What do the World Cup, a rural health clinic in the Philippines, a café in Southeast Asia and a port city in France have in common? These are four of the locations where Alabama students ministered this summer.
One Mission students — college students from Alabama serving through the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) — served in 20 countries and eight states. Many of the places they served have direct connections to their home state.
One Alabama connection came in the port city of Marseille, France.
Steadman Bethea, a student at Samford University in Birmingham, served in Marseille with Journeyman Timothy McAdams, a Samford graduate. Bethea and McAdams have a special link — both are members of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, and knew each other growing up.
Bethea worked with McAdams on Project Northern Lights, which exists to reach Muslims traveling between France and North Africa via the port city of Marseille.
Four to six ferries travel between the two countries daily. Bethea helped coordinate and lead teams of students serving the project for five weeks. The teams passed out packets of information to the travelers boarding and exiting the ferries. The packets included children’s books, the Jesus Film and a copy of the New Testament. During the course of the summer the teams passed out more than 4,000 packets, which went straight into the hands of Muslims and ultimately into North Africa.
Depending on the Holy Spirit
Bethea said the trip taught him so much about his faith and about leadership. “I learned how to lead the right way and how to lead by example. [I also] learned how to rely on the Holy Spirit. Every day, I didn’t know what I would do — but I knew I couldn’t do anything without the Holy Spirit working in me, being the hands and feet of Christ.”
The trip also taught him a lot about praying and trusting in God to work in the lives of those they encountered.
“We were trying to get [the packets] across the sea and into North Africa and depending on the Holy Spirit to work through those packets,” he said.
Several Alabama students also served with Nehemiah Teams, a ministry organization for students ages 17–29 that provides eight-week summer missions opportunities in cross-cultural ministry among unreached people groups.
Jess and Wendy Jennings, Alabama Baptists serving as Southern Baptist representatives, founded Nehemiah Teams in 2004.
Since its creation Nehemiah Teams has sent more than 1,600 students to work with more than 60 unreached people groups in 20 different countries. Nehemiah Teams partners with the International Mission Board (IMB), state Baptist conventions, local churches and other missions organizations.
One student partnering with Nehemiah Teams this summer was Amanda Gaster, a senior at the University of Mobile. She served on a team providing health care in a rural village in the Philippines.
Gaster, a nursing major, was especially interested in serving on a medical missions team so she could use her studies in the missions field. Much of their service focused on providing basic health care — teaching about proper diet, taking blood pressure and performing circumcisions for infants — to open a door to share the gospel.
They also spent time building relationships with native Filipinos in the rural village. The team led Bible studies, taught English and shared Bible stories in the local school and also connected local believers and church members with those interested in learning more about the gospel.
“The biggest takeaway from all of that is that I found so much joy in being able to go house to house and share the gospel and build relationships because there is so much joy in that, and because that’s what we are here to do anyway,” she said. “That is our purpose. I do not ever want to choose my own comfort over taking up my cross. This summer really opened up my eyes to that.”
Gaster also described the program provided by Nehemiah Teams as being especially helpful for both preparing students to serve on missions overseas and also to serve back home in the states after their time overseas.
Each group of students sent out by Nehemiah Teams read the book of Acts over the summer and studied missions articles and missionary biographies. That specific strategy helped educate the student volunteers about the need among unreached people groups, the history of missionary work and the call for believers to go and make disciples. All of the groups also received training in Rainsville before leaving for their assignments.
Adrien Coffey, a student at the University of North Alabama, also served with Nehemiah Teams. An elementary education and special education major from Moulton, she helped students learn English in Southeast Asia for eight weeks.
“The best part of my summer was getting to share [the gospel] with a girl who had never heard about Jesus, and just watching her facial expressions,” she said. “[The students] were talking about how [the gospel] seemed like a fairy tale, and she said it was what she had been searching for.”
Other connections were made through the Alabama Acts 1:8 Connection, a strategy developed by the SBOM. It strives to bring together Alabama churches and other groups such as Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) together with North American Mission Board and IMB workers who have ties to Alabama.
The team of college students serving at the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was one such group. The 13-person group, led by Auburn University-Montgomery campus minister Lee Dymond, spent two weeks serving at the World Cup with Southern Baptist representatives Eric and Ramona Reese. Their areas of focus included medical outreach, ministry to soccer clubs, outreach to World Cup attendees and service to the homeless. They also spent time serving in an impoverished area in downtown Rio de Janiero, an area commonly known as “crack land” by locals, rechristened “Christo Landia” (“Christ Land”) by Southern Baptists.
Greg Idell, Southern Baptist representative in Santiago, Chile, said, “In my 31 years of university ministry, I’ve not seen better teams than the Alabama State BCM teams I have worked with the past two years.”
Same basic problem
Dymond wrote in a blog post, “I’ve been in dangerous situations without a hint of fear because I knew God had sent me there. I have seen so much brokenness that my heart still hurts. However, I am reminded that we have the same brokenness back home; we just know how to hide it better. We all have the same basic problem: we are sinners who need to be redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for His glory alone.”
Though students’ experiences were different, the thread woven throughout is the chief joy of knowing God and making Him known.
Gaster said, “Our generation is so passionate about causes and wants to do something that matters, something that will last.
“Here’s a chance to do something that will make a difference, to give hope to people who are dying without hope. That’s what I want to spend my life doing,” she said. “I’m passionate about it and I want all peoples to have a chance to know Jesus.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names changed for security reasons.
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