WACO, Texas (ABP) — For 40 years, the Neighbors International ministry
of Columbus Avenue
Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, has been introducing people around the
world to one another, American (and Texan) culture and — most
importantly — Jesus Christ.
Rocio Landoll created an intricate tapestry telling the story of Neighbors International ministry of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco, Texas.
|
As the ministry prepared to celebrate its four-decade milestone, Rocio Landoll began to contemplate what she might do to contribute.
“For me, it is difficult to say, ‘I bake’ or ‘I will make this.’ I imagine this sort of thing,” she said as she motioned to a large tapestry of the world she had created for the occasion.
Landoll, an artist who enjoys working with textiles, dyed her own yarn, and her husband constructed the custom-made loom she used to make her tapestry.
Hanging from the elliptically shaped tapestry are 40 lanyards, one for each year the ministry has been in existence. Tied to the ropes are the names of every student and teacher who has been a part of the program during those four decades — 2,040 students and more than 400 teachers.
Landoll wrote the names of the students in black ink, while another volunteer penned the names of the teachers in red. It took a week just to write the names on the linen strips, Landoll noted. She left additional room on the ropes so the names of future students and teachers can be added.
She also left a space — a window — in the map at the spot where Waco would fall.
“Most of the time, when I make my objects of art, I use symbols. In this case, I put the window because the … symbol is to go in and discover more things…. I made this for two reasons: For me, it is the opportunity to learn. For me, it was the opportunity to learn the language and learn more about people around the world,” said Landoll, who came to the United States nine years ago.
She works primarily in Mexico as a costume designer for major motion pictures such as the Mask of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro and Nacho Libre.
Internationals worship at a service at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco. At center rear, above the choir, is Landoll's tapestry.
|
Glenda Weldon, director of the Neighbors International program, said the program was designed from the beginning to meet the varied needs of international students at nearby Baylor University. Ann Pitman, a missionary who had returned to the United States because of health concerns, first noticed the potential for the ministry.
“She had the vision that we needed to minister to people who were here in Waco that were here in a lot of cases because their spouses were in school. They didn’t know the English language, they didn’t know how to go to the grocery store and buy groceries, and in most cases, were in a little apartment all day long by themselves,” Weldon explained.
Pitman began to explore the possibilities and visited a similar program in Austin, Texas, before starting the program at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church.
The program began with 17 internationals from nine countries that first year. People from 99 countries have participated in the program, Weldon said.
Even more important, hundreds have come to know Jesus Christ as Lord. “When we got to the point of having baptized more than 400, we began to not keep count of that record, but the Lord has blessed this ministry,” Weldon said.
It likewise has been profitable to the 50 people who volunteer to help with the ministry, she said.
“It has been a blessing to me. It is a blessing to all the volunteers who work here. We believe the Lord has planted a mission field here at our doorstep, and that we are the missionaries to serve the Lord here in ministry to these people,” Weldon said.
Volunteers perform clerical duties, provide transportation for students, serve refreshments, provide child care and fulfill a number of other duties. “We feel that if someone wants to volunteer, the Lord has a place where they can serve,” Weldon said.
The program has changed a bit over the years. Many of the participants no longer have a university connection. Many men also are now a part of the program that was once exclusively composed of women.
Five levels of English as a Second Language are taught, in addition to an English program that uses the Bible as its primary textbook. Other classes include computer classes, computer keyboarding, preparation for the written portion of the Texas driver’s test, a citizenship class, sewing, fabric art, painting and piano.
“The emphasis of our program is that we don’t just teach ESL. We really minister to people who are born outside the U.S.,” Weldon said.
The program meets each Thursday from September through May. In the summer, there is a family picnic and a vacation Bible school that meets at the same time as the church’s regular VBS.
“In listening to interviews from some of our internationals … we heard one young man say, ‘Until I came to vacation Bible school, I had never heard of Jesus.’ That certainly reinforces our feeling that the Lord has a purpose for that and that it meets a special need for many of these people,” Weldon related.
A Sunday school class for internationals that has almost 50 people attend each week also has proven successful.
“It is an outreach because we have graduate students from Baylor who can’t come on Thursdays, but they will come on Sunday morning, come to Sunday school and have an opportunity to practice their English,” she said. “And many times, the Lord works in their lives and they become Christians, and we are seeing a number that are being baptized. The Lord has really blessed, and we are so grateful.”
-30-
George Henson is a staff writer for the Texas Baptist Standard.