Meet the Mission Maidens: Young girls giving back
Sharon Bullock didn’t set out to shape seven-year-old minds into Christ-centered servants. In fact, had it not been for a bike accident she endured in fall 2012, the mother behind Mission Maidens might not have pursued this effort at all.
Before her 40th birthday, she had goals to qualify for and run the Boston Marathon and also complete a Half Ironman Triathlon.
While she did achieve both of those goals, during the Augusta Half Ironman Bullock’s bike took a nasty turn. With the aid of two fellow race participants who helped reassemble her bike, Bullock ultimately finished the race, only to deal with post-race surgery for injuries sustained during the accident.
Reflecting on the entire turn of events, Bullock said she felt the Lord nudging her in another direction: specifically, to broaden those fitness goals she’d set for her 40 birthday.
She started reflecting on a recent mission trip she’d taken to Africa with her 10-year-old son, Burch, and looked at her then seven-year-old daughter, Laura Grace. The idea for Mission Maidens came to life.
“Laura Grace missed the Africa trip because she was too young, but that got me thinking about the many unanswered needs right here in our own community,” she said.
Around that time, Bullock heard a friend of a friend, Jennifer Gray of Liberty Park, was just starting a monthly mission project for her child and their friends at Liberty Park Elementary.
That gave her the gumption to email around 20 of Laura Grace’s schoolmates at Vestavia Hills Elementary East, and also several friends at West. Within a month, eight second grade girls showed up at Mount Royal Towers for the Mission Maidens’ first service project, a trick or treat in reverse.
“It was the day after Halloween, so it was a perfect first project for the girls,” said Bullock, describing how Laura Grace and her friends dressed up in costume and delivered Halloween candy to two floors of Mount Royal Towers residents. “With their young ages, we try to keep the activities age-appropriate – limited to tasks that seven or eight-year-old girls can do independently. And we try to keep it to a minimal time and financial commitment.”
In November, Mission Maidens met at Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church with red Radio Flyer wagons in tow for a neighborhood door-to-door canned food drive effort. In the course of an afternoon, the Maidens collected more than 200 cans, which they donated to the food pantry of Urban Ministries of Birmingham.
In December, the girls partnered with the Greater Birmingham Humane Society.
“The Humane Society has a perpetual need for rolled newspapers for the kennels,” she said. “I sent a YouTube link to the girls and their mothers, instructing them how to roll the papers, and they jumped on board.”
As part of the effort, the girls also made “Adopt Me” signs for individual animals, and received a tour of the facility.
For Valentine’s Day, Children’s Hospital was the beneficiary of more than 25 Love Quilts. The girls took sheets of fleece and made no-sew blankets by cutting fringe around the edges and tying knots in the fringe.
While most monthly projects result in a tangible collection or donation, some months are reserved for spiritual development. This was the case in March, when the Mission Maidens traveled to Huntsville to attend a Secret Keeper Girls retreat.
Perhaps their most poignant activity to date took place recently in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. While stuffing race packets for the second annual Steeple 2 Steeple 5K, Mission Maidens also used their creative talents to design custom get well cards for distribution at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Center.
“Mission Maidens has been a wonderful experience for my daughter,” said Tracey Barker, whose daughter Maddie is part of the group. “This experience has helped teach her how to put others first and the message of Christ into action. In her own words, Mission Maidens has taught her to ‘serve others and be sweet to other people even if you don’t know them.’”
As for the group’s future, Bullock, a CPA, has expressed interest in formalizing Mission Maidens into a 501(c)(3), but for now, she is enjoying the experience of watching her daughter and like-minded friends. She hopes the group continues to thrive and that mission work will be instilled in these young girls so their lives will be blessed from their service to others.
Prior to each outing, the girls gather, sometimes in Bullock’s home, to pray. Their favorite Bible verses (the first of which also serves as their mission statement) are John 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” and Matthew 25:40 “… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
“We can do anything with this,” said Bullock. “The sky is the limit.”