Salem children’s mission: all for the kids
By KAREN KENNEDY For the past 15 years, Jack and Wilma Simmons have served as coordinators of the Salem Association of Baptist Churches children’s mission. Since some children cannot easily get to a church themselves, the mission brings the church right to the children, either in a church located in a mobile home or in a big, blue “church on wheels” provided by Salem Association. The children’s missions are actually three different ones, yet they all serve the same purpose. The West Point Mission is held at Point West Mobile Home Park in West Point, with a mobile home chapel located right there in the park. The mobile home – which is actually a commercial trailer – was donated by an older man from Frankfort who had a little extra money and wanted to do some good with it. The West Point Mission Kids’ Club, which numbers about 20 or 25 children, is held there on Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., with a prayer meeting from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. A church service is held on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. Liz Spadie leads the Bible stories and at the adult service a man named Wilda Pyles from Rineyville Baptist Church plays the guitar and sings. The other two missions are held in the big, blue Salem Association bus, which has been customized and is heated and cooled with a generator so that it easily becomes a portable church. The Flaherty Mission is held in Pleasant Hill Mobile Home Park. On Saturday, the kids’ program is held at 6 p.m. Approximately 20 children attend church in the big, blue bus at this mission. The third mission, which consists of 10 to 15 children each week, is held in the bus on Sunday evenings at the end of a cul de sac on Scenic Drive, which is off Hwy 60 not far from the edge of the Fort Knox reservation. Separate from these three missions but a part of them is the Salem Association’s “Shoebox Ministry,” which is also coordinated by Jack and Wilma. Every Christmas members of various churches throughout Meade County fill and decorate shoeboxes, providing small Christmas gifts for children, whose names are collected at the three mission points. Last year, 324 of these shoeboxes were given as gifts to local children. “Society is getting so fast and we forget that we care for each other,” said Jack. “These kids will someday be the leaders of our county. Sometimes the children have trouble understanding that someone who doesn’t even know them cares for them and will give them a gift.” The Christmas parties – held either in the chapel at West Point or in the bus at the other two mission points – are really something great to see, said Jack. “We get knee deep in wrapping paper,” he said. “One year a girl was so thrilled with the inexpensive wristwatch in her shoebox she just couldn’t stop looking at it. The lady who bought that wristwatch couldn’t begin to know how excited that girl was.” The Simmons believe what they are doing is important for the children and their future. And they are very much looking forward to the three upcoming Christmas parties where the kids will open their shoeboxes. “The children respond well to the Christmas story, and they get a good dose of what Christmas is all about,” said Jack. “We think that’s important.” While the Simmons are the glue behind the missions, it’s everyone who participates that makes the program such a success. “People will pitch in and help,” said Jack, “and we just go and do it.”
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Photo by Karen Kennedy