Mobile, Baldwin youth ring in new year with missions

While a ball dropped in New York City, teenagers and young adults in Saraland dropped to their knees. While Dick Clark counted the seconds until New Year’s, John Blackwell, minister of students at Bayou Sara Baptist Church, Saraland, in Mobile Baptist Association, tabulated souls saved and lives changed.
   
Borrowing a line and concept from ABC’s popular home-renovation series “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” Blackwell led a group of 50 students and 10 adults from his church and neighboring First Baptist Church, Satsuma, in Mobile Association and First Baptist Church, Summerdale, in Baldwin Baptist Association down the road to Eight Mile. 
   
There, over New Year’s weekend, the group helped renovate Home of Grace for Women, an interdenominationally supported residence for women dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. 
   
The event was called “Extreme Makeover: God’s Edition,” and this was its second year.  
   
“When I started full time at Bayou Sara, I started praying about a service project, and the Lord just kind of revealed that to me and put them (the women at Home of Grace) on my heart,” said Blackwell, a 30-year-old husband and father of two who first visited Home of Grace as a student at the University of Mobile.
   
“We had a service project we had to conduct for one of our classes, and I went out there and was a part of a crew that helped paint a fence,” he said. “When I met the director, I just fell in love with her ministry. She had a tremendous heart for God and was very passionate about her work.”
   
Blackwell ministers at Home of Grace on a monthly basis.
   
“We just really appreciate all these young people using their time off from school to come out here when they could have been doing something else,” said Doris Littleton, the center’s director.
   
Blackwell said the youth deserve all the credit they can get for spending their New Year’s Eve doing something worthwhile.
   
“I think kids get a bad rap sometimes. Most adults these days think kids aren’t up to anything but partying, but I’ve got a few kids that think just the opposite,” he said. 
   
Littleton has seen that firsthand. “We just can’t thank them enough. … They really did an extreme makeover,” she said, smiling. “They just did a beautiful job. Some of the ladies here cried when they saw what they had done — they shed tears of joy.” 
   
The two-day effort resulted in a completely refurbished chapel and meeting room for what Littleton calls the largest women’s spiritual recovery center in the world, as well as a rejuvenated prayer garden and repainted cross. 
   
The project was underwritten by Akzo Nobel, an international industrial-furnishings company with a plant in the Satsuma area — a member of Bayou Sara Baptist works at that location. 
   
“Some of the women there have kids of their own, and some are probably around the age of those teenagers. It’s a chance for them to see Christ in those kids, and it probably tugs at their (the women’s) heartstrings a little bit,” Blackwell said.
   
Bayou Sara member Crystal Irby, 23, said, “I think the women out there were very grateful. There wasn’t anything they were trying to hide.”
   
Working during the days, the group returned to Bayou Sara in the evenings for worship led by Christian singer Darrell Evans Dec. 30 and a gospel challenge on New Year’s Eve from Evangelist Joey Hill of Warrior. 
   
As Bayou Sara’s youth worship band Full Service rang in 2006 with guitars and praise, many students began the year as new Christians.
   
“God just fell on that place and opened a lot of hearts,” said 19-year-old Bayou Sara member Josh Dunn. “One of my best friends got saved that night, and six of the eight that First Baptist, Summerdale, brought got saved. It’s amazing to see what He can do in students’ lives. 
   
“I think we’ll be seeing the aftermath of that weekend for years to come.”