Posted: 11/24/04

New Secretary of State probably
won't impact religious freedom policy

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)— President Bush's choice of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell may not mean much change in the United States' foreign policy regarding religious-freedom issues, experts on the subject maintained.

Bush formally selected Rice days after her 50th birthday and one day after Powell announced his resignation. Rice was raised in Jim Crow-era Alabama, the daughter of an African-American Presbyterian minister. She was the first woman of color to serve as national security adviser, and, if confirmed by the Senate, will break the same barrier at the State Department. She is a professing evangelical Christian.

But her actions as secretary of state may differ little from those of her two predecessors—who often came under fire from advocates of international religious freedom—in regard to making religious-liberty and other human-rights issues more central to American foreign policy.

"I'm not optimistic" about Rice's appointment heralding renewed emphasis on religious freedom, said Larry Uzzell, president of the Virginia-based group International Religious Freedom Watch.

He pointed to a press briefing Rice had with reporters prior to Bush's 2002 trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian studies is Rice's area of academic expertise.

In the press briefing, Rice noted that Bush was to visit a Christian cathedral and a recently restored Jewish synagogue in that city, giving him "the chance to witness firsthand the right to freedom of worship, which is now thriving in Russia."

Uzzell said that was, at best, a misleading characterization.

"It was shortly after a wave of expulsions of Roman Catholic clergy from Russia" in addition to several other incidents curtailing religious freedom in the former Soviet Union, he said.

"I was extremely disappointed that somebody in Dr. Rice's position would make such an unqualified statement about the state of church-state relations in Russia. That was not helpful for those of us who are trying to nudge that still semi-authoritarian country in the right direction. And right now, Russia is going in the wrong direction."

Of Rice's commitment to religious freedom as a central focus of American foreign policy, Uzzell continued, "I think Condoleezza Rice is in the Washington mainstream on that issue—and that is not a compliment."

A senior State Department official familiar with human-rights issues, speaking on the condition that his name not be published, expressed more optimism that his new boss would pay close attention to international religious-freedom issues because of her own "personal sensitivity to religious faith" and the support of the president.

"I can say, as far as the administration goes, and religious-freedom advocacy going forward into a second term, you'll see an ongoing commitment to religious freedom," the official said.

Some religious-freedom observers—such as the independent United States Commission on International Religious Freedom—have criticized the State Department under Powell's leadership and that of his predecessor, Madeleine Albright, for not doing enough to use the mechanisms provided by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act to punish countries that commit egregious violations of their citizens' liberty of conscience.

That act created the commission to serve as a watchdog agency and also created an ambassador-at-large position for international religious freedom within the State Department itself.

The department is charged with publishing an annual report on international religious freedom, and with designating major religious-liberty violators as countries of particular concern under the terms of the 1998 law. The law then sets forth a series of actions, including sanctions, the government can take against those countries.

Although the department has named several nations countries of particular concern under the act, it has not invoked any additional U.S. sanctions on the countries other than those already in place for other reasons.

Robert Seiple, the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, said that was partially due to the relatively toothless nature of the religious-freedom office, the human-rights division of the State Department and the department itself in the Washington power scheme.

"If the weakest office in the weakest bureau in the weakest agency in Washington, D.C., is going to have any validity to it, there has to be a massive effort to change that reality or that perception," he said.

"When I was at the State Department, part of my frustration in making things work was that I felt we were part of the junior varsity," Seiple said. He now is president of the Pennsylvania-based Institute for Global Engagement, which seeks to find realistic and pragmatic ways to advance religious freedom around the world.

Seiple said one way to gain more influence for religious-freedom issues would be to focus more government agencies, such as the Defense Department and the National Security Council, on religious issues.

"We have to find a way for anyone in government working on the issue of religious freedom to be associated with the strongest agency, and the strongest bureau, in the strongest office in Washington, D.C.," he said.

That—and a strengthening of the role of the State Department—may become more of a reality under Rice, he noted, due to her close personal and ideological relationship with Bush. Powell is generally believed to have disagreed often with the stances of other senior administration officials on foreign-policy issues, while Rice is one of Bush's closest advisers.

