October 29, 2001
Can-do attitude propels small Texas church on worldwide mission
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___PLAINS--Nobody seems to understand "can't" in Plains.
___Baptists in the farming village on the South Plains of Texas are convinced God can use them to do mighty ministries.
___Their labors for the Lord have had an impact far away and right at home.
___"Home" is a speck on the map, about 75 miles southwest of Lubbock and 100 miles northwest of Midland, nestled right next to the New Mexico border. You just about have to go there to get there.
JACK COBB (left) and Larry Morrow discuss cabinets church members are building for a home for unwed mothers in Levelland.
___Almost everything in Plains rotates aroundagriculture, like the mammoth pivoting irrigation sprinklers that nourish mile-wide circles across the prairie. If you've bought a watermelon almost anywhere in Texas, you've probably eaten Plains produce. You may have munched on Plains peanuts or worn Plains cotton.
___Agribusiness aside, the biggest export from First Baptist Church in Plains is Christian love and care.
___It extends up and down the Rio Grande, where Plains volunteers have built church houses, orphanages and ministry buildings.
___It stretches from Glorieta, N.M., to Houston to New York City, where volunteers from Plains have fired up disaster relief kitchens to fill the stomachs and nourish the souls of folks laid flat by devastation.
___And it circles back around to home, where on Wednesday nights a tireless crew of First Baptist cooks serves up one of the tastiest fellowship meals anywhere--not only to their own members, but to teens from all over town and many of the community's elderly shut-ins.
___Some people wonder how a relatively small church (average Sunday School attendance 212) in a tiny town (population 1,450) can conduct an array of ministry projects that touch most of the households in the community and expand to mission fields.
___"This is the way it's supposed to be," insists Jim Haynes, superintendent of the Plains Independent School District and a layman actively involved in First Baptist's missions program.
___"Missions works for Plains--for anybody--because it puts the focus in the right place, on helping people and winning people to Jesus," Haynes added. "Our real work is reaching people."
___A decade ago, First Baptist in Plains couldn't see that missions vision. The church had built a lovely worship center. But they had very little space for Sunday School, much less a desire to reach out to the community, never mind the world.
MEMBERS of the Wednesday kitchen crew bow for prayer.
___Somehow, the church called a new pastor in 1992 who saw different possibilities.
___Bill Wright and his wife, Linda, had built their ministry on missions. He felt God's call to preach about three decades ago, when they lived in El Paso and he was a salesman for Eli Lilly Co.
___First Baptist Church in Canutillo called him as their pastor, and the Wrights found themselves smack in the middle of a mission field. When they looked out their door and down the Rio Grande, they saw miles and miles of mission needs. They saw the same thing when they moved to First Baptist Church in Anthony, N.M.
___So they did what came naturally. They reached out. They embraced the Baptist General Convention of Texas' River Ministry, leading their churches to participate in mission projects on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border.
___They carried their passion for missions with them when they moved back to Central Texas, at First Baptist Church in Gordon. And they brought it with them when they arrived in Plains, where it has taken root and thrived like one of the village's famous watermelon patches.
___Wright quickly asserts the missions vision isn't his alone.
___"They had a mind to work," he says, quoting the prophet Nehemiah.
___"We've all been taught about missionaries since we were babies," asserts Helen Beal, a missions volunteer and member of the Wednesday cooking crew who came back home to Plains when she retired.
___And church members responded enthusiastically when they learned they could participate in missions themselves, Wright notes.
THE CHILDREN'S CHOIR prepares for its Christmas presentation.
___"They had given their money (to missions causes), but they felt so isolated, they didn't feel part of anything," he recalls. "They didn't know what Texas Baptists were about."
___"Brother Bill got us started," explains Larry Morrow, a farmer and missions volunteer.
___"He convinced us we weren't doing enough," adds Jack Cobb, a crop duster and missions volunteer, who also serves on the BGCT Executive Board.
___Actually, "they got a glimpse of how God had blessed them with resources, and they recognized their responsibility to do something about it," Wright insists.
___So a group of church members took a River Ministry trip to construct a building and came home infected with a zeal for hands-on missions.
___They've made at least four trips to the Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras, Mexico, area. They went to Chihuahua City, Mexico, one winter to build church pews and sent a team back to the region the next summer to construct a church building from the ground up. They've taken two trips to Quemado, on the Texas side of the river between Eagle Pass and Del Rio, to build a dorm that is used as a staging area for River Ministry trips. Even this fall, between big trips, the group has been remodeling an old house and building cabinets for a home for unwed pregnant teens and women in Levelland.
