Austrian students have Super Summer of service in Texas
Posted: 8/17/07
Austrian students have Super
Summer of service in Texas
By Jessica Dooley
Communications Intern
ABILENE—For the first time all day, students are quiet. They are clean and groomed, with only trace amounts of colored paint on their faces giving away an eventful afternoon. They stand and lift their hands as they sing praises to God.
Hours earlier, the high school and junior high students were playing in bird seed, marshmallows, syrup and a variety of sticky, slimy stuff.
| East Texas Baptist University was a host campus for Super Summer, a school of evangelism conducted by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Super Summer offers training opportunities for Christian young people interested in advancing their personal spiritual growth and learning more about how to share Christ with others. |
The games at Hardin-Simmons University were part of Super Summer, Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored camps held on the campuses of several Texas Baptist universities to develop youth leadership across the state.
“The games are designed to promote unity in schools. They are not competitive, and you don’t have to be athletic to play.” said Sandra Ruiz, BGCT summer events coordinator. “Each of the wild and crazy games has a spiritual application.”
The students were taught to “cultivate the earth” as disciples of Christ. Leaders helped equip students with the necessary tools through family groups, nightly worship and games.
“Our camp is very different. It is not evangelistic but leadership- oriented,” Ruiz said.
The last session of Super Summer reached beyond Texas. Students from New Mexico, Ohio and other Baptist churches around the nation participated, but youth from other parts of the world also participated.
“There were 981 people this session with 770 of those being students. Overall, we have had 3,550 students attend Super Summer,” Ruiz said. “This year, we also have a team from Austria and missionary kids from Cyprus and Spain.”
The Austrian group, made up of 11 youth and three adults, arrived in Texas July 11 to begin a summer of mission work. They worked with Mission Arlington before coming to Super Summer and in the Austin area afterward.
One of the Austrian students, Connie Klimt, 16, said he witnessed Christ work through the Austrian group’s efforts at Mission Arlington even though most of the people they served spoke Spanish.
“We had a translator, and the language barrier was not a problem for Christ’s work,” Klimt said. “Four of the people ended up receiving Christ!”
After working in Arlington, the students were glad to be spending time with other young people their age. A university student from Austria, Martina Schlager, said a prayer in her native language, German, during a worship service. She loved worship because she loved seeing “1,000 people praising God and burning for him.”