"Now, the agency that houses religious freedom is headed up by someone who not only has the ear of the president, she knows him well enough to finish his sentences," Seiple said. "That should augur well for this issue. That, and the times in which we live—highlighted by the first war of the 21st century being a religious war."

But, he added, "Whether it will do it or not, I don't know. But one could optimistically look at Condi Rice's presence there and say, given her association with the president, the State Department is not going to be the junior varsity in this equation."

Nonetheless, Uzzell argued, the war on terrorism may lead to further muting of a human-rights critique of countries—such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia—that are vital to the United States' interest, in favor of maintaining good relations with them.

"I think it was clear even before Secretary Powell's resignation that the same kinds of policies in the war on terror are going to continue. And I think it's clear from the developments of the last three years that that's not good for religious freedom," he said. "Like any war, that means you have to develop some alliances with pretty unsavory characters."

Posted: 11/24/04

Stem cell research, gay marriage
opposed by Louisiana Baptist messengers

ALEXANDRIA, La. (ABP)—Messengers to the Louisiana Baptist Convention approved eight resolutions without discussion—including statements against embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage and homosexuality—during the closing session of their annual meeting, even though leaders acknowledged a quorum may not have been present.

Louisiana Baptists urged an end to all funding—public and private—for embryonic stem-cell research, diverting it instead to adult stem-cell research. The statement notes embryonic stem-cell research requires human embryos be destroyed, which it declares "morally equivalent to murder."

Messengers declared support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The Federal Marriage Amendment, they said, is needed to offset the push to legalize same-sex marriages in the country.

Another resolution urged Louisiana Baptists to continue to address the issue of homosexuality from a "biblical" standpoint. The statement asserts homosexuality is becoming more acceptable but remains an "abomination unto God" and "unrighteous." It calls on pastors to continue "stating very plainly what the Bible teaches about homosexuality."

Louisiana Baptists were encouraged to embrace a "biblical worldview," alleging that only 4 percent of American adults and 9 percent of self-professed Christians do so. Those who do not embrace such a view are more accepting of abortion, pornography, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, drunkenness, profanity, adultery and gambling, the resolution notes. The resolution urges people to repent of their slackness and indifference in such things and calls on them to stand against every effort to undermine the authority of Scripture.

Messengers elected three officers endorsed by the Louisiana Inerrancy Fellowship. President Philip Robertson, pastor of Philadelphia Baptist Church in Deville, was re-elected to a second term, despite a challenge from Gil Arthur, pastor of East Leesville Baptist Church in Leesville. Robertson won the election 787 to 656.

Three times in the last eight years, challengers have arisen to unsuccessfully oppose the sitting president for a second term.

Gary Richerson, pastor at Peniel Baptist Church in Glenmora, was elected first vice president over one other nominee. Mitch Harris, pastor at Goodwood Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, was elected second vice president without opposition.

Messengers welcomed David Hankins as the convention's new executive director. Hankins, a former Louisiana pastor who serves as executive vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, was elected in October and will begin his duties in February, succeeding Dean Doster, who is retiring.

In other business, messengers approved a static budget of $22 million for 2005. The portion forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention was increased from 35.25 percent to 35.5 percent, despite a motion that the amount be kept in Louisiana to assist in a time of leadership transition.

Posted: 11/24/04

New Orleans trustees take step
toward 'sole membership' compliance

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary attorney Don Richard recently issued a letter to Southern Baptist Convention attorneys, providing documentation about sole membership language approved by seminary trustees during a closed executive session in mid-October.

Previously, the exact nature of the actions taken in the closed session was unclear, even though the trustees publicly released two motions they had approved.

The news is significant, observers noted, because it signals the seminary’s compliance with the request by SBC messengers at the 2004 annual meeting that the seminary adopt sole membership at its October board meeting by amending the seminary's charter.

Richard also indicated trustees had abandoned interest in offering alternatives. Seminary President Chuck Kelley previously had stated other options would be placed before messengers next June.

"When the trustees of NOBTS met in executive session and voted on this matter, all of the trustees had before them several proposed charter amendments," Richard wrote in the letter, which was addressed to SBC attorney Jim Guenther. "All proposed charter amendments were rejected with the exception of the proposed charter amendment sent to the seminary by the Executive Committee of the SBC several years ago."