___The last four years, they've averaged two mission trips a year, reports Greg McCravey, a Yoakum County maintenance employee who also is the church's missions coordinator and current deacon chair.
___They've also taken their disaster relief trailer to Glorieta, N.M., to cook food for workers fighting forest fires and fire victims, and to Houston to provide meals for victims of floods. Less than two weeks ago, they began staffing a disaster relief/Red Cross mobile kitchen to prepare meals for crews working on the rubble pile at the World Trade Center in New York City.
___Even though some people might classify construction and disaster relief as "men's work," Plains women are vital to both ministries.
___"The women are a big part of it," says Roger Bennett, a volunteer. They head up the Wednesday evening meal program, but they also travel to River Ministry sites and with the disaster relief trailer. "If the women can't go, we won't go," one volunteer recalls the consensus being when the church decided to take on disaster relief.
___"It seems the more we give, the more we do, the more God gives us the ability to do," McCravey observes.
___Like last year, when they took on two projects big enough to engage much larger churches. They customized their disaster relief trailer, outfitting it to prepare thousands of meals a day. They also constructed a 60-by-60-foot orphanage building in Juarez, Mexico. And they paid for it all as they went along.
___"There wasn't anything in the budget for the trailer, and we'd only budgeted about $30,000 or $40,000 for the Juarez project," Morrow recalls. The trailer cost up to $60,000, and the orphanage building cost much more than that.
___"Every time we felt like we'd need $10,000 more, we'd talk about it in business meeting after we'd already spent it," he says. "Nobody ever complained."
___"Nobody flinched," Cobb adds.
___"And when the (offering) plate was passed, we'd have a little more money in it. Brother Bill would talk to the people, and the money would come back in."
___That speaks to Plains folks' commitment and can-do spirit, Wright observes. They combine the flexibility and tenacity of farm culture, the self-reliance of people accustomed to living in isolation and the compassion of Christians who think everyone should experience the love of Christ.
___"We've tried to find people who are slotted," who possess a skill that can make a difference for missions, Wright says. "You give them freedom, and they'll pray about it and figure out what God wants them to do."
___The church also is trying to adopt a "one person, one job" philosophy, he adds. That means finding a task for everyone who is willing to get involved, rather than loading up a very few volunteers with multiple assignments and denying others the privilege of participation.
___A visitor to Plains has to learn much about the missions program by inference. Church members hesitate to talk about their own ministries. Like Jered Sellers, a board member of Texas Baptist Men, the church's disaster relief coordinator and a veteran not only of River Ministry trips but relief tours to North Korea, Turkey and Bosnia. Like Wright, who tells a reporter, "You write about these laypeople, and leave (Associate Pastor) Patrick (Hamilton) and me out of it." And like McCravey, who almost reluctantly sits for an interview because his pastor asks him to.
___"We have a bunch of people who don't care who's in charge, who gets credit," explains Ricky Bearden, a farmer and missions volunteer.
___Plains people work because of gratitude for their blessings, Bennett adds. "God asked me, 'What did you do to deserve to be born in the United States and have the parents and grandparents you have?' We think we work hard, that we deserve what we get. But what if we hadn't been born where we were? Everything would be different. I saw this the first time I went on a mission trip. It changed me."
___First Baptist in Plains also has taken hold of missions because it's a good fit for the church, McCravey says.
___"We had folks who were looking for something to do, and a bunch who were willing to give it their all," he explains. When the church started taking mission trips, about a dozen to 15 people would go. "Now we take 40," he adds.
___"But it doesn't stop there. Those are only the ones you see. We've got a whole building full of people who are part of our trips. We couldn't do it without people who pray, who support the ministry financially and who give food. ... God has blessed our church with a lot of people who are willing to work."
___At least 100 people in the church consistently participate in hands-on mission work, McCravey estimates. For example, last year, women who could not travel to Juarez made quilts for children at the orphanage there.
___The church's missions mindset has flourished because of what it has experienced, he says.
___"We've seen how God has blessed the people we go to minister to and how God has blessed us for being willing to go," he notes. "The more we give of ourselves, the more God gives back."
___Members of the Wednesday kitchen crew bow for prayer. Left: The children's choir prepares for its Christmas presentation. Far left: Jack Cobb (left) and Larry Morrow discuss cabinets church members are building for a home for unwed mothers in Levelland.
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