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Orange graduate bound for Romania

June 3, 2008 12:15 am

Brittany Garton has followed her parents into mission work. And after Saturday's graduation from Orange County High School, she will leave on her sixth trip to Romania.

"I saw how much they loved it," the 18-year-old senior said recently, "and I wanted to go. God probably had a lot to do with it."

She plans to continue her mission work and move to Romania eventually. But first she will return home in August to attend Bluefield College, a self-described Christ-centered, liberal-arts college in southwest Virginia.

Garton plans to major in Christian studies with a concentration in children's ministries and a double minor in business administration and children's theater.

She will be going into college as a sophomore and will finish her studies in three years, thanks to her dual-enrollment classes. She took mainly online classes through Germanna Community College in addition to spending her entire four years of high school as a student in the Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School.

She will graduate in the top 10, probably at No. 6 in a class of 367 students.

She has balanced challenging academics with service to her school. She has been her class's treasurer for three years, and, for the first three years of high school she managed field hockey, basketball and baseball teams.

"I couldn't do it my senior year," she said, "because my work schedule got complicated."

For the past two years, Garton has worked as the evening and weekend receptionist at the Orange County Nursing Home.

"I learned a lot of patience there," she said. "I was kind of shy, but I learned how to interact with people in high emotional states."

For three years, she has co-chaired the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. This follows naturally from her having fun in "religious stuff."

Garton is an only child, "but I'm not spoiled," she said.

"My parents made sure that I wouldn't be. I was always with other kids and in church. My mom is a school librarian in Culpeper and my dad's a truck driver."

The family attends Gordonsville Baptist Church, where Garton has been active in youth groups and "a lot of Bible study."

But she's anxious to take her work out into the world, and she's eager to start her summer mission trip.

"Romania kind of changed my world, and gave me the purpose and drive to do anything," she said.

"What we do in life always impacts someone else. The work in Romania gave me a personal goal. I've helped someone achieve something more for themselves."

What Garton has been doing in Romania so far is helping assure the early education of Gypsy children.

In the 1990s, members of the Baptist church in Romania sent a request to the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. Gypsies, a small ethnic group in Romania, were not attending church because they could not understand or read the Romanian language, the church there explained.

So the mission started Project Ruth to teach Gypsy children to read. It began with a kindergarten program and has been expanded through the eighth grade.

It is now a separate charity serving 120 students in Bucharest, Romania's capital.

"We don't want them to give up their language and culture by any means," Garton said. "We teach them Romanian so they can learn and be adequately successful in the national work force."

After college, Garton plans to live in Romania and continue the work she started before she even began high school.

"I feel like I'm following in the footsteps Jesus laid out for me," she said.

Robin Knepper: 540/972-5701
Email: rknepper@earthlink.net