HARLINGEN—Students from Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio and First Baptist Church in Lewisville worked throughout their spring break to repair and rebuild homes in the Rio Grande Valley damaged by Hurricane Dolly.
Woodland Baptist Church youth fixed the leaky roof of a home and replaced moldy sheetrock left from the 2008 storm that struck South Texas. The owner of the house is a former construction contractor who knew how to repair his home but suffers from cancer and is unable physically to do the work.
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Students from First Baptist Church in Lewisville and Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio worked throughout their spring break to help Rio Grande Valley families in need. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Valley Baptist Missions Education Center)
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“It was a great experience,” said Lance Mayes, minister to students at Woodland Baptist Church. Students learned new skills to serve God and others, he noted. “Most of them had not done any kind of construction at all. From that perspective, it stretched them. By the end of the week, they know how to tape and float. They did a great job.”
More than 60 members of First Baptist Church in Lewisville worked on three homes affected by Hurricane Dolly. They reroofed homes, painted exteriors and did sheetrock work.
Truett King, associate pastor of First Baptist Church, said the projects empowered church members to share the hope of Christ through service. Neighbors asked why the volunteers were working on the houses, opening the door for Christians to share the gospel. One of the homeowner’s sons committed to being more faithful to his church. The students saw God working as they worked.
“They really have a desire to serve the Lord by serving others,” King said. “Bottom line, they did something for those homeowners that they couldn’t do for themselves. It transformed those homeowners’ homes and lives. And that transformed (the church members’) lives.”
The mission teams were the first groups to stay in the new dormitories at Valley Baptist Missions Education Center.
“While other young people have chosen to take the break to play on the beaches or on the ski slopes, these young people were swinging hammers to restore the homes of people who without their help have no one and no money to make the needed repairs,” said Jamie Campbell, the center’s facilitation manager. “These young people were the hands and feet of Jesus.”
In 2008, Hurricane Dolly ravaged the missions education center’s facilities, devastating most of its buildings. But it also gave the institution an opportunity to revision itself to help facilitate mission work in the Rio Grande Valley and on the Mexico side of the Texas-Mexico border, Campbell said.
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The missions center underwent a $2.5 million renovation that included development of a conference center and construction of a new 250-bed hotel-style dormitory.
The missions center can house and feed large and small groups, as well as provide missions projects for them to do throughout the region, as its staff did for the Lewisville and San Antonio churches, Campbell said. Center staff members continue making improvements to the campus and are looking for donations to be used for new beds and chairs to help that process.
For more information about Valley Baptist Mission Education Center, visit www.vbmec.org or call Campbell at (956) 367-2632.
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