Perhaps there are cries of desperation, internal and inaudible. Maybe there is shame – actions, inactions, experienced wrongs all far too painful to discuss or deal with. Maybe there are just miscellaneous hard times – health or financial problems. Whatever the reasons, there are those who feel forgotten, unloved, and may even feel unfit for God’s use. These are the people Marlaina Sheppard wants to reach out to, particularly through the Christian Women’s Job Corps ministry at the Shepherd’s Door center in Spartanburg.
Acteens
1st and 2nd grade Children in Action“They needed to understand that no matter your background, God can still use you,” said Sheppard when asked about how she and her husband, Leroy, decided to begin their ministry center, Shepherd’s Door. When Marlaina Sheppard petitioned God for direction on how to help children in need, she shared that God kept telling her, “Help their moms.” So when they opened the Shepherd’s Door center in 2004, Marlaina also began a CWJC ministry.
Like other CWJC programs around the country, participants can receive training in budgeting, resum? writing, marriage, parenting, speech, interviewing, Bible study skills, etiquette, proper dress, health, fitness, and a host of other areas. Men can receive this training as well through the center’s Christian Men’s Job Corps program.
The programs offered through CWJC and CMJC seek to model the behavior of Christ, in that Christ met all needs – emotional, physical and spiritual. They want to share God’s compassion with those who are hurting, men or women – women like Debra Bush.
Bush was coming out of drug and alcohol addiction, met Sheppard at an outpatient clinic, and immediately signed up for CWJC. According to Bush, she was looking for “accountability.” She recalled, “I was looking for something to fill my time – Christian and positive people to be in my life.”
The 2007 CWJC graduate is currently employed and actively involved as a volunteer with Shepherd’s Door and CWJC. A woman who declared that she “was never really missions minded,” is now “doing things for the Lord,” whether it is through song or through teaching women’s Bible study.
Mission Friends
Girls in ActionBush noted that she “drew strength from” the Christian women she met through CWJC, and continued, “When I talked with them about my concerns, I knew they would pray about those concerns.”
Through CWJC, Sheppard is currently working with 17 women who are enrolled in the program. As with all CWJC/CMJC programs, each participant is paired with a mentor and participates in Bible study.
Because many CWJC participants, like Bush, are mothers, children of participants often go with their mothers to the training site. While CWJC is a holistic ministry that caters to the spiritual needs of the mothers and their children, few are as intentional in their approach to children’s missions with CWJC children as the Sheppards.
Bringing forth fruit
Marlaina, a former Girls in Action teacher, and Leroy, a former Royal Ambassadors teacher, soon had approximately 65 children of CWJC participants engaged in age-level missions education. But in nine months, that number grew to an average of 95 participants, as the Sheppards decided to include children from communities in the Spartanburg area as well.
The center currently has Acteens, Youth on Mission, Mission Friends, Women on Mission, and Children in Action groups. While the children range from those with little church experience to those with no experience with church, missions, or religion of any sort, there are other children, from the Laotian community, who come from Buddhist homes.
When asked how Buddhist parents of children in the program feel about their kids immersing themselves in Christian missions, Sheppard replied, “They see the love we have for the kids, and that outweighs any hesitation they have about Christianity.”
And that love for the kids and for teaching them about Christ is something the Sheppards want to teach their four children, as Marlaina emphasized, “Our kids are totally involved in everything we do.” In fact, 9-year-old Kayla actually had the opportunity to help lead another 9-year-old girl to receive Christ. As the little Laotian girl from a Buddhist background struggled between God’s call to Christianity and fear that her father would be angry with her, it was Kayla who prayed with her to come to know Christ.
Kayla wanted her new friend to go home and “tell her mom, dad, and brother” about Christ. Apparently, the little girl did just that. Later, when she and her family had to move, her father, whose reaction she had originally feared, called Leroy Sheppard for recommendations of a Laotian church in their new town because their daughter “loved it so much.”
Timothy Miller, son of Debra Bush, is also actively involved in missions. The 15-year-old probably would not have been a part of the program were it not for his mother’s participation in CWJC. Timothy came to know Christ through the program, stating it was how he “first got saved.”
He has shown such a prowess for leadership that he won the center’s “Timothy” award for leadership and an award for participating in the youth mentoring program.
Timothy said that being a part of missions ministry helps him keep “his mind focused on Christ and makes him want to go to church even more.”
Both Bush and her son noted that their relationships with Christ and each other have grown as a result of CWJC and missions activities. Now that they both volunteer with the programs at Shepherd’s Door, they have a common ministry. Bush stated, “It gives us an open door to share our relationship with Christ with each other,” with Timothy noting that he and his mom have “always been close,” but working in missions together has helped them grow “a lot closer.”
Marlaina emphasized, “Leroy and I have always been passionate about missions education. We wanted the people we work with to know it does not matter how much money you have or what streets you come from; you can still be a missionary and share God’s love with others.”