Work camp youths leave mark at San Antonio church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
If their five days of painting rooms, caulking cracks and polishing stairs weren’t enough to show their visit to Shepherd’s Gate Community Church, youths from a Garden Ridge congregation left another mark.
It sits inside a small hallway hugging the center of the San Antonio United Methodist church building, flanked by plain ceramic tiles.
The youths from Bracken UMC designed a stone tile that shows the logo of Alamo City Work Camp.
When time fades the paint, forms new cracks and dulls the stairwells, that tile will allow the youths and their children and their children’s children to remember the hope they inspired in the Shepherd’s Gate congregation June 11-15, said Pastor Kathryn Vanessa LeVine.
Begun many years ago by Mica Akridge, Bracken youth director, Alamo City Work Camp helps lower-income individuals and churches repair buildings.
Akridge, who grew up in Corpus Christi serving on Sea City Work Camp teams as a youth, said she began the project because, at the time, Habitat for Humanity was the only help for lower-income residents of San Antonio. And Habitat focused strictly on building new homes.
Akridge said she wanted to help homeowners rehabilitate the homes they loved.
Typically work camp teams, which usually include youths from churches in addition to Bracken, work on a church and several homes for a week.
This year, because only Bracken youths were involved, leaders chose Shepherd’s Gate, Akridge said.
Christina Kennedy, a 19-year-old in her seventh year at the camp, said she has learned much about home repairs during her service. But more importantly, she has learned about her community and how to help struggling people living in it.
“I love helping out these people,” Kennedy said. “It makes me a more well-rounded person—to understand what’s going on in my community. I feel more connected to my community.
The Rev. Mickey McCandless, pastor of Bracken, said, “(The camp) builds teamwork and helps kids understand faith in action. It is a good faith-formation piece. They’re beginning to see and talk about faith in the midst of all we do in life. It lets them begin to experience relational ministry.”
Youths see differences in cultural and economic groups as well as similarities, McCandless said.
Akridge said Bracken typically lets senior- and junior-high youths work together.
“That’s one thing I think needs to be done,” she said. “They need to be together. The senior high students are teaching the junior high students. The senior high students need to teach what they’ve learned. That’s their goal.”
This year’s camp included 10 youths and four adults, Akridge said.
McCandless said the finished work projects will help Shepherd’s Gate recover unused spaces.
“And it’s going to say to them that other United Methodist churches care enough about them to help with their transformational ministry,” he added.
Bracken’s annual October Pumpkin Patch generates money to purchase supplies for the rehabilitations, Akridge said. The patch typically raises $5,000 to $6,000.
McCandless said he hopes that camp will eventually become a partnership with churches throughout the city and perhaps throughout the state—because there is need everywhere.
“For individuals and families, (the camp) helps them experience other Christians coming in to express their faith,” he said. “And it gives us the opportunity to share our faith.”