Urban mission camp lets teens
work with homeless



By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
High school youths from as far as McAllen and San Angelo handed out sandwiches and water to the homeless in San Antonio June 18-20.
In addition, the young people picked up trash outside buildings of a San Antonio homeless ministry and entertained sick children at Methodist Children’s Hospital.
That mission focus is why My Mission youth camp is different from most, said the Rev. Rusty Freeman, youth ministry director for the Southwest Texas Conference.
“The main agenda is building relationships with those with whom we work and loving them along the way,” Freeman said. “We do this in Christ’s name, and unashamedly so.
“(My Mission) teaches them compassion for the least, the last and the lost. We don’t communicate the gospel with words but primarily with actions. My Mission is sharing the love of Christ and his grace through spending time with and relating to people. It’s awesome and changes everyone involved.”
Sponsored by the Council on Youth Ministries, My Mission is a one-week urban mission camp for high school students. It is based at Jefferson UMC, San Antonio.
Service activities include:
> Serving at a homeless shelter.
> Playing with the children at Wesley Community Center.
> Visiting patients at Methodist Children’s Hospital.
> Conducting Vacation Bible School at Jefferson UMC.
> Working at a food bank.
> Handing out bottles of water and snow cones to the homeless in San Antonio.
About 10 repeat campers were reported this year, Freeman said.
“They come because they are impacted greatly by working with those who need love the most,” Freeman said.
Jessica Huizar, 14, from Resurrection UMC, Adkins, attended for the first time this year and said she would be back—because she learned much about the homeless.
“This makes you realize how the homeless really are—and that you don’t have to be scared of them,” Huizar said. “They’re just regular people like us.”
Freeman said students, not people being helped, are typically the ones changed by the mission experience.
“We find out that we have been touched more deeply than we have touched them,” he said. “Usually, mission work takes us out of our comfort zones, and God uses this to change our hearts to have mercy and compassion for the gospel.”