Columbiana Acteens reach out to migrants

It was a missions trip filled with heart-wrenching memories. Everyone knew that going in.
   
Last summer, a teen drowned while on the trip. It was hard for the teens who were there to return this year to the same camp and swim in the same water where the accident occurred.
   
Also during the year, one of the adult sponsors of the trip, James Shiflett, 45, died from a battle with cancer. He had participated in the annual missions project for more than 20 years. So why go back? Jake Riley recalled that Terry White, the youth who drowned last year, had the answer: “The trip is not about us having a vacation; we are here to share the gospel with those who don’t know.”
   
Sharing the gospel message of Christ has been the motivation for First Baptist Church, Columbiana, for 32 years. The senior Acteens of the church have sponsored the trip to the migrant fields in Baldwin County annually since 1969. Acteens is the missions organization for teenage girls sponsored by WMU.
   
The project is open to any youth who has completed the ninth grade and participates in 10 to 12 weeks of training prior to the trip, which is held the last week of May. Adults who participate also attend the training, which is led by Acteens advisers Barbara Joiner and Melody Arledge. Joiner is a WMU author and member of the board of directors for The Alabama Baptist.
   
The 2001 Migrant Camp team included seven adults and 23 high school and college students. The team conducted Bible schools in three migrant camps, involving nearly 200 children and adults. Twenty professions of faith were made.
   
For the many who were repeat participants in migrant camp, this year’s camp was described as “the best ever.” For those who had never been before, words like awesome, encouraging and enriching were used.
   
For the church’s pastor, Mike Miller, who directed one of the camp Bible schools, it was a rewarding experience to see young people in the church share their faith and build relationships with total strangers.
   
“I am so proud of our youth,” Miller said June 3 during the group’s report to the church. “They were bold in their witness and demonstrated a great depth in their faith. I am honored to be their pastor.”
   
A common theme in the testimonies of participants was answered prayer. God was faithful in removing obstacles and distractions in each of the camps, they said. More importantly, He moved in the lives of the migrants to bring them to salvation.
   
Hunter Hill, 14, asked God to give him the opportunity to lead someone to Christ during the week, which was his first experience at migrant camp. On Wednesday evening as he exited the van, one of the youths he had been working with the previous two nights approached him and asked him if he was a Christian.
   
When Hunter answered yes, the youth asked, “Will you tell me how I can be a Christian?” Hunter and a couple of the other teenage boys went aside and shared the gospel with him. He prayed to receive Christ as his Savior.
   
Joiner, who has directed migrant camp since its inception, also saw God answer her prayers for the salvation of her students. She worked with 20 women during the week and testified that each had exhibited spiritual hunger all week.
   
On the final night, only three came. They told Joiner that the other women were still working, but that they would come soon because they wanted to hear the Bible story.
   
When the time came for the Bible story, which was the gospel presentation, the other women had not yet arrived. Although disappointed, Joiner continued and shared the gospel message using the salvation bracelet and a salvation tract in Spanish.
   
When Joiner invited them to pray the sinner’s prayer with her, all three prayed and accepted Christ as their Savior. As they rejoiced and began to prepare to leave, another eight women arrived, insisting that Joiner share with them the story. Joiner repeated the gospel presentation and all eight prayed to receive Christ. “I would never have asked God to let migrant camp end this way,” she told the Columbiana congregation, “but He graciously gave me this mountaintop experience. Sharing the Lord is why I’ve gone for 32 years,” she said, adding, “and why (we) will continue to go in the future.”