Posted: 2/04/05

By Terri Jo Ryan

Special to the Baptist Standard

WACO–Chris Seay once told Mother Jones, a countercultural political magazine, he had been laid up in a hospital bed with appendicitis and a raging fever when God spoke to him. And the divine instructions were precise: Open a church for 20-somethings in Waco on Jan. 15, 1995.

Seven weeks later, right on schedule, Seay and David Crowder, a Waco-based recording artist, launched University Baptist Church. That first Sunday, about 275 people showed up.

Today, weekly attendance is about 600, and the church still is catering to the generation known to demographers as the Millennials. Something between a coffeehouse, comedy club and a catacomb, University Baptist Church meets in a cavernous space painted in Mardi Gras hues and sporting an ear-numbing sound system–not your father's Christian sanctuary.

And that's the point. This congregation, Baptist in name and doctrine but eclectic and ecumenical in flavor, is 97 percent college-aged–and 100-percent committed to “living in community” with other followers of Jesus Christ, said Kyle Lake, its pastor the last four years.

In mid-1999, when Seay left Waco to start a similar postmodern congregation in Houston, University Baptist tapped Lake as pastor to lead the flock of 20-somethings whom some observers have called “a flash mob of the Holy Spirit.” The regulars–including a handful of families and a few high-schoolers–spurn rigid religious ritual and base their worship services around music, art and video presentations.

“We value the arts,” Lake said. “We are trying to reclaim the arts. Even the walls speak to our desire to glorify God.”

Indeed, the ambience is mostly late attic, early garage sale. But by the pastor's office, a mural based on Michelangelo's God giving Adam the spark of life harkens back to an age when almost all art was religious and almost all songs were hymns.

University Baptist Church pastors, (left to right), Kyle Lake, senior pastor; Ben Dudley, community pastor, and David Crowder, music and arts pastor; lead worship. (Photo by Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald)

“The backside,” a dark, spacious room at the back of the building, is furnished through the thrift stores of Waco, Lake said. An offbeat collection of kitchen chairs and tables and couches aplenty are grouped into conversation pits or around another stage and even more band stand equipment, like a high-schooler's basement hangout for his or her pals.

Music is vital to how this generation communicates, Lake said. “It is how we express ourselves as human beings.”

But for all the tie-dyed, velvet or Madras fabrics, edgy website or other funky slacker chic at UBC, Lake said: “We also embrace church history. We look to the pitfalls and windfalls of the early church to give us direction in the here and now.”

So, it is not unusual to see a stone statue of the Virgin Mary in a niche, surrounded by candles, although such a sight would be out of character for most Baptist churches. A vintage depiction of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, reaching into his big red sack of toys is posted outside the church nursery. In another niche near the pastor's office is the familiar presence of St. Francis, who has been embraced by the counterculture because he communed with animals and all of creation.

“We're not anti-history or anti-tradition here,” Lake said. “Some people in the church come from a (Roman) Catholic background. We consider ourselves 'catholic' in the universal sense of the word.”

Seay started the church near the Baylor campus in 1995 as a mission of Beverly Hills Baptist Church. With the help of Waco Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the church started meeting–first in a cinderblock building it quickly outgrew and then the Hippodrome Theatre in downtown Waco. The last seven years, members have worshipped in a former grocery store.

Paul Stripling, emeritus director of missions for Waco Baptist Association, was one of the early supporters of the church and its approach. Some of his Baptist colleagues, Stripling said, were “less than enthusiastic” when hearing the proposal from the casually clad, spiky-haired and goatee-chinned Seay. But their skepticism was swept away by the success of the youthful enterprise.

Stripling recalled the “miraculous, explosive growth” of the new church, which met in the old 12th Street Mission for less than two months until it outgrew the space.

Lake said the young people he ministers to, at a very transitional stage of life, are searching for a community at the same time they are pushing away from the tribe of their birth.

“We connect with students when they are asking themselves who they are and what they are doing here and differentiating their own beliefs versus what their parents believe,” Lake said.

The typical member, at least at the start, is a “disillusioned college student who perhaps dropped out of church for a few years, or feel God is irrelevant to their lives. They equate church with God, which is not necessarily so.”

Lake said critics who deride emergent Christianity as being all about the haircuts and the music and shoes and the thrift-store threads, tattoos and body-piercings, are missing the point. “Let's look past the exterior and through the stereotype.”

