Former school teacher brings hope to Alabama community

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Grace McGraw ends the tutoring lesson and says goodbye to her young student. She steps outside to get a breath of fresh air and is reminded of where her obedience to God has brought her.

McGraw had been used to teaching school in an affluent section of Birmingham to nicely dressed children of parents in a community known as Vestavia Hills. Her work environment was pleasant, grass covered the lawns and streets were well maintained.

John Swain

M-POWER is the inner city ministry led by Southern Baptist missionary Grace McGraw that gives at-risk children the opportunities to reverse a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

Today she stands outside the M-POWER Ministries building where she guides a staff providing new hope to a community riddled by social and economic problems.

Complicated world, problems

As she looks down the street she reflects how far she has come in the past five years. Her world is far more complicated with problems caused by crowded public schools where children encounter gangs, drugs are offered as a way to escape reality, and prostitution is common. Her office is now located on the edge of a high-crime community known as Woodlawn/Avondale and, she says, she may as well be serving in a Third World country due to the economic, cultural, and social barriers she has had to overcome.

McGraw and her husband, John, are among nearly 5,200 missionaries in the United States and Canada supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. They are featured during the March 6-13 Week of Prayer and North American Mission Study, which this year focuses on the theme "Answer His Call."

For 28 years McGraw had served as a schoolteacher and had plans to keep going for two more years to round it out at 30. But at 52 years of age she felt a call to retire and, after a season of resistance and rationalization, heeded the call.

John Swain

North American missionary Grace McGraw taught school 28 years in an affluent section of Birmingham, but God called her to the inner city where she now provides new hope through a variety of activities including an after-school program.

Shortly after turning in her letter of resignation, she learned from her pastor at Dawson Memorial about a new ministry that would be started by the Birmingham Baptist Association and several churches.

When she heard the new executive director speak in a worship service at her church she could not shake the impression that she would be a part of the ministry - but as a volunteer, not as a full-time employee.

"I didn't know anything about working in a ministry to low-income residents. I was a schoolteacher, not a social worker," she remembers thinking.

But that was exactly what the ministry needed.

Most of the residents had no high school education, and their children were on the same track due to the overcrowded schools and lack of encouragement from adults to excel in their class work. They were torn between temptations of either selling or dealing drugs and came to school hungry in the mornings.

John Swain

Grace McGraw, left, leads 20 volunteers who help students and parents with reading skills. "Many can’t even read or understand the Bible, so we tutor them, with a healthy dose of Bible study."

"I learned to come to the office every day and just say, 'Father, show me what you want me to do today.' That taught me to be totally dependent on Him and to be sensitive to the needs that I began to see," she explains.

Reversing trends

Today, three years later, she oversees 20 volunteers and a popular after-school tutoring ministry that gives at-risk children the opportunity to reverse the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that has characterized their lives since birth. However, the ministry does not just relate to children but to their parents as well, through literacy missions ministry evangelism.

A popular GED program helps parents prepare to receive their high school diploma, and adult reading and writing classes help them improve literacy skills.

"The reading level of adults and children is such that they can't even read or understand the Bible. Tutoring for both groups - with a healthy dose of Bible study - is changing that and bringing hope to Woodlawn/Avondale."