For girls only: Local Acteens group promoting mission work as well as 'giggle time'

About 30 girls get together in Jackson once a week for giggle time, but it doesn't stop there. Once a month they complete a missions project, and once a year those old enough go on a weeklong mission trip.

The girls are involved in Acteens, a national organization that promotes missionary work in girls grades seven to 12. Acteens is a pet project of the Woman's Missionary Union, which also works to boost missions and missionary work and supports the Southern Baptist Convention.

The group in Jackson is based at First Baptist Jackson, but director Diane Miinch said anyone can join and girls of other faiths attend the meetings.

"In today's society it's like they need help," Miinch said. "Some of these girls need a place where they can just be themselves and have giggle time."

Acteens is for girls only. Miinch said eliminating the boy aspect helps the girls be themselves.

Larissa Petzoldt

"They can actually concentrate and not get distracted," she said. "When we share our devotion, it's a special time. It seems like guys can get them distracted."

Recently, two of the girls were chosen to participate in a national conference.

Larissa Petzoldt and Kati Miinch, 18, were selected as two of six girls nationwide to act as 2009 National Acteen Panelists. As panelists, they will help at the Woman's Missionary Union national conference in Louisville, Ky., running errands, setting up and manning information booths. They will give a speech at the conference and write articles for the official Acteen magazine, called the Mag.

Acteens has chosen girls from the Jackson chapter to be panelists before, but never two. No state, much less region, has had two girls accepted to go to the national conference.

"I'm excited about going to Kentucky and meeting the other girls," Kati Miinch said.

Photo submitted by Diane MiinchLocal girls involved in Acteen, a national program that promotes missionaries and missions work, pose with a sign on their 2008 mission trip to Hawaii. Through Acteen, the girls take one large mission trip a year and several smaller trips to local places.

Kati Miinch, now a senior at Jackson High School, has been involved with Acteens through First Baptist Jackson since the seventh grade. Her two older sisters were active in it and her mother, Diane, leads the group and serves as the State Specialist for Acteens in Missouri.

Kati Miinch credited her mother for getting her so active in Acteens, but said she loves the programs and "just being able to influence other girls."

Kati Miinch and Petzoldt both went on the 2008 mission trip to Hawaii. Miinch refers to it as the best week of her life.

"I expected it to be beautiful," she said. "But the people, they made you feel like family."

The girls and others on the trip made and passed out lunches for the homeless, handed out bottles of water to people on the beach and handed out coffee on a street corner.

Photo submitted by Diane MiinchGirls in the Acteens group from First Baptist Jackson make sack lunches for the homeless on a mission trip to Hawaii.

The missions they went on, the year-round activities they do, like visiting Diana's Boarding Home in Scopus, Mo., and walking dogs at the Humane Society in Cape Girardeau, helped the two girls be selected as panelists.

"We do a lot of like church work for the people in church like raking," Kati Miinch said. She said her years in Acteens have inspired her.

"It's taught me a lot about giving back to my community," she said. "I actually want to become a missionary."

charris@semisourian.com

388-3641

Photo submitted by Diane MiinchGirls from the Acteen First Baptist Jackson chapter hand out sack lunches to homeless in Hawaii.