Richard noted the seminary also intends to repeat previously expressed concerns about polity and Louisiana law when the amended charter is presented for consideration at the 2005 SBC annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

The language adopted during the executive session is the "exact charter that was proposed" by the Executive Committee, Richard said.

"However, the trustees passed a further motion which directs the executive committee of NOBTS and undersigned counsel to draft reservations which were expressed by the trustees for presentation for the 2005 convention once they are finally approved by the NOBTS Executive Committee in December of 2004."

In recent weeks, by exchanging letters, attorneys for both the seminary and the convention have worked to reach an understanding. Augie Boto, general counsel and vice president for convention policy with the SBC Executive Committee, said a letter was received in early November from Richard with suggested wording changes to a proposed charter amendment.

"That letter, as well as the wording of the motions, both seemed to couch the approval as conditional on subsequent events or yet-to-be-determined language,” Boto said.

The Richard letter received by SBC attorneys Nov. 8 offered "some language changes which were submitted to us by our retained expert Dick Wolfe of Jones Walker" and indicated that the finished product would be presented in coming weeks, "no later than December." But Richard's most recent letter—with the news that trustees did indeed adopt sole membership while in closed session—may indicate that a resolution is at least one step closer.

"I see no reason why the Executive Committee cannot review the material in February, and make a formal recommendation to the messengers in June regarding the specific language that the NOBTS board has approved," Boto said.

New Orleans trustees passed two motions at their Oct. 13 meeting, making both public that day. One, which passed 35-1, read: "The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Board of Trustees move(s) to propose to the Southern Baptist Convention the amendment to our charter requested by the convention in Indianapolis, Ind., in 2004 regarding sole membership, as outlined by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, with the attached reservations regarding legal and polity concerns and possible minor language adjustments to which the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention would agree. We further move that the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary president explain the reservations to convention messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tenn., in 2005."

The trustees unanimously approved a second motion that read: "That the reservations regarding the legal and polity concerns be referred to the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary executive committee and to the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's legal counsel for further review with the final document being presented to the full Board before the April 2005 meeting."

Sole membership is a legal mechanism that allows a parent organization to establish its ownership (as sole member of the corporation) of a subordinate entity while setting limitations to the parent entity's control, thereby limiting the legal liability of the parent for the subsidiary.

The other five SBC seminaries previously have adopted sole membership, as have the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, LifeWay Christian Resources, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the Annuity Board (doing business as GuideStone Financial Resources).

But New Orleans Seminary representatives have resisted, saying sole membership violates Baptist polity and also is incompatible with Louisiana law. However, NOBTS officials also have stated the seminary would adopt sole membership if the messengers requested it. The SBC messengers did so last June by a vote of about a two-thirds majority. A vote approving the seminary's revised charter at the 2005 annual meeting is now all that remains before the new governing documents can be filed and made effective.

The articles of incorporation Richard attached to his Nov. 10 letter state, in part: "The corporation shall have one member, the Southern Baptist Convention, a religious nonprofit corporation chartered by act of the Senate and House of Representatives of the state of Georgia. The membership of the Southern Baptist Convention shall not be cancelled except by the amendment of the articles of incorporation with the consent of the Southern Baptist Convention."

The Southern Baptist Convention is a Georgia corporation, founded in Augusta, Ga., in 1845.

Posted: 11/24/04

New Senate leaders cut across political assumptions

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Senate Democrats, whose party officially supports abortion rights, have elected an abortion opponent as their leader. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans, whose party officially opposes abortion, appear ready to name a rare pro-choice senator as chair of one of the Senate's most powerful committees.

Senate Democrats elected Nevada Sen. Harry Reid as minority leader by acclamation. Reid, a Mormon, is a longtime opponent of abortion rights who voted in favor of a 2003 law that bans so-called "partial-birth" abortions.

On the Republican side, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter appears to have quelled an uproar from social conservatives against his elevation to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter is a moderate who supports abortion rights and who generally supported church-state separation.