His flock do not choose to immerse themselves in a Christian bubble, but engage the world. People who attend University Baptist become practiced in the tension between living in the world but not swallowing the whole culture uncritically, he added.

When Community Pastor Ben Dudley, a maturing 20-something, was a freshman at Baylor University a decade ago, he discovered something distinctively different about University Baptist.

“I had grown up in church. I was already really weary of church, to tell the truth,” he said. “But there was no other place like University Baptist. It was so unique. It was fun being around other college students. You could see immediately that this was real. We were on a journey together just to know the love of God.”

A shared vulnerability binds ministers and members, he added. As people who acknowledge their own human frailty and imperfections, they respect leaders who are as “authentic” as they are, not hiding behind a facade of pseudo-perfection. The Bible, after all, is peopled with characters who lie, cheat, steal, get intoxicated, fornicate and commit murder, but God has a purpose for them, he said.

“It's hard to try to be perfect, and that just puts you under undue pressure. It sets you up to fail,” Dudley said. “So I try to live life in the realization that it's by God's grace that I find salvation. It's not my doing good; it's his doing good.”

Posted: 2/04/05

Black Baptist leaders speak to social and political issues

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Leaders of four historically black Baptist denominations closed a landmark joint meeting by issuing a statement on several social and political issues affecting the African-American community.

Meeting in Nashville over a four-day period, officials of the National Baptist Convention USA, the National Baptist Convention of America, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America came together “to participate in collective dialogue about the issues that are important to the survival of the African-American community,” according to a press release from the groups.

Many of the speakers heard by the estimated 10,000 participants dealt with social issues on which the four groups can find common ground, including opposition to government funding of private schools.

The meeting was the first major reunion in 90 years between any of the four groups—formed by schisms within older denominational groups in 1915, 1961 and 1988. While the groups ruled out a formal merger, they pledged to work together.

“A lot of times, we’re talking about the same things but don’t always know it because we’re in four different settings,” said George Brooks, head of educational programs for the National Baptist Convention of America.

The splits in 1915 and 1988 were mainly over control of denominational agencies. But the 1961 division was the most famous. In it, Martin Luther King Jr. and other Baptist leaders who supported the civil-rights movement left to found the Progressive National Baptist Convention after the National Baptist Convention USA elected a president who was less supportive of active resistance to segregation.

Recently President Bush and the Republican Party have attempted to woo African-Americans, who vote heavily Democratic, with stances on social issues that have resonance in a black community that is generally socially conservative. Recently, Bush has met with African-American religious leaders as well as members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

However, the presidents of the four Baptist groups issued a joint statement that opposed many of Bush’s stances. The statement grew from consensus on the issues reached by the conference participants, the leaders said.

The statement opposed the war in Iraq, government funds for scholarships to parochial and other private schools, and Bush’s nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general.

It said the war was “a costly and unnecessary military action begun on grossly inaccurate, misconstrued or distorted intelligence against a nation that did not pose an immediate or realistic threat to the national security of our nation.” It also said the Bush administration should focus more on problems at home. “Democracy in the United States deserves at least as much attention as democracy abroad,” the statement read.

In a keynote address to the delegates, former Democratic presidential candidate and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson questioned Bush’s use of the gay-marriage issue as a way to court support among religious African-Americans.

According to media reports, Jackson asked the participants if any of their churches had been asked to perform same-sex marriages. When none responded, he asked, “Then how did that get in the middle of our agenda?” The audience reportedly stood and cheered.

Posted: 1/21/05

Sri Lankan sign asks, “Is there any hope for refugees like us?”

By Tony Cartledge

North Carolina Biblical Recorder

GALLE, Sri Lanka (ABP)—On the waterfront in Galle City, a road runs parallel to the beach, but there are no cabanas and beach chairs to be seen. Large, colorful shrimp boats lean together on the curb, ripped from their moorings and swept ashore by the infamous tsunami of Dec. 26. Across the street, a long city block has been turned to rubble.

A small Hindu shrine stands partly preserved amid mattress-sized chunks of broken concrete. Parts of two walls remain. Leaning against the broken roof is a crude hand-lettered sign painted on a scrap of plywood. In the swirling cursive script of Sinhalese, it asks, “Is there any hope for refugees like us?”

Behind the sign is an expanse of debris where many houses once stood. Thick concrete and cinderblock walls lie toppled and broken like a child’s Lego set that has been stepped on. A small boat sits near a mattress and a bicycle wheel. House numbers have been scribbled onto paper taped to bits of wall lying about, feeble reminders of where proud homes once stood.

A slim, brown woman picks through the flattened debris of her home. Her name is Weeregoda Mashashi Niluka Priyanthi. She and her husband were working at a nearby bus stand when the tsunami hit. Like hundreds of others, her husband was swept away by the giant waves.

Her daughter was at home but ran inland when the first wave came, and survived. Now every day mother and daughter return to the ruined spot where their home once stood, looking for salvageable items. They don’t know what else to do. Women’s shoes and broken dishes are visible, but the jewelry she seeks—worth 90,000 rupees or about $900—is not to be found.

Caught without his notebook, this reporter picks up a small rectangular piece of paper from the ground so he can write down her name. As he writes, she notices that the other side contains a faded picture, nearly washed out by the seawater. “That is my brother,” she says.

A 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra sent a tsunami speeding across the Indian Ocean on a beautiful, sunny morning after Christmas. An hour later, an estimated 30,000 Sri Lankans were dead, and thousands of homes were destroyed.

A. Fonsaka stands alone, staring silently at the calm blue waters, remembering the day when the sea raged. Fonsaka, like many Sri Lankans, initializes his surname. One’s given name is written last. His home also had been across the street. Now his broken fishing catamaran lies in two large pieces atop the flattened remains of his house. He wears a silver crucifix around his neck. He waits for someone to offer help.

A young man named Nimal, a member of a church in Galle, did not own a home, but the one he was renting washed away.

“I have no home, no clothes but these,” he says, fingering his worn knit shirt. “For the future, I have no income.” Stumbling for the words, he explains that his children can’t go to school because they no longer have the required uniforms.

North of Galle, in the fishing village of Dodanduwa, P. H. Piyarangth is eager to tell what has happened to him. He is a small, dark man with silvering hair and a gray moustache that makes him look older than his face does. In a gesture seen too often since the tsunami, he touches his fingertips to his chest, then holds his hands out, palms up, with a mournful expression. “I am a poor man,” he says. “My mother died. My house finished.”

“Come here,” he says, leading the way past two men making rafters from palm logs with a chain saw and a hand adz. Pausing amid piles of rubble and broken boats near the beach, he stops to point. “This was my mother’s house.” He says something else in Sinhalese. A bystander translates: “He said her house 300 years old.”

Piyarangth keeps walking, keeps pointing at mounds of debris punctuated by an occasional wall.

“This was my brother’s house.” Three walls of a single room remain. “This was my house.” He has stacked salvageable blocks and roofing tiles from the tangled remains. “This was my small brother’s house.” Closer to the ocean, there is no sign of where his younger brother lived.

His mother was washed out to sea when the tsunami came, he says. She could not run fast enough. Piyarangth found her body on the beach. She was one of nine from the village who died. Two were never found.

Piyarangth’s fishing catamaran lies just inland of the beach, broken into several pieces. He survived because of his experience with the sea, he said. As a fisherman, he recognized that the water level was dropping quickly, three hours before the expected low tide. Sensing trouble, he ran to get his family and take them to high ground where they “climbed up in a big house” and escaped the first giant wave.

He watched as the second wave covered his house. The third wave flattened its walls of cinderblocks and mortar.

It took almost 30 minutes for the water to recede after the last wave, and then bubbles kept popping from the ground, he said, mimicking the sound. “People were afraid the waves would come back.”

Further down the beach, a beloved puppy almost cost Asaththamby Weelu and his son their lives. When the first wave came, Weelu shouted so loudly that blood came from his mouth, he says. Weelu and his wife, Lakshumi Aryunan, took their children toward high ground. Remembering that they had left a puppy in the house, Weelu and the boy ran back to get it, and were caught in the second wave. Weelu put his son on his shoulders and they both held onto a concrete light pole until the waters receded enough that they could move inland. The puppy was saved.

Now, more than two weeks later, they sleep each night with relatives in Galle. During the day, they return to Dodanduwa and work at cleaning away the fragments of their former home.

Sarath Weerararttha is a tourist guide, proud that he speaks English and German as well as his native Tamil. “My house is finished,” he says. “My mother’s house is flat.” He points to an area that could have been bombed. “We are staying in the temple,” he says. He points to a small area where 26 houses once stood. They are no more.

