Spring-Break Team Finds Vast Needs In Arkansas
May 2010
A steeple raising was just one of the highlights when a Kansas team served in mid-March at New Hope Baptist Mission, Marion, Ark. (West Memphis area).
New Hope serves impoverished mobile-home communities along Interstate 55, just north of where it joins Interstate 40.
Trinity Baptist Church, Pittsburg, Kan., organized the team of approximately 35 people. Joining the project were volunteers from Tri-County and Twin Valley Baptist associations, the youth group from First Southern Baptist Church, Lawrence, Kan., as well as volunteers from other parts of Kansas.
Men from the church assisted in the steeple-raising project along with Ken and Darla Ponath from Alberta, Canada, and Glenn Stigler from Faith Baptist Church in nearby Bartlett, Tenn.
The Ponaths served this winter in various volunteer projects in the South. Ken Ponath leads the Canadian Baptist Builders while his wife heads disaster relief for the Canadian National Baptist Convention.
Stigler and the Ponaths previously worked with KNCSB teams in New Orleans and Greensburg, Kan.
Along with the steeple-raising project, team members kept busy doing maintenance on the church’s buildings and construction projects in the community. They also conducted outreach and an after-school Bible club since local children did not have spring break until the next week.
A team from First Southern, Lawrence, served at New Hope in the summer of 2008. First Southern Baptist Church, Topeka, Kan., also sends summer teams there and has been providing gifts for New Hope’s annual Christmas party in December.
New Hope also has a ministry called Hope House that serves women who have been released from the local correctional facility. It is set up as a separate non-profit organization from the church.
Hope House is located in a single-wide mobile home on the church property.
Plans are now in the beginning stages for constructing a new building for Hope House in a new location.
Once the new building for Hope House is completed, that will open the door for New Hope to construct a new building on its property. The church needs a new building to replace its complex of three deteriorating double-wide mobile homes.
Monthly utility bills for the three buildings average $800, and the church’s annual income is only $26,000.
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