From Guatemala to Louisiana, members of First Baptist spent the summer of 2007 making a difference in our world! With willing hands and servant hearts, they ministered to teenagers from broken homes, brought smiles to impoverished children’s faces, and helped rebuild a church destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
 
In June, forty-nine team members embarked on First Baptist’s first churchwide international mission trip to the country of Guatemala. The trip was in coordination with Buckner International, a Baptist, Dallas-based organization that provides support for orphanages both in America and around the world.
     
Some of the team stayed in the capitol, Guatemala City, where they spent much of their time at the San Gabriel Boys’ Home. San Gabriel is a government institution that houses boys for a variety of reasons, mostly from gang involvement or juvenile crimes. But beneath their often tough exteriors were boys longing for someone to care about them, and they responded as our team shared about the life and love that comes from Christ. The Guatemala City team also had the opportunity to have Vacation Bible School with a local preschool and to spend time with girls and teenage mothers at
transitional homes. At one home, six girls declared they were tired of only learning about God and prayed right then for Jesus to come into their hearts and actively shape their lives!
     
The rest of the group headed to the city of Antigua, where they did similar work with the Manchen Girls’ Home. Also a government-sponsored institution, the girls at Manchen had been sent there because they were abused, abandoned, prostituted, runaways or had a disability their parents weren’t willing to accommodate. Though many of the teenage girls had lived through terrible situations, they were moved to see that our team cared about them and were willing to just sit and talk or join in a game of jump rope.
During the mornings, the team also had Vacation Bible School with children at a local school and a rural mission church.
     
Several of our men also worked hard making needed repairs at the Manchen Girls’ Home. When they finished the requested work much sooner than expected, they created their own projects, filling in holes in the courtyard and building clotheslines. Meanwhile, dentist Stan Shepard could be seen over in the corner, plastic chair propped back in the sunlight, filling cavities, pulling teeth, and handing out toothbrushes. It was an unforgettable experience as the team witnessed the power of God to use them to touch lives even in such impoverished and seemingly hopeless conditions.
     
A few weeks after the Guatemala team returned, forty-one people were commissioned on a team to serve in Chalmette, Louisiana, in an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. First Baptist Church of Chalmette was heavily damaged, yet they continued to serve the community even as they began the slow process of repairing their building. Builders for Christ teams from across the nation joined in to help them not only to repair the existing building but to make a new addition as a symbol of triumph through tragedy. First Baptist’s team spent most of their time on the roof, finishing the framework for the church that will continue to offer hope to a community still struggling to piece life back together.
     
Though the summer is over, First Baptist’s commitment to sharing Christ has not! With local ministry projects throughout the year and in-country and international mission trips planned for the future, opportunities abound to experience the life-changing power of servanthood.