A two-week Vacation Bible School held in mid-June offered activities and worship opportunities for about 400 migrant workers and their children on St. Helena Island, near Beaufort.
Mario Vargas prays with 29 people who received Christ on Fiesta Night.Savannah River Association church members have sponsored the summer ministry for the last 47 years. There were 74 professions of faith, and 29 of those were made during one worship time.
Director of missions Steve Scudder said the migrant ministry meets physical and spiritual needs in practical ways. “I believe this is what Jesus meant in Matthew 25 when he said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’?”
Spanish-speaking migrant families come to Beaufort County each June to harvest tomatoes and melons. Vicki Farrow coordinates the event and said the ministry has evolved over the years to better meet the needs of migrant workers. For example, VBS is now held closer to migrant camps during weeks when the most workers will be in the area, and meetings are held in the evenings. Volunteers take food, clothes and health kits to the migrant camp about a month before VBS begins to help spread the word.
A medical clinic was added last year to provide free health screenings during each VBS week. Groups of five individuals were screened at a time so they could still hear Bible lessons during the teaching time. It is important to Farrow, also WMU director at Riverview Church in Beaufort, that migrant workers have as much exposure as possible to hearing the gospel. “We want them to have their health taken care of and also to hear about Jesus,” Farrow said.
Vicki Farrow gives a Spanish-language Bible to a migrant farm worker.“The potential for the gospel’s influence to spread is tremendous as it affects relationships within the migrant community and relationships with family and friends back home,” said Sue Harmon, associate director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention childhood ministry group. “Although St. Helena may be just a temporary home for them, those 74 who accepted Christ as Savior now have an eternal home in heaven.”
According to Annual Church Profile data – voluntary ministry reports from South Carolina Baptist churches – 74 percent of Southern Baptist churches held at least one VBS in 2009. Farrow sees VBS as an outreach tool to the migrant community who literally come to her backyard every summer. “I might not have been able to go to a foreign mission field, but God just brought this one to me,” she said. – SCBC