Word has come from the Sri Lankan government that houses will no longer be built within 300 meters of the sea, leaving the newly homeless to wonder what they will do. They own no other land except what is in their village.

As a guide, Weerararttha is knowledgeable about Dodanduwa. He says there are 15,000 residents in the area, and 190 men and boys work as fishermen, sailing their catamarans several miles offshore in search of tuna and other fish.

But, even for those whose boats survived, there is no more fishing for now. The people refuse to eat fish for fear that the fish have eaten parts of dead bodies.

A boat, broken in half by the waves, sits beneath the palm trees. Carefully painted above a smiling fish are the words: “Sea is our life.”

Posted: 1/21/05

BaptistWay Bible Series for Jan. 30

Jesus told stories that his listeners might see

Matthew 13:24-43

By Todd Still

Truett Seminary, Waco

This lesson is a continuation of Jesus’ instruction on the kingdom of heaven through the use of parables as recorded in Matthew 13. Virtually the entire chapter, which constitutes the third of five discourses in Matthew’s Gospel, is comprised of parables that stimulate reflection upon and response to the message and ministry of Jesus. Having considered interpretive issues pertaining to parables as well as the contents of 13:1-23 last week, we may direct our focus this week to 13:24-52.

Although Jesus was not the first to speak in parables, “there is no evidence of anyone prior to Jesus using parables as consistently, creatively and effectively as he did,” scholar Klyne Snodgrass asserts. Interestingly, Matthew construes Jesus’ abundant use of parables in speaking to the crowds as a fulfillment of Psalm 78:2 (vv. 34-35). In addition to the sower and the seed (vv. 3-9), Matthew records six other parables of Jesus in chapter 13.

As it happens, Matthew devotes more space to the parable of the weeds among the wheat and its explanation than he does to the other five parables combined. It seems fitting, therefore, for us to begin our overview of 13:24-53 by considering this parable and its interpretation.

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Following an explanation of the sower and the seed (vv. 18-23), Matthew sets forth the parable of the weeds among the wheat, traditionally known as the parable of the wheat and the tares (vv. 24-30). The storyline of this parable, which is intended as a comparison with the kingdom of heaven, unfolds as follows.

An anonymous sower spreads good seed in his field. Meanwhile, as he sleeps, an unnamed enemy sows weeds among the wheat. As the wheat grows, so do the tares. This prompts certain slaves to ask their master whether he had sown good seed in the first place and if so, for him to explain the presence of the tares. The master realizes a foe has done this to his field but instructs his slaves not to gather the weeds at the present time lest they also uproot the wheat. Furthermore, the master tells them to let the two intermingle until harvest, at which time he will have the harvesters collect and burn the weeds while gathering the wheat into his barn.

The interpretation of this parable set forth by Matthew renders unnecessary much speculation regarding its meaning (vv. 36-43). In response to his disciples’ request to explain the parable, Jesus offers interpretive light. He likens the sower of the good seed to the Son of Man and identifies the devil as the one who sowed the tares. Additionally, he compares the field to the world and earmarks the wheat as children of the kingdom and the weeds as offspring of the evil one. Lastly, Jesus speaks of the harvest as the end of the age and of the reapers as angels.

Commenting further upon the fate of the weeds, Jesus declares they will meet their demise at the final judgment. Commissioned angels will separate the wheat from the weeds, and whereas the latter will face grisly judgment for their sins, the former, who are regarded as righteous, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Matthew employs Jesus’ parable of the net to reinforce this message (vv. 47-50). Even as one who fishes with a drag net must differentiate between “keepers” and “non-keepers,” divinely sent messengers will discriminate between the “evil” and the “righteous” at the end of the age. Although interpreters of parables must make allowances for figurative speech, it would be exegetically inaccurate and theologically imprudent to excise from these two parables the reality of divine judgment predicated upon one’s response to the kingdom of God made manifest in Jesus the Messiah.

The four remaining parables in Matthew 13 may be treated in pairs. In 13:31-33, Matthew records two of Jesus’ parables where he likens the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed on the one hand and to leaven on the other.

