MEPPELINK TELLS OF NEW CHALLENGE

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Getting Mid-America Teen Challenge to reach into more inner cities with a renewed emphasis is just one of the Rev. Herb Meppelink's goals.

Meppelink became Teen Challenge's national representative last March after spending 18 years as executive director of the program's Cape Girardeau center.

Thursday night, Meppelink spoke at the local center's sixth annual fund-raising banquet, held at the Show Me Center. Cape Girardeau Teen Challenge Center Executive Director Jack Smart said about 530 staff members, friends and supporters of the center were expected to attend.

Teen Challenge is a Christian program that helps young men recover from drug and alcohol dependency. In his position, Meppelink oversees 116 Teen Challenge centers in the mainland United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

He works out of the program's national office in Springfield, Mo.

In an interview Thursday prior to the banquet, Meppelink said one of his goals is "to extend the Teen Challenge Center with a renewed emphasis into the inner cities of our major metropolitan areas" where it does not now exist.

"One of the first targeted cities is Miami, where the need is ultra-desperate," he said. "Another targeted city is Houston."

He added: "We're in a lot of metropolitan areas, but we've got a lot of them where we're not."

A Teen Challenge center will open in Salt Lake City the latter part of this month, said Meppelink, and a program training center will open in Kansas in two months.

Another of his goals is to work with 20,000 Teen Challenge students in 1991. Last year, the program helped more than 13,600 students, said Meppelink. In 1988 and 1989, Teen Challenge helped 10,000 and 11,000 students, respectively.

His current position primarily involves administrative work, he said, whereas while he served as the local director he was "a nuts-and-bolts guy."

"I worked with the guys constantly," he said.

The best part of his new job, Meppelink said, is seeing new centers go up and working toward the program's goals. Yet the job also has a drawback.

"Traveling is a bummer," he said. "Sometimes you feel you're a zombie."

Somewhere between one-third to one-half of his time is spent traveling, he said. And most of that is by plane.

Soon, Meppelink said, he will be traveling to Belgium to attend a Teen Challenge camp, where he will speak and represent Teen Challenge U.S. Approximately 250 Teen Challenge staff members and directors from across Europe will be at the camp, he said.

Meppelink said he planned to speak Thursday night on "who is my neighbor." The talk, he said, would cover some of his experiences with pastoral ministry, how he came to be involved in Teen Challenge, and how someone's "neighbor" is the person who is destitute, desperate and needs help.

"There is hope for the helpless," he said. "Let's work together."

Meppelink was not the only scheduled speaker at Thursday's banquet. A graduate student of the local Teen Challenge Center, Steve Rogers, was scheduled to speak on how the program changed his life.