ABC Camp gets improvements
EUNICE – Much work has been done and many improvements can be seen at Acadian Baptist Center.
Both a new one-bedroom rustic family cabin – to be used mostly as a getaway by pastors – as well as a bathhouse near the pool, hopefully will be ready for use before July 1.
“Probaby well before July 1,” said James Newsom, camp manager.
A new lawnmower, new stove, new convection oven, commercial mixer, 250 new comfortable stacking chairs and additional air conditioning in the gym are among other improvements, according to the May issue of the ABC newsletter.
Volunteers recently painted an underwater scene as a mural on the water tank.
There’s a new gym floor, new pavement in front of the office, and new tile floor in Elliot and Westberry dorms, the cabins and the office.
New program: For the first time ever, ABC is to offer two horseback riding camps this summer. These are in addition to their regular weeks of camp: youth camps, pre-teen camps, missions camp and day camp.
New staff also has been added: Guy (wife Rebekah) Atkinson is to head ABC’s new Outdoor Education Center. Read more of this in an upcoming issue of the Message.
The camp’s long-range planning committee and board of directors have voted to expand the cafeteria to seat 450 people. The master plan also involves an addition to the family lodge, plus construction of a new worship center, family cabins and a boy’s staff house. A fund-raising campaign is in planning stages.
In 2006, 164 faith-based decisions were made during summer camp.
Since Acadian Baptist Camp’s opening in 1976: 12,439 decisions for God have been made. James Newsom is camp manager.
Pecan Island gets missions team
PECAN ISLAND – A team from Lamar Baptist in Lamar, Ark., has made plans to minister July 9-15 at First Baptist Pecan Island, where Floyd (wife Mary) Thurman has been pastor since 2002.
This is a town nearly destroyed by Hurricane Rita. One example: the school board decided to not even reopen the school.
But people remain, and so does First Baptist, which was started by Southern Baptists in 1928.
Before the storm, perhaps a dozen people up to maybe fifteen attended Sunday morning worship. These days, about eight to ten.
Before Rita, four people attended Sunday school. These days, three.
“The school won’t open so the people won’t move back,” Pastor Floyd said.
“But those who have moved back are rebuilding,” added Mary Floyd.
They’re excited because a mission team of about 35 people from Lamar Baptist has let them know they’re not forgotten.
“They’re friends, for one thing,” Mary Floyd said in explaining her excitement. The Owens led First Baptist Gueydan for six years before being called earlier this year to the Arkansas church.
Gueydan is within an hour’s drive, but not the same association, as Pecan Island.
It was a pastorate in which “ministry of presence” was an important component. Jesse Owen routinely visited with townspeople who had no intention of attending a Baptist church, but they were eager to hear of this God who loved them just as they were. Funerals for those who didn’t want a Catholic service became a significant aspect of that ministry of presence.
The Owen’s ministry racheted into high gear when Katrina sent waves of evacuees to southeast Louisiana, and into overdrive with Rita.
“Along with our church members and other citizens of Gueydan, we reached out to Katrina victims – housed them, fed them, clothed them, and nouished them with the Word of God,” Susan Owen said. “Then when Rita came we were in the middle of the same type situation that so many had come through our town for in the previous weeks.
“We were able to reach out to our neighboring towns: Erath, Delcambre, Forked Island, Pecan Island, Lake Arthur and even Cameron, to do the same acts of kindness for them as we had done for those who had suffered from Katrina.”
Relationships forged through misfortune are strong.
“We want the world to know that not only is New Orleans rebuilding, but also other small towns along the coast line are doing the same,” Susan Owen said.
The mission trip is the answer to their prayer, Pastor Owen said.
“While pastoring in Gueydan, my wife and I prayed for God to show us a way to help the people along the coast of Southwest Louisiana,” Jesse Owen said. “When God called us to Lamar, the church was already prepared for missions. Simply put: This was God answering our prayers.”
The Lamar team is going to put a roof over First Baptist Pecan Island, and a solid floor for a church member.
They’re going to tear out a carpet from a home that was washed off its foundation and is still in the marsh where it landed. They’re going to put a roof on a porch of another family.
