SEEKING TO SERVE: SEMO ASSOCIATION SUMMER MISSIONARIES HELP AREA YOUTH

Not all missionaries go to exotic, far-away lands to preach the Gospel.

Four summer missionaries say God has done a lot of work through them right here in Southeast Missouri.

Julie Asher, Melanie Beeson, Haley Durall and Julia Metelski, all students at Southeast Missouri State University, are serving as summer missionaries for 10 weeks through the Missouri Baptist Convention. As members of the SEMO Association Camp Team, their jobs are to help area churches with their various camps and vacation Bible schools. They go out in teams of two around Southeast Missouri each week.

For them, the assignment has been a wonderful adventure.

"Ninety cans of shaving cream and 1,000 water balloons," Durall said, remembering "Armageddon" at Reynolds County Children's Camp. "They just let us go wild."

But, they are quick to point out, the camps and Bible schools they've helped out with haven't been all fun and games.

"I really like seeing how God is really working and affecting the lives of the children," Metelski said.

Tough decisions

Asher served as a missionary last year, but this was the first year for Beeson, Durall and Metelski. All of them had summer missions in mind from the beginning of the fall semester, but they had their doubts about leaving their families for the whole summer.

"I didn't really want to do it in the beginning, because I didn't want to be so far away from my family," said Durall, who is from Chatham, Ill. "But I did want to do it, because that seemed like what God wanted me to do."

However, all four of them say they know this was what they were supposed to do with their summer. Beeson said that a vacation Bible school she helped with in Chaffee, Mo., really opened her eyes to the summer missions experience.

"It was almost one-on-one because I had so few kids, and I actually got to see one of them get saved," she said. "That was it -- that was their life, and it was amazing how they finally understood what the big people had been telling them all these years."

Super Summer, the first camp they helped out with after their orientation in May, was a particularly memorable week for all of the girls.

"One kid just broke down one night," Durall said. "He said, I was mad at God for so long, and now God is really speaking to me and now I understand what he is doing in my life.'

"That really spoke to me, and watching some of these kids realize that God is there to help them and not hurt them was just a real eye-opener for me."

Unexpected duties

Some of the responsibilities of the missions were eye-openers as well. "We can't go to camps thinking, Okay, we're going to do this and this,' because it never works out that way," Metelski said.

Durall said there have been times they arrived at a camp thinking they were going to just have one responsibility, and then wound up having many more. "You think that you're just going to lead recreation, and then suddenly that morning they spring leading music, doing devotions, doing Bible studies, and all kinds of other stuff on you," Durall said. "I'm a girl of organization, and you can't be that way in summer missions."

The girls said they feel as though they have both grown up and grown closer to each other and God through their experiences this summer.

"I really feel like I've bonded with these girls," Metelski said. "I feel like I can go to them now for anything. And God has really revealed Himself to me in many respects, not just through the children ... He's just kind of making me wake up, because He's right there."

Beeson said that the summer has shown her that God can use her in many different ways. "I used to have some problems with thinking that I couldn't do certain stuff, and this summer has taught me that I can," she said. "I guess I've gained a lot of confidence."