Saturday, May 30, 1998
Little church responds to call for aid
By LORETTA FULTON / Abilene Reporter-News
A little church in Avoca is raising some big eyebrows all around.
When a call went out recently to Methodist churches across
the state for assistance with Vacation Bible School at a new church
in Amarillo, one church answered -- one out of hundreds statewide,
and that one was the United Methodist Church in Avoca.
"We were the only church in the state to volunteer,"
said the Rev. Dewayne Wolf, pastor.
The school will be conducted June 17-20 by about 15 volunteers
from the Avoca church. Once they get to Amarillo, the volunteers
will find a most unusual church.
Known as the Community of Grace, the church is the product
of a merger between two Methodist congregations, one Anglo and
the other African-American. The new church is pastored by a Hispanic
woman, the Rev. Velma Esqueda, making it perhaps the most diverse
church in the area.
The call for volunteers was issued by the Methodist church's
Volunteers In Mission. With 80 members and an average Sunday attendance
of 40, the Avoca church might be one of the last anyone would
expect to answer the call.
"It raised a lot of eyebrows," Wolf said.
And those eyebrows were on the faces of the district superintendents
in this area who wondered why larger churches hadn't pitched in,
too.
But the folks in Avoca don't mind that they were the only ones
who offered to help.
"It was a really big deal for us," Wolf said.
Wolf's own district superintendent, Kenneth Metzger, wasn't
too unhappy, either.
"They're a good group of folks up there," he said
of the Avoca flock.
Send a Letter to the Editor about This
Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address)
of This Story to A Friend:
Copyright ©1998,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
|