And they’re going to finish needed repair work at the Pecan Island Methodist church, in exchange for being able to stay there.
“It will be good to see Jesse and Susan,” Pastor Floyd said. “And to get some work done on the building.”
LC professor gets published
PINEVILLE — Former atheist Nikolai Alexandrenko also is a retired professor, missionary, and Baptist preacher.
He recently conducted a book signing for his autobiography Grace then Freedom Louisiana College.
Alexandrenko – or Dr. Nick as many know him – was born in 1922 in Bryansk, Soviet Russia. There he grew up as both an atheist and a Communist.
“[Some] … ask how is it possible that an atheist, Communist Russian turned out to be an American Christian,” Alexandrenko said in a recent testimony given at Grace Presbyterian Church in Alexandria. “Humanly it is not possible but with God it is possible. So this is why I shall tell my testimony, how the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit turned me from an atheist Russian into an American Christian.”
Grace then Freedom describes his journey.
After graduating high school in 1940, Alexandrenko was conscripted to the Russian military, where he enrolled in officer’s school.
A first lieutenant in the Russian Paratroop Corps, he fought in the North Caucasus and Ukraine against the Germans during World War II. In 1943, he was captured by German soldiers and transported to Germany, where he survived several prisoner of war camps.
After being liberated by Americans in 1945, Alexandrenko stayed in German refugee camps. There he found two gospel tracts written in Russian, and responded to God’s love for him.
When he received a scholarship from the Baptist Student Union of Louisiana, he moved to Pineville and attended Louisiana College, then New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and finally Tulane University, where he earned both his masters and doctorate in Latin and Greek.
And Greek. After school, Alexandrenko returned to Pineville to teach classical languages and religion at LC for 30 years.
After retiring, he moved to the Ukraine for eight years, where he helped to establish the Seminary of the Union of Evangelical Christians in Odessa.
Back home now in Pineville, he’s awaiting the next shipment of his autobiography before scheduling another book signing.
Interested in ordering a copy? Call Dr. Nick at 318-445-1465.
First Oakdale gets movie money
OAKDALE – First Baptist received $1,000 recently from Universal Pictures.
It’s what some might say is a “win-win” marketing ploy for the PG movie that opens June 22: Evan Almighty, a lighthearted look at a modern day Noah.
Universal Studios in conjunction with Grace Hill Media and Youth Specialities, gave the money to 100 churches that registered to be part of the Ark Almighty movement in their community.
Ark, you see, stands for Acts of Random Kindness. The idea is that every church that signs up can have – posted to their section of the www.arkalmighty.com – a listing of the things that people need done in the community and a listing of the things people are willing to do.
The listings would be anonymous; the church would pair up an elderly widow needing her house vacuumed with someone willing to do housework (or whatever the needs/skills are.)
Any church can do this; but only 100 were chosen to receive the money.
Kevin Miles, youth minister at First Oakdale for three years, also is state coordinator for the National Network of Youth Ministers, a volunteer position. As such, he gets lots of emails. That’s how he figures he heard about Evan Almighty and the possibility of getting money to do good deeds specifically in Oakdale.
“I registered, but I never expected we would be chosen,” Miles said. When they were, they quickly found the need for good deeds: a house badly in need of repair.
“Sherwin Williams in Bastrop donated all the paint, and Target Glass of Oak Grove donated the labor and glass to replace some windows,” Miles said. “It’s just been amazing how it all came together.”
Church members worked on the house Memorial Day weekend, and have a second day of service planned for Saturday, July 14.
“It’s been pretty cool to see the church getting refocused on ministering in our local community,” Miles said. “Just do it; just do ministry. You don’t have to have someone somewhere thinking up a program. Someone has a need? Just fill it!”
Miles said he had not seen EvanAlmighty – pastors in New Orleans and Shreveport were invited to private screenings, but the film wasn’t ready until the first week of June.
“They claim it’s all family friendly and no bad language,” Miles said.
For more information call Emily Faulknor at Grace Hill Media: 530.222.6700 or go towww.arkalmighty.com