Just past Spanky’s Private Club on a road you will not find on a GPS is the shortcut to the Monticello Children’s Home, and taking the drive each month is a team of students dedicated to ministering to the needs of neglected and abused children.
Founded in the 1890s, the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Home in Monticello began as a refuge for Arkansas orphans. Over the years, the facility became a place where not only orphans but also children who have been victims of deplorable family conditions could grow in a safe environment.
Senior business administration and finance major Andrew Yates has been part of the ministry for more than two years and is now leading and planning for the team each month.
“I am an action-based person,” Yates said. “I was really drawn to the concept of orphans and how all the kids are so ready to let someone love them personally. College is a great age to minister to kids because we aren’t old and lame, but we are old enough to be looked up to.”
With an age range of 6 years old to high school, and 30 to 40 children living in the home’s six cottages, opportunities for unique involvement are endless. Each visit lasts most of the afternoon, and through playing sports or having meaningful conversations, each team member ministers to the children.
“We give the kids someone to talk to,” said sophomore biology major and two year participant Vikki Bennett.
“We let them know they are cared for and loved. We also give them the chance to be kids and not have to worry about adult cares like those they might have had in their own homes.”
Connecting with the children and giving them personal attention they cannot receive in large groups is very important to the ministry. When Yates began investing in his fifth grade friend two years ago, he knew there was something special.
Yates said the little boy was the best third grade athlete he had ever seen, yet he held anger more intense than some adults. Yates spent each month for two years playing games the boy wanted to play, letting him show off his latest toy and getting to know him as best he could. He was recently adopted along with his brothers and sisters, and although the separation is bittersweet, Yates knows the children are not meant to stay at the home forever.
In a ministry such as this, giving of a person’s time is all that is necessary to be a positive influence.
“I chose this ministry because God has given me a desire to care for the less fortunate and be a positive influence for these wonderful, sometimes hurting, children,” Bennett said.
For more information or to become involved in this ministry, visit the Campus Ministries office in Evans Student Center, room 303, join the Facebook group Monticello Children’s Home Ministry or contact Yates.
The ministry team meets for each trip at 10:15 a.m. on the second floor of Evans Student Center and the upcoming trip dates are March 7 and April 11.
By Whitney Crews, Signal Writer
