Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 9, 1993 TAG: 9308090046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The kids talked about having seen the movie before and constantly alerted each other to plot development - "There he is!"
But in this converted old house in the 600 block of Elm Avenue Southwest, the ultimate goal is for these children to have a different kind of "extra-terrestrial" experience.
"E.T." is just the warm-up activity for the daily Bible club at the Baptist Friendship House.
For 54 years, Southern Baptists in the Roanoke Valley have supported an inner-city ministry aimed primarily at poor, nonchurchgoers.
Two of the original three mission centers survive - this one and the Baptist Community Center at 17th Street and Wise Avenue Southeast.
These days "some parents and grandparents are bringing their kids back" to the center that served them a generation ago, said Mary Lou Whiteford, 33, the Friendship House director for the past six years.
She and Karen Holloman Martin, who directs the Southeast mission, oversee a diverse program designed to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the community around them.
Each center operates a food pantry, runs a preschool program for 4-year-olds during the school year, has a weekly "Ladies Bible Study," supervises daily programs for youths, makes room for Extension Service and Health Department programs and tries generally to aid and comfort those who live nearby.
The Southwest center is in a converted house. The Southeast center is in a newer block building constructed specifically for the center.
Although neither woman lives in the neighborhoods where the centers are, they say their years of service there make them seem like residents.
"In my ministry here, I think of the parable of the Good Samaritan," Martin said, in which a stranger takes care of an injured man. "I feel very much a part here, of this community."
In a bright upstairs room of the Southeast center, Martin, 32, says her casual dress - this day denim shorts and sleeveless blouse - came to be a symbol of her inclusion.
When she arrived, Martin said, she came to work in a dress every day. A few months later she wore blue jeans during her first bowling trip with some of the women who visited the center. "Now you're really one of us," one of the women told her.
It was a lesson that has stuck with her, she said.
Most of the patrons of both centers are from low-income households and many don't go to church regularly. Reasons vary, both women said, but many people from their centers' neighborhoods just wouldn't feel comfortable in church because they would fear they aren't "good enough."
Programs on self-esteem and "God-esteem" - the notion that every person is valuable to God - are an integral part of center programs, Whiteford said.
The message is that "it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, God can love you," said Whiteford.
Neither Whiteford nor Martin preaches to their flock, however - though both have advanced degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. - and neither is an ordained minister.
In fact, if they were ordained they would not have been eligible for the "commissioning" they received from the Southern Baptist Convention's Home Mission Board.
The national agency, which provides non-salary benefits for the two center directors, has rules against ordained women serving as missionaries in programs it sponsors. It also required that Martin's husband of almost two years be a Southern Baptist eligible for commissioning as a missionary.
"If God called me to be ordained, it might be an issue, but I haven't felt called," Martin said. She is "not opposed to women being ordained," she said.
Whiteford likewise said ordination "is not an issue for me."
Governance for the missions is a bit complicated. The missions were founded by local Women's Missionary Union members 54 years ago. Until recently, that auxiliary organization controlled the missions, though they were recognized by the national Home Mission Board.
In recent years, the missions were officially transferred under the umbrella of the Roanoke Valley Baptist Association, though they maintain their own autonomous board of directors - with representatives from all 72 churches in the association.
The center directors' salaries are paid from association funds, but their benefits are administered by the Home Missions Board. The board also has provided the services of Lisa Ladd, who is serving a two-year missionary assignment.
In addition to receiving funds from the association, the centers also are the beneficiaries of donations from non-Baptists in the Roanoke Valley who support their programs.
Still, there isn't enough money to serve all the needs, the directors acknowledge.
The centers have been urged to experiment with new programs, but say they are afraid they don't have the money to do it properly if they are to maintain the most-used programs they operate now.
The 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday hours make it difficult to serve working adults, Whiteford and Martin said. They also mean not being able to serve some specific groups they'd really like to provide programs for - single parents and young couples, for instance.
The centers are trying to extend their missionary activities. At the Southeast center, for instance, projects to help elderly or infirm residents paint or fix up their homes have been used as mission opportunities for youth and men's groups at several churches.
This summer, youth from both centers raised money to send a half-dozen youngsters from each center to a statewide Youth Evangelism Conference this month in Richmond.
The idea is to provide services for as many people as possible in their neighborhoods, the directors said, and to let the people know that it is their Christian commitment that motivates their work.
"If there is a need, we try to fulfill that need," Martin said.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB