$800,000 goal set for next year's Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering

April 21, 2003

$800,000 goal set for next year's
Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___FLOWER MOUND--The Christian Life Commission has set an $800,000 giving goal for the 2004 Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger and approved funding for about 90 relief and development ministry projects.
___The 2004 offering plan, approved by the commission during its April 3-4 meeting at Bishop Mason retreat center, allocates more than 60 percent of receipts to international projects.
___The offering dedicates $352,000 to hunger relief and development projects in North America, with $195,800 devoted to 17 associational ministries in Texas; $120,000 for projects in nine other states and Puerto Rico; $28,200 for projects in Mexico; and $8,000 for ministries in Canada.
___Ministries in Africa are slated to receive $144,000, including $35,000 for a ministry to people with HIV/AIDS and children orphaned by the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo and $31,500 for refugee camp ministries in Sudan.
___Central and South America-based ministries will be allotted $90,000 from the offering, with half that total earmarked for Reencontro Educational and Social Ministries, sponsored by First Baptist Church of Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
___Ministries in the Middle East will receive $78,000, including $40,000 for refugee relief and agricultural development projects among the 28 million Kurds currently living in southeast Turkey, northeast Syria, northern Iraq and western Iraq.
___The offering dedicates $111,000 to ministries in Asia and the Far East, including $45,000 for water, sanitation and community development projects in Bangladesh.
___Projects in Eastern Europe slated to receive funds through the offering are $14,000 for a program to help homeless and neglected children in Estonia and $11,000 for Russia, including a soup kitchen in Siberia and a ministry to the Romany "Gypsy" people.
___Joe Haag, director of special moral concerns with the Christian Life Commission, noted the commission received $3 million in project requests.
___Last year, Texas Baptists gave $686,399 to the offering, compared to $812,815 in 2001. That marked the third consecutive year of declining receipts. The commission authorized staff to use a small percentage of the offering for promotion and education if necessary.
___ Money given to the Texas hunger offering will be distributed in Texas and around the world.

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