wfn.org | Disciples youth event engages over a thousand in service in Fort Worth

["Disciples Off. of Communication"<wshuffit@oc.disciples.org>]

Date: July 16, 1999
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: Clifford L. Willis
E-mail: CWillis@oc.disciples.org
on the Web: http://www.disciples.org

99a-48

	FORT WORTH (DNS) -- Nearly 1,100 young people from 28 regions of the Christian 
Church (Disciples of Christ) gathered on the campus of Texas Christian 
University here July 7-11 for the third International Christian Youth 
Fellowship event, "Gifts of Hands and Heart." They spent six days in 
fellowship, worship, learning experiences and a variety of community service 
projects. 

	The centerpiece service project was the "blitz build" of a new home for a Fort 
Worth family. Teams of Disciples teens provided the muscle. Homeland 
Ministries' Volunteers in Mission organized the volunteers. Hosanna Industries 
of Pittsburgh and Habitat for Humanity planned the construction schedules, 
procured the building materials and provided on-site supervision and technical 
expertise. The home went from bare slab to completion in three working days. 
Beverly Jackson received the keys to her first single-family home at closing 
worship Sunday, July 11.

	Young people and their adult leaders fanned out in the neighborhood of the 
Habitat site to work on 28 other homes as well. According to Disciples national 
youth minister Randy Kuss, one wheelchair-bound woman told the volunteers that 
in the 30 years she had lived in her home, no one had ever offered to do fix-up 
work on her place."That's doing something. That's making a difference that 
these kids are a part of," Kuss said. 

	ICYF teens  participated in a variety of  mission and ministry opportunities 
including storytelling; working with persons with AIDS and the hungry; and 
vocal and instrumental music. "People have been out at libraries telling 
stories to children. People have been out at soup kitchens. People have been 
out planting trees with the environmental mission and ministry track," said 
Kuss. 

	The ICYF conference is growing. The first event in 1992 drew 450 young people. 
Five hundred fifty participated at  Chapman University in 1995. More than a 
thousand gave "gifts of hands and heart" at ICYF ‘99. 	

	"(It is) hope that I see for the future of the church with youth leading 
worship and taking such leadership -- the singing, the cooperation in the midst 
of being tired. The Spirit of God is at work here in Fort Worth. Miracles are 
happening," said the Rev. Steve Moore, Carmel (Ind.) Christian Church. 

                The mission and ministry experience changed Trendel Russell of 
First Christian Church, Fayetteville, Ark. "We went to the AIDS center. It's 
just like, you see all these people and you want to help them because they want 
to help you. I mean they embrace you with open arms. The AIDS clinic in our 
town -- I'm not involved in it. But now I'm going to be because of all these 
people that I've seen." 

	Jamie Dilts, United Church of Christ (UCC/Disciples), Atlantic, Iowa, visited 
persons with AIDS at the Fort Worth Samaritan Center too. "I don't have 
opportunities to do these things in my community yet," she said. She also 
helped put up a new ceiling at the home of an elderly woman. "The conditions in 
that house were like, you couldn't imagine. I mean, it's not what I'm used to. 
It's really different than what I'm used to in Iowa," said Dilts. 

	"I think I'm getting more out of it than they are," said Lucy Hessel, an adult 
leader from  First Christian Church, Terrell, Texas. She had never been 
knowingly so close to persons with AIDS. "I was expecting to see people walking 
around with I-V bottles. But these are people with just normal walkin' around 
average lives. It was amazing."

	The hundreds of young people cheered long and loud at Sunday's closing worship 
as Beverly Jackson received the keys to her new home. Not only had they given 
the work of their hands and hearts in construction labor, they had raised 
$35,000 toward building the home before they arrived -- and added more than 
$2,600 more in an offering taken at the event. 

	Kuss hopes the young people who came to Fort Worth gained something that will 
last them a lifetime -- a sense of Christian commitment. "Not just thinking 
about it, or considering it, or going through the motions -- but passionate 
commitment to being a follower of Jesus Christ in every single way they can and 
make a difference in this world. I think these kids hear that and they're doing 
it."

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