Saturday, September 26, 1998

Women's Missionary Union holds celebration

By LORETTA FULTON

Senior Staff Writer

Baptist women are planning to celebrate Sunday afternoon in a big way, with a message from three women who were part of an Olympic mission team and an ingathering of goods for the new Hospitality House.

A Women's Celebration will be held for all members of the Women's Missionary Union beginning with a short business meeting at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Room 141 of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church.

A program will begin at 4 featuring Bonnie Franklin, Nancy Bradshaw, and Ronda Ireton, all of First Baptist Church in Stanton, and part of a mission team during the Winter Olympics last February in Nagano, Japan. Franklin also was at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.

A big part of the Women's Celebration will be collecting money and goods needed to furnish Hospitality House, a facility set to open Nov. 1 for relatives of inmates at Abilene's two prisons.

"The outside is completed, and it's just beautiful," said Dr. Truman Turk, director of the Abilene Baptist Association, which sponsored the facility along with the Double Mountain Baptist Association.

Finishing touches are being put on the facility now, and donations are still needed.

"All the money hasn't run out -- we're getting close, though," Turk said.

Hospitality House will have 40 beds, a kitchen, laundry facilities, and a common area. Members of the Women's Missionary Union are asking for "quick fix" meal items, pantry goods, and for donations to buy bedspreads.

Elizabeth Hackman, mission involvement consultant for the WMU, said that even with a discount, bedspreads for the 40 beds will be expensive. She is asking that donations be brought to the meeting Sunday to help pay for them.

"The main emphasis will be the final donations for the bedspreads," Hackman said.

Also food items that can be prepared quickly such as microwaveable soups are needed for the kitchen, as well as staples. And, Hackman said, blankets, preferably new ones, are needed.

"We desperately need single bed blankets," she said.

Hospitality House, located across from the Robertson and Middleton units north of Abilene, was constructed by Texas Baptist Men, a group of retirees who go coast to coast building Baptist churches and other facilities.

The work began last February, and a second group returned to help with finishing the interior.