We are the Body

This past week, I was in Shaw, Mississippi on a mission trip with my college group at FBC Waco. We partnered with the mayor of Shaw and a few local churches as we transformed a library into a police station, tutored local children, and preached services at a few different churches. I love to write after mission trips because I think it brings a lot of clarity to a very hectic week, so I spent much of the eight-hour trip home reflecting on the trip and debating what to write about. There were so many aspects of this trip that impacted me, so I’ll probably have to break up everything over multiple days. However, I want to begin by talking about the town itself and the role we can play in it. 

Shaw is a tiny town located in the Mississippi Delta region. The town itself is only 1 square mile and has less than 2,000 residents. The median income in Shaw is less than $20,000 with 41% of the families in the city living below the poverty line. Shaw is home to ten night clubs but does not have a single grocery store. It’s clear that it used to be a thriving little town but was hit hard by the recession and hasn’t been able to recover. 

I spent Monday morning hammering nails as we worked to construct new walls for the library we were turning into a police station. Our college group was supposed to be split into two smaller groups with one group focusing on construction and the other gardening for some local nuns. When plans fell through with the nuns, the non-construction group was sent on a “prayer walk.” Essentially, groups of four or five walked around the downtown area picking up trash and praying over the people of Shaw. 

On Tuesday morning, my friends and I volunteered to go on a prayer walk. This was an incredibly eye-opening experience. Less than 100 yards from the police station, we found an open field covered in trash. We started picking up the beer bottles that weren’t shattered and easily filled six trash bags. This got me thinking: a bottle of Heineken (probably the most popular bottle we picked up) costs $3.52 (don’t worry, I had to google this). Let’s say each trash bag held about 100 bottles. That makes at least 600 bottles. Now multiply by $3.52 and you get $2,112. We picked up at least $2,000 worth of beer bottles in a single field, and this doesn’t even count the hundreds of shattered bottles. Now imagine what would happen if that $2,000 was spent on something worthwhile for the town. Amazing. 

After picking up as much as possible from the field, we decided to explore the downtown area. Downtown Shaw consists of a single strip featuring barred up stores that have long been closed. The only people we really passed were the inmates who were out picking up trash along the street. The whole time I was walking down the sidewalk, I tried to picture what the town probably looked like 50 years ago. My thoughts immediately jumped to Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show. I imagined a town where everyone knew each other and the little stores and eateries on the main road were always packed. Unfortunately, that’s not the Shaw I got to experience.

Feeling adventurous, Allie, Kate, and I crossed the little river that led to where the people actually live. Across from a little Methodist church, I saw a monument engraved with the name Jane Bingham Simpson. I did a little research and found that Jane was 19 years old when she passed away in 1965. There wasn’t much to read about her, but I found out a lot about her family. The Simpsons LOVED sports. Their favorite athletes? Peyton and Eli Manning. Now, if you know anything about me, you know that’s enough for me to bond with someone. I somehow felt this connection to this girl who passed away 30 years before I was even born. 

The purpose of the monument was to dedicate the playground to Jane. The striking thing about this: there wasn’t a playground anywhere nearby. The only thing I saw that resembled a playground was a tennis court covered in weeds and lacking lines and a net. This honestly frustrated me. A church in this poor town wanted to do something for this girl’s family, so they decide to build a playground in her honor. My guess is they couldn’t afford to build or maintain something as simple as a playground. I immediately began thinking about how much I wanted us to be able to build a playground here if FBC is able to build a partnership with Shaw. 

In my head, I saw images of local children laughing as they rode the swings or dangled from the monkey bars or shot hoops on a real basketball court. Something as simple as a playground could bring so much life to a dying town. 

A few streets over, we discovered a tiny neighborhood playground with a couple swings and a small slide. I felt a bit better realizing kids had somewhere to play, but as I looked down the streets, my mind began thinking about the torn up tennis court again. Most of the houses on the street had a basketball goal out front, but the backboards were bent, the nets were nonexistent, and anyone who wanted to play would have to dribble on gravel. There were kids out trying, but I couldn’t help but picture these kids playing on a real outdoor court with a functioning backboard and decent asphalt. This could even lead to something like sports ministries. 

In Romans 10:13-15, Paul writes:

“For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!'” 

Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 28 that our job as Christians is to go spread the gospel, but it’s not always as easy as simply walking into a town and talking to people about Jesus. We have to establish our ethos before anyone is going to care about what we have to say. In my opinion, one way to build this credibility is through the works we do for an area. Our congregations in the churches we spoke to weren’t as big as we may have hoped or expected, but people driving through the downtown area of Shaw saw what we were doing and were intrigued. While I was walking around town, a few people came up to me and asked what made us decide to help out Shaw. This opened the door for conversations about the services we were leading in local churches. People saw what we were doing for their community – they saw us being the hands and feet of Christ – and they wanted to hear more about what we had to say. 

Those we serve are going to care when they know we care. We were able to back up our words with actions, and that’s why people were open to hearing about our purpose. I can only hope this is just the beginning of a long partnership with Shaw, and that we have the opportunity to return and continue to make a difference in this special community.