU, one of eight universities affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Mission Abilene involved the students in daily ministry projects and nightly worship designed to help them create bonds with both Christ and community.
___"For some reason, we always think of missions as something we do somewhere else," Sammons said. "My desire is to challenge our students that missions is more of a lifestyle than an event."
___The students teamed up with Abilene Baptist Association and at least nine churches, as well as ministries and other organizations, to conduct about 70 mission projects across Abilene.
___For example, they conducted backyard Bible clubs in low-income neighborhoods, worked with mentally challenged participants in adult day care, visited nursing homes, served in a homeless shelter, helped in an apartment ministry, sorted garments for a community clothes closet and renovated a buildin

TESSA PHILLIPS helps a child in Bible club at Crescent Heights Baptist Church.

g for Shining Star Mission, a new church in inner-city Abilene.
___"Mission Abilene is continuing Hardin-Simmons' vision for community involvement and renewal," Sammons noted.
___Specifically, it provided students with connection to ministries they can continue throughout the year.
___That bond will be strong, predicted two student leaders.
___"As opposed to traditional mission trips where you feel there's a sense of parting or having to say farewell to people you invested in, we're still only blocks away," explained Paul Matthies, a senior Bible major from Crawford and student director of Mission Abilene.
___"We have planted seeds. But now we'll have a chance to water them and watch them grow and see them come to harvest."
___That's because many students who participated in the project plan to keep on ministering, added Shannon Newman, a senior accounting major from Hawley and the project donations coordinator.
___"It's been an absolutely amazing experience. Everything we expected at least tripled," Newman said. "We're hearing students make plans to get together after spring break finishes and go back to the places we served.
___"We hoped one or two students would stay plugged in. But some teams of eight or nine will go back and continue what they started this week."
___Matthies concurred. "I saw a lot of students' eyes opened," he said. "One of the major changes I've seen is the realization that education is more than classrooms.
___"'Education enlightened by faith'--our university motto--is also about investing in the community. It's taking skills we've learned in the classroom and education we've received in the pews and applying them back in our city.
___"We're all called to be missionaries, all of us. And a lot of students found that if you invest in people, they might move on to anther city and change that city. These are the global implications of investing in your own city."
___

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