Houston-area students choose service close to home

HOUSTON—Thirty-six students from Sugar Land’s Fort Bend Baptist Academy spent their annual March service week landscaping the grounds at Gracewood’s Wanda Lane campus.

Students had the option of serving in places such as New Orleans, Boston, Alaska, Belize and Costa Rica, where they could feed the homeless, evangelize, work with Alzheimer’s patients and engage in many other service projects.

But 87 students chose to be the hands and feet of Jesus in Houston, ministering to people in need right in their backyard. Nearly half of them worked at Gracewood, a residential facility for single-parent families. Gracewood is part of Children at Heart Ministries, affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“There’s no need to pay two grand to go help people in another country when there are people right here in Houston that need our help,” said Fort Bend senior Zeus Deleon.

In their second year of service with Gracewood, the group replaced gravel on the driveway with 80 tons of crushed concrete, planted bamboo around cottages to create a privacy screen, dug a trench to contain the bamboo, shaved a hill on the property to make mowing easier, replaced timbers lining the walking paths, gave the flower beds a facelift and painted a shed.

“This group does not mess around,” said Chris Hudson, Gracewood’s operations manager. “They work rain or shine and get the job done.”

The Fort Bend Eagles know the week before Spring Break as “Eagle Week,” time away from the classroom solely dedicated to mission trips and service projects. Their entire 340-member student body sets out to help others both locally and internationally each year.

“These kids really do have a great heart for ministry,” said Roger Wright, freshman Bible teacher and administrator of Eagle Week. “They serve willingly and with a joyful heart, and the school encourages an attitude of giving back.”

While the academy requires a minimum service requirement of 20 hours a year for students, Eagle Week and the group’s project at Gracewood easily exceeded the required amount. In fact, students not only spent their time in physical labor at Gracewood, but also donated $500 to Gracewood.