Dozens of Religious Right groups and other conservative organizations had asked Specter's colleagues to bar him from the chairmanship after comments he made to reporters shortly after President Bush was re-elected . Specter implied Bush should not bother sending far-right nominees for Supreme Court vacancies to the Senate for confirmation, because they would likely be filibustered by Democrats.

Nominees to the federal bench first much be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the chairman has wide latitude over which nominees receive a hearing.

But after meetings with Senate GOP leaders and Republican Judiciary Committee members, several expressed support for Specter.

"Senator Specter handled himself very well" in the meeting, said outgoing committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah, according to the Washington Post. "I'm for him, as I should be."

But in an e-mail newsletter, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council asked supporters not to let up pressure on other senators, since a majority of the entire Senate Republican Conference must confirm Specter's nomination when the group meets Jan. 5 to organize for the new session of Congress.

"Each Republican senator must be challenged to stand up for the values of the voters that helped them gain solid control of the Senate, rather than capitulate to the political protocol that advances privilege above principle," Perkins wrote.

Posted: 11/24/04

Denton church invites International
students over for Thanksgiving dinner

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DENTON –Thanksgiving and Christmas are about more than turkey and dressing for some members of First Baptist Church in Denton.

They use the holidays as an opportunity to share American customs and the Christian message with international students at the University of North Texas through food, fellowship and prayer.

Young people crowd into a church-owned house for the chance to practice their English and learn more about how Americans celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, said Codi Knowles, International Friendship and Sunday school coordinator.

Participants included students from Brazil, Japan, China and Korea.

The celebration includes a prayer over the meal and several First Baptist Church members thanking God for working in their lives in various ways. Then Christians get to know the students and provide more information about each holiday.

The church works with International Friendship to partner American students and families with international students in hopes of sharing the Christian faith, said Linda Knowles, Codi’s mother and director of International Friendship.

“We can talk about all the Thanksgiving dinners we want, … but it’s all about them coming to know the Lord,” Linda Knowles said.

Jim Herbison, another member of First Baptist Church, said serving these students through Bible studies, events and fellowship is like ministering on a foreign field. Young people come from many countries, including Brazil, Japan, China and Korea.

Groups of as many as 100 students come five times a year to the University of North Texas and stay as long as two years, Herbison said. That gives First Baptist Church members an opportunity to impact the rest of the world.

Everyone who serves in the ministry is a volunteer who gives many personal resources to see students become Christians. Each spoke of feeling God’s calling to minister to international students.

“Everything that is done here, everything you see here, is done from right here—a place we call our heart,” Linda Knowles said.

Posted: 11/19/04

Protestant ministers cite divorce, negative media influences and materialism as common threats to family, research says

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Divorce, negative influences from the media and materialism are among the most common threats to the family cited by Protestant ministers in a recent study.

Ellison Research, a full-service marketing research firm in Phoenix that conducted the research for LifeWay Christian Resources' Facts & Trends magazine, reported divorce was listed as one of the top three concerns by 43 percent of all ministers surveyed, while 38 percent cited the media as a key issue they need to guard families in their communities against and 36 percent said materialism.

Other matters of concern included absentee fathers, cited by 24 percent of respondents, and families that lack a stay-at-home parent, noted by 22 percent of ministers.

Among Southern Baptists, the top five issues of concern were divorce (53 percent), negative influences from the media (38 percent), materialism (36 percent), absentee fathers (29 percent) and latch-key kids (23 percent), the study found.

Ellison noticed Methodists paid particular attention to parental alcohol and drug use as well as economic issues while seeing less of a threat from pornography and absentee fathers.

Lutherans were more concerned with the impact of materialism and alcohol use by parents and children and were less worried about absentee fathers and latch-key kids.

Pentecostals, the study said, were less concerned than average about materialism and were more concerned that morality is not being taught in schools. Southern Baptists, meanwhile, were more concerned about divorce and less likely to worry about economic issues.

“The level of threat each issue represented often differed from region to region, and no threat was named among the top three by even half of all pastors,” Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research, said.

“Obviously the threats to families differ considerably from one community to the next. An upscale suburban community may be threatened most by materialism or latch-key kids, while a rural area may have real problems with poverty or alcoholism,” he said.

“This could make any nationwide or large-scale initiatives to deal with these problems a challenge, or at least lead to very spotty success.”

The study also asked ministers to agree or disagree with three statements about family. A majority agreed with the statement, “Churches tend to focus so much on 'traditional' families that they do not serve important groups such as singles, childless couples or single parents appropriately.”

Ministers were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: "Churches tend to focus so much on 'traditional' families that they do not serve important groups such as singles, childless couples or single parents appropriately." 12 percent agreed strongly 48 percent agreed somewhat 26 percent disagreed somewhat 14 percent disagreed strongly

Ellison found that 12 percent agreed strongly with that statement, 48 percent agreed somewhat, 26 percent disagreed somewhat and 14 percent disagreed strongly. Southern Baptists were less likely than average to have this perspective, the study said.

Regarding the statement, “Like it or not, the traditional view of family (husband, wife and children) no longer really exists in American society,” about half of ministers agreed. Again, Southern Baptists were less likely than average to agree.

When asked about the statement, “No matter how society defines family, churches need to promote a traditional view of family (husband, wife and children),” 71 percent agreed strongly.

Ellison Research said its sample of 695 Protestant ministers included only those who currently are leading churches. The study's total sample is accurate to within plus or minus 3.6 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level with a 50 percent response distribution.

The study was conducted in all 50 states, using a representative sample of pastors from all Protestant denominations. Respondents' geography, church size and denomination were tracked for appropriate representation and accuracy.

More data from this study is available at www.ellisonresearch.com/PastorStudy.htm.

Posted: 11/05/04

Woman won't rest until every orphan has a clean bed

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

HOUSTON–Jen Gash wondered if God brought her halfway around the world–from Nashville, Tenn., to Chisinau, Moldova–just to break her heart.

She reeled from the stench of the unwashed children and their tattered and soiled mattresses. She wept over the empty, young eyes pleading for affection. She staggered to comprehend the vast needs she saw in the government orphanage in Chisinau. She fell asleep each night asking God what he wanted her to do.

And she woke up each morning with the same question on her lips.

Jen Gash and one of the boys from a Moldovan orphanage that inspired her to team with Baptist Child & Family Services to launch Sweet Sleep to provide clean new beds for the children. (Shawn Pierce Photo)

Every day, she sat on the beds with the children, telling them Bible stories, sharing hugs and smiles.

One afternoon, “I felt another piece of my heart break when I saw a boy named Mihak put a piece of pizza we had bought him under his pillow,” she remembered. “I finally began to hear and understand more of my calling in Moldova and really in the world.”

That's when she envisioned Sweet Sleep, a grassroots effort to provide “clean, warm beds to sleep in and feel loved and protected in.” Her first goal was to provide beds for the orphans of Moldova, but her larger aim is to help “all the orphans in the world.”

Sweet Sleep partners with Houston-based Christian Emergency Relief, International, the group that sponsored her trip to Moldova. CERI is the overseas outreach of Baptist Child & Family Services, an agency of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Mihak didn't hide his pizza between just any old torn mattress and dirty pillow.

Beds in Moldovan orphanages are World II remnants. Exhausted frames warp, and brittle springs sag beneath the weight of the two children who usually share them. Many beds don't even have a mattress, and the children use 15-year-old blankets to protect themselves from the harsh springs.

When they're available, the two-inch-thick mattresses are up to 40 years old. They're soiled from the slumber of hundreds of children, many of them bed-wetters, none of them allowed to bathe more than once a week. When the weather allows, the mattresses hang outside to dry, but they're never washed. Sheets and pillowcases are the stuff of dreams.

The night Gash received her vision, CERI Executive Director Steve Davis led a devotional. A woman asked God to give the children “sweet sleep.”

And Gash began to cry–but this time not in frustration and pain, but because she felt the clear answer to her prayers.

That night, in her private devotions, Gash felt God bring the phrase back to her, telling her she should help provide safe, clean places for his children in Moldova to sleep.

Soon after returning to Nashville, Gash founded Sweet Sleep and began working to answer God's call.

During her first day home, someone gave her a check for $30. Two women in her office said their husbands wanted to go to Moldova on the next trip, but they weren't sure they could do anything. One was a carpenter; the other an experienced handyman.

