Title: Disciples youth event engages over a thousand in service in Fort Worth
Date: July 16, 1999
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: news@cm.disciples.org
99a-48
FORT WORTH (DNS) -- Nearly 1,100 young people from 28 regions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) gathered on the campus of Texas Christian University here July 7-11 for the third International Christian Youth Fellowship event, "Gifts of Hands and Heart." They spent six days in fellowship, worship, learning experiences and a variety of community service projects.
The centerpiece service project was the
"blitz build" of a new home for a Fort Worth family. Teams of Disciples teens
provided the muscle. Homeland Ministries' Volunteers in Mission organized the volunteers.
Hosanna Industries of Pittsburgh and Habitat for Humanity planned the construction
schedules, procured the building materials and provided on-site supervision and technical
expertise. The home went from bare slab to completion in three working days. Beverly
Jackson received the keys to her first single-family home at closing worship Sunday, July
11.
Young people and their adult leaders fanned out in the neighborhood of the Habitat site to work on 28 other homes as well. According to Disciples national youth minister Randy Kuss, one wheelchair-bound woman told the volunteers that in the 30 years she had lived in her home, no one had ever offered to do fix-up work on her place."That's doing something. That's making a difference that these kids are a part of," Kuss said.
ICYF teens participated in a variety of mission and ministry opportunities including storytelling; working with persons with AIDS and the hungry; and vocal and instrumental music. "People have been out at libraries telling stories to children. People have been out at soup kitchens. People have been out planting trees with the environmental mission and ministry track," said Kuss.
The ICYF conference is growing. The first event in 1992 drew 450 young people. Five hundred fifty participated at Chapman University in 1995. More than a thousand gave "gifts of hands and heart" at ICYF 99. "(It is) hope that I see for the future of the church with youth leading worship and taking such leadership -- the singing, the cooperation in the midst of being tired. The Spirit of God is at work here in Fort Worth. Miracles are happening," said the Rev. Steve Moore, Carmel (Ind.) Christian Church. The mission and ministry experience changed Trendel Russell of First Christian Church, Fayetteville, Ark. "We went to the AIDS center. It's just like, you see all these people and you want to help them because they want to help you. I mean they embrace you with open arms. The AIDS clinic in our town -- I'm not involved in it. But now I'm going to be because of all these people that I've seen."
Jamie Dilts, United Church of Christ (UCC/Disciples), Atlantic, Iowa, visited persons with AIDS at the Fort Worth Samaritan Center too. "I don't have opportunities to do these things in my community yet," she said. She also helped put up a new ceiling at the home of an elderly woman. "The conditions in that house were like, you couldn't imagine. I mean, it's not what I'm used to. It's really different than what I'm used to in Iowa," said Dilts.
"I think I'm getting more out of it than they are," said Lucy Hessel, an adult leader from First Christian Church, Terrell, Texas. She had never been knowingly so close to persons with AIDS. "I was expecting to see people walking around with I-V bottles. But these are people with just normal walkin' around average lives. It was amazing."
The hundreds of young people cheered long and loud at Sunday's closing worship as Beverly Jackson received the keys to her new home. Not only had they given the work of their hands and hearts in construction labor, they had raised $35,000 toward building the home before they arrived -- and added more than $2,600 more in an offering taken at the event.
Kuss hopes the young people who came to Fort Worth gained something that will last them a lifetime -- a sense of Christian commitment. "Not just thinking about it, or considering it, or going through the motions -- but passionate commitment to being a follower of Jesus Christ in every single way they can and make a difference in this world. I think these kids hear that and they're doing it."
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