Anniston-area graduates focus on missions

For many high school seniors, graduation means — beach trip. And for six graduates who attend Parker Memorial Baptist Church, Anniston, it was no different. But the reason for their trip to Grand Bahama Island May 30–June 7 was.
   
The six graduates — along with three adult chaperones (who were not their parents) and youth from two other churches — traveled to Freeport/Lucaya with Christian Outreach International to perform dramas in schools, participate in street evangelism and do renovation work on a church.
   
Kevin Garrett, Parker Memorial’s minister of students and recreation, said, “A couple of them came to us and asked us for a senior trip without the usual senior trip stuff.”
   
“We were looking for a trip that was not a Cancun get-drunk kind of trip,” said Justin Snow of Jacksonville High School.
   
And that’s what they got. Through their international missions experience, the recent high school graduates helped lead 20 high school students to Christ.
   
Garrett noted that the trip gave the students “a broader view of where God can use them in the world.”
   
“It opened up our eyes to see missions is not only being a missionary for life. You can do it for a summer or a year,” said Bethany Stokes of Oxford High School. “Missions can be fun, not boring.”
   
Snow said he realized that one does not have to go to Africa to do missions; that missionaries and missions work are needed across the world. “It can be in paradise.”
   
“Our goal was to provide them with a good, safe trip that would give them an alternative and a purpose,” Garrett said.
   
And God met that goal in abundance. At the elementary schools, the group performed dramas and led the students in prayer.
   
Then, at the high school, the group visited three classrooms to perform dramas and make power bracelets to share the gospel with the students. At the end of each visit, Garrett prayed the prayer of salvation, which led to the 20 students accepting Christ.
   
“Going to the schools was awesome,” said Geoffrey Williams of Faith Christian High School. “I probably would not have [become a Christian in the classroom] when I was their age. It was amazing how they put that aside for Jesus.”
   
The graduates also learned about another country’s attitude toward Christ and witnessing.
   
When Garrett asked one school administrator what restrictions the school had on talking about God, Snow recalled the administrator as saying, “This isn’t America. You can say whatever you want to.”
   
“It was good to share Christ with the kids in their school environment,” said Brittany Palmer of Alexandria High School.
   
Williams added that he also learned from interacting with the children there. “I saw how they lived and how happy they were with the little they had, and we have so much in the United States and we’re still not happy with it,” he said.
   
And while missions remained the main focus of the trip, the Anniston graduates still found time to play on the beach and go shopping.
   
“It was a great combination of doing things for others, working with kids and having fun. Fun with other Christians,” said Robin Rice, a graduate of Jacksonville High School. “[The trip] was something different. It will always be special because I did something different.”