Gash took that as a sign and began to spread the word: Sweet Sleep wanted to provide 600 beds at a cost of $100 each.

At first, she tried to set up contracts with Moldovan companies to produce the beds. “But God had bigger plans,” she said.

CERI and Sweet Sleep expanded their project. They set up a vocational training program, so that Moldovan Christians could teach the older orphan boys about carpentry and mentor them, all the while building the beds.

CERI provides the tools, and Sweet Sleep provides the materials, mattresses, mattress covers, blankets and pillows.

In August, Gash returned to Moldova.

And despite her own misgivings about being able to put together a team to start the project (“I can't even get anybody to go to Gatlinburg to look at the leaves in fall,” she claims), 19 volunteers had signed up.

They included people she never met, recruited through CERI or through the Sweet Sleep website to visit the tiny Eastern Europe country. They traveled from Kansas City and San Antonio, as well as from Rome, Italy, and Burma.

And when they were done, they all left vowing to return as soon as possible.

Gash and her volunteers realized their endeavor is about more than a vastly improved place to sleep.

Moldova has 27 government orphanages.

“Most of us take for granted the refuge and comfort we feel when we are safe in our own bed,” Gash pointed out. “Yet for most of these children, a bed is the closest thing they have to a hug. It is when they are their most vulnerable and when they are the most alone with their thoughts.

“God let me sense the need to make certain these children understand they are loved. I do not believe most of them know how beautiful and cared about and loved they are. They have never considered the love of a heavenly Father who will always provide, always love, always be there for them.

“A safe, clean bed is a reminder of this amazing truth for those children who have accepted Christ as Savior (as 12 did from her first group of 16) and who will grow in their faith as well as for those who will come to know Jesus later as CERI continues to work in Moldova.”

The children need all the reminders of God's love they can get.

Moldova, the size of Maryland, has 27 government orphanages. The one in Chisinau has 700 residents. But the facility is poorly heated in the bitterly cold winters. Food is limited. Children get two shirts, one pair of pants and one pair of socks each year, plus one pair of shoes every-other year. No winter hats, coats or gloves.

At age 18, they are discharged with no help, no job. Ten percent of the young people who are discharged commit suicide within a year. Of the boys, 70 percent wind up in jail or join a gang or the Mafia. Of the girls, 70 percent reportedly are sold or forced into prostitution–half by their own families, friends or acquaintances.

A Christian Moldovan carpenter headed up the Sweet Sleep kick-off project last summer. He is an active member of Jesus Savior Baptist Church in Chisinau, and he continues to supervise the work.

Like all Baptist Child & Family Services programs and partnerships, the bed-building project works toward several goals at once. In addition to building beds, the young apprentices are placed in a situation where they can succeed but have to work.

Arthur is typical. The 16-year-old has “aged out” of the orphanage. Gash signed up a transition sponsor for him and 20 other orphans. The sponsor provides one-half of his monthly living expenses. His salary, $10 for each bed he builds, pays the other half of his living expenses and provides funds for his savings account. Unknown to him, his sponsor also makes regular deposits into his savings account.

Over time, the number of beds he is asked to build will be scaled back, so he will need to seek other carpentry work to generate more income. Eventually, he will be completely on his own, and other apprentices will take over the bed-building. When that happens, he will learn about the sponsor-funded savings.

Vicilli is another success story–even though he can't be trained as a carpenter. He has epilepsy, and Moldovan law forbids anyone who suffers seizures from operating power equipment. Beyond that, society in general considers epileptics to be mentally handicapped and incapable of paid labor. But the Sweet Sleep program has hired Vicilli to keep the supplies stocked and do the sanding and staining, jobs that don't require power tools.

“Imagine what that means to him,” Gash challenges. “Here is a boy who chose to live at the orphanage rather than with his parents because they beat him so severely that his scalp is deeply scarred. And now he has Christians loving him in the name of Jesus.”

Then she expands the vision from a single boy to all the youth of the country.

“Imagine these very teens who see such a bleak future today but who will soon have hope because of what God is able to show them and imprint on their hearts as they learn a skill that will one day enable them to provide food and a way of life,” she says.

“Imagine them with a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishment and a sense of love they will feel for the first time in their lives–which will lead to a hope that will make an eternal difference in their lives.”

