EVA HENLEY(center), executive vice president of Missions Our Mission, presents final payment of $70,000 to Pastor Eugene Ivanov (left) for construction of a three-story building to house Calvary Baptist Church in Odessa, Ukraine. Missions Our Mission, based in San Angelo, provided a total of $150,000 for the Ukranian church. At right is Olga Carter, president of Missions Our Mission. Others in the background include Craig Freeman, pastor of Ferndale Baptist Church in Dallas, attorney Nathan East of Portland and volunteer Joyce Daffern of Abilene. Many Texas Baptists were involved in providing funds for the new church.

Baptist Briefs
___ Music conference selects leadership. The Southern Baptist Church Music Conference has selected two Texans among its executive council for the 2000-2001 year. David Music of Fort Worth will serve as president-elect, and Cindy Berry of Killeen will serve as a local church representative. The professional organization for Baptist church musicians will hold its next conference June 3-5 at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
___ Alliance mulls name change. Directors of the Alliance of Baptists will recommend a name change at the group's convocation next spring. The new name, Alliance of Baptists in the U.S.A., would reduce confusion overseas, where the group is sometimes mistaken for the Baptist World Alliance, and better communicate that it is a national, and not a regional, organization, according the Alliance's November newsletter.
___ Illinois adopts family language. A vote to add the Baptist Faith & Message's 1998 family amendment to the constitution of the Illinois State Baptist Association fell just short of a required two-thirds majority. Despite that, messengers to the Nov. 1-2 Illinois annual meeting later affirmed in a separate vote the language that says, among other things, that wives should submit to their husbands. The Illinois convention's constitution will continue to use the wording of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message, but that could change, because a constitution-and-bylaws committee next year is expected to review changes made to the faith statement by the Southern Baptist Convention this year.
___ McClendon dies. Baptist theologian and educator James William McClendon Jr., 76, died Oct. 30 in Altadena, Calif. He studied under T.B. Maston and W.T. Connor, then taught at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Stanford, Notre Dame, Temple and Baylor universities, as well as Fuller Theological Seminary. He finished the third volume of his systematic theology, "Witness" on his deathbed.

Baptist Standard