When the North American Mission Board and the Arkansas Baptist Convention appointed Diana Lewis as state ministry evangelism director in Little Rock, Ark., almost 15 years ago, it was something akin to throwing the wily rabbit into the proverbial briar patch.
A native of Springdale, Ark., and graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., she knows all too well the bittersweet taste of Arkansas.
“Arkansas’ nickname is ‘The Natural State.’ We have lots of beautiful state parks, lakes, rivers, mountains and farmland. We go from the Delta to the edge of the Ozark Mountains. It’s a very, very beautiful state.”
And whether it’s winning football or basketball games, Arkansans are proud of their University of Arkansas Razorbacks.
But Lewis would also be the first to tell you about the less attractive, more depressing parts and pictures of Arkansas that aren’t played up in the glossy state chamber of commerce brochures or flashed during network TV broadcasts of Razorback football games in the fall.
In these areas, kids go without food. Seniors choose between eating or being able to buy their prescriptions. Children lack school supplies when school starts in the fall and warm coats when the Arkansas winter comes.
“In Arkansas, there are some counties — at least three — where over half of the children live in poverty,” Lewis said. “Statewide about a fourth of the children and senior adults live in poverty. This requires … many ministries to help these poverty-stricken people.”
Much of Lewis’ work as a missionary is traveling all over Arkansas raising awareness among churches of the mission fields at their fingertips.
She also spends a great deal of time on a Southern Baptist project called Mississippi River Ministry, started in 1992 following a comprehensive government study commissioned along the lower Mississippi River.
“This study pointed out the tremendous poverty along both sides of the Mississippi River, so we began this project to call attention to this huge mission field right in the midst of where we live. Arkansas’ Southern Baptist churches could get involved right in their own backyards, sending mission teams and sharing the hope of Christ with those in poverty,” Lewis said.
Tiny Dixonville in central Arkansas is one such poor, backwoods hamlet Lewis and her Baptist mission teams have been ministering to for 16 years now.
“We have mission volunteers who come and work at Dixonville every week or month helping with the children, the women, or entire families,” Lewis said. “One of the favorite parts of my work as a missionary has been getting to work with the children in places like Dixonville. I love going with the children there to camp each summer, spending the day or night with them, singing songs with them during Vacation Bible School and telling them about Jesus. We hold Bible studies with their mothers. They’re like family to me because I’ve known them so long.”
Another poverty-stricken town is Helena in Phillips County. Phillips County is the poorest county in all of Arkansas.
Two years ago, with Lewis’ support, Mercy Pregnancy Resource Center was launched in an old house in Helena. It reaches out to pregnant girls and women who need resources to both give birth and raise their babies. At this center, adoption — never abortion — is the recommended option of choice for those women who cannot raise their babies.
“There are so many opportunities here in the Arkansas Delta because the teen pregnancy rate here is so high, the highest in the entire state of Arkansas,” said Mandy Chaney, executive director at the center. “We in the ministry believe that God did not intend for 12-, 13-, 14- and 15-year-old girls to have babies — not while they’re still in school, not when have no way to support a child.”
The center uses an Earn While You Learn system in which girls and women “earn” tokens for keeping their appointments, sitting through classes, watching educational videos, meeting with their mentors and other tasks. Tokens can be used to “buy” baby clothes, maternity clothes, diapers, baby wipes and other items at the center’s baby boutique.
“Diana Lewis has been the catalyst for this ministry,” Chaney said. “When this ministry first came to my heart, I didn’t know what to do about it. The North American Mission Board and the state convention told us to talk to Diana. She told us she had been praying three years for God to raise someone up in the Arkansas Delta for a ministry just like this.” (NAMB)
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