Gash, a member of Brentwood Baptist Church in Franklin, Tenn., has raised about half the $60,000 she needs to reach her first goal of 600 beds for the Moldovan government orphanages.

Now she's working on clearing her calendar so she can spend six weeks in Moldova between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day 2005.

“Moldova and Sweet Sleep is pretty much all God has been doing in my life for the past year and a half,” she acknowledges.

“I have many prayers for these children and for the work God is doing and will continue to do through all of the hands and feet he has activated for Moldova.

“I have prayers for the girls to learn how to sew the bedding, giving them the same opportunities and hope as the bed-building gives the boys.

“As the New Testament says, 'Nothing is impossible.'”

For more about Sweet Sleep, visit its website at http://www.sweetsleep.org. For more about Baptist Child & Family Services, visit http://bcfs.net.

Storylist for 11/15/04 issue

BGCT Annual Meeting
• African-American Texas Baptists want to be full partners in BGCT, leaders say

• Churches can minister to Alzheimer's caregivers, family

• 'Nitty-gritty' work of BGCT reorganization ahead, leaders say

• BGCT adopts $47.3 million budget for 2005

• Texas Baptist can play pivotal role among Baptists worldwide, BWA official maintains

• Cross Over San Antonio events yield commitments to Christ

• Hold on until God provides a 'second wind' for ministry, Dailey preaches

• Texas Baptists look to future, celebrate diversity

• 'Covenant of trust' for Baptist ministers deals with ethics

• Exhibit hall draws diverse crowd

• To battling Baptists, BGCT president says 'Here's a rose'

• Congregatonal health ministries offering wholeness

• Hispanic Fellowship explores family lessons from familiar parable

• Historical Society explores how associations handle conflict

• Inaugural intercultural banquet stresses unity

• Jeremiah offers lessons for ministers, ETBU professor tells BGCT workshop

• Vision, empowerment crucial building blocks for healthy churches, Ballinger pastor says

• Texas Baptists elect first Hispanic president

• Ministry awards go to church planter, pastor & social worker

• God used headline to call minister to invest his life in Minnesota-Wisconsin

• Texas Baptist Missions Foundation honors three laypersons

• Texas Baptists pray for 'longer arms' to embrace a world that needs Christ

• BGCT must bridge cultural divide, ethicist says

• BGCT elects top officers reflecting the convention's growing ethnic diversity

• BGCT messengers affirm marriage as union between a man and a woman

• Seminar explores impact of BGCT reorganization on churches

• New BGCT president calls on Texas Baptists to rally around missions

• Churches should prepare before disaster strikes, TBM leaders recommend

• 'Once in a lifetime' venture becomes life-changing mission for TBM volunteer

• God rewarded TBM with expanded opportunities, leader insists

• Texas WMU board fills staff vacancy, hears reports on missions programs

• Texas WMU celebrates families involved in missions globally

• Look for common ground to avoid worship wars, ETBU dean suggests


• On the Move

• Around the State

• Texas Tidbits




• Virginia Baptists elect first African-American officer; agree to apply for BWA membership

• Florida voters narrowly approve call for local referenda on legalized slot machines

• Florida Baptists voice support for efforts to ban same-sex marriage

• 70-year-old Baptist layman swims the English Channel, breaks record

• Baptist Briefs




• Falwell plans to 'resurrect' Moral Majority with new name

• Few Americans think kids well-grounded morally, poll shows




• On the Move

• Around the State

• Classified Ads

• Texas Baptist Forum



• EDITORIAL San Antonio provides historic stage for Texas Baptists

• DOWN HOME: Lifetime prayers yield a blessing

• ANOTHER VIEW: 'Gift' must be exercised responsibly

• TOGETHER: BGCT makes progress in San Antonio

• Texas Baptist Forum


• Cybercolumn by John Duncan: Blessed rest




• BaptistWay Bible Series for Nov. 21: Christ fashions strength out of human weakness

• LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for Nov. 21: Jesus strings puts a few pearls on a string

• LifeWay Family Bible Series for Nov. 21: Thanksgiving should be a regular occurrence

See articles from previous issue 11/08/04 here.