Like the parables of the sower and the weeds, the mustard seed parable features a sower, a field and, of course, seed. Unlike these parables, however, the parable of the mustard seed draws attention to the size of the seed. Although botanists now say the mustard seed is not actually the smallest of all seeds, the precise size of the seed is not the intended point of the parable. Rather, the size of the mustard seed relative to the size of mustard plant is analogous to the inconspicuous beginnings of the kingdom and its subsequent, burgeoning growth.

If the mustard seed is miniscule, leaven is invisible. Be that as it may, a little leaven can cause a whole lot of flour to rise. The three measures of flour referred to in verse 33 is roughly equivalent to 50 pounds of flour, enough for one hundred loaves of bread. It is atypical for biblical writers to employ leaven as a positive metaphor. While Jesus’ use of it to depict the kingdom of heaven may underscore its usefulness as a rising agent, by using this image he also may be alluding to the world’s disregard for those people of no repute (like children) or of ill-repute (like harlots and toll collectors) who comprise the kingdom of God.

The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl are more accessible (vv. 44-45). In both instances, these similitudes suggest the kingdom of heaven being inaugurated through Jesus’ person and mission is of great worth. So much so, that it is worth sacrificing anything and everything to attain it. Such abandonment for the sake of the kingdom results in joy and fulfillment. Discernment of what God has done and is doing in Jesus Christ is a treasure trove filled with riches new and old, riches both for now and forevermore. Amen.

Discussion questions

• Does the use of leaven in Jesus’ parable call to mind the importance of someone you may have written off as not worth your time?

• What are you willing to sacrifice to inherit the kingdom of God?

Posted: 2/01/05

BaptistWay Bible Series for Feb. 6

Believers are to come with a childlike faith

Matthew 18:1-14

By Todd Still

Truett Seminary, Waco

Thus far in this series of lessons on the discourses of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel, we have examined the sermon on the mount (chapters 5-7), the missionary discourse (chapter 10) and various parables regarding the kingdom of heaven (chapter 13). A thread woven throughout is the character of the kingdom of heaven as proclaimed and incarnated by Jesus and his disciples.

The theme of the kingdom of heaven also features in chapter 18 (vv. 1, 3, 4, 23), the fourth of five discourses recorded by Matthew. In this week's lesson, the first of two focusing upon the contents of chapter 18, Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a little child (18:2-5) and calls his followers to care for the “little ones” (18:6, 10, 14).

Matthew's record of Jesus' teaching regarding what constitutes greatness in the kingdom and how believers are to interact one with another in the church commences with a question. Following a curious conversation between Peter and Jesus concerning the temple tax (17:24-27), Matthew reports that the disciples approach Jesus and ask him about greatness in the kingdom of heaven (18:1). Mark and Luke indicate the Twelve had occasion to discuss among themselves which of them was the greatest (Mark 9:34; Luke 9:46).

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Along similar lines, in Matthew 20:20-21, the mother of James and John enjoins Jesus to arrange special seats for her sons on either side of himself in the kingdom. Mark reports the sons of Zebedee themselves had the audacity to ask Jesus directly for special heavenly seating assignments (10:35-37).

Differences in minor details between the synoptic accounts notwithstanding, it must have been much to the shock and chagrin of the status-seeking disciples that Jesus would appeal to children as paradigmatic and constitutive of the kingdom. So radical and revolutionary was Jesus' kingdom vision, he had to reiterate to the Twelve that the kingdom of heaven is comprised of children (Matthew 19:13-14).

Along with women, children frequently were undervalued and mistreated in the world in which Jesus lived. They had no status and were comparatively helpless. In short, they were powerless and depended upon their elders, particularly their fathers, for their well-being. Even as Jesus is a different kind of king (a king who enters into Jerusalem on a borrowed burrow and dies the death of a criminal), he reigns over a different kind of kingdom

According to Matthew 18:2, Jesus offered his disciples a tangible illustration of his instruction regarding greatness in the kingdom of heaven by taking and placing a child in the middle of them. Having done so, he tutors his disciples in kingdom matters by earnestly enjoining (note “Truly I say to you…”) them to recognize that unless they turn and become as children (that is, powerless and dependent) then they will never ever enter the kingdom of heaven (18:3). Moreover, he explicitly answers their question regarding greatness in the kingdom by declaring the greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles oneself like the child in their midst (18:4). Furthermore, Jesus informs his followers that whoever receives a child in his name receives Jesus himself (18:5; 25:40).

At 18:6, Jesus shifts from speaking about literal children to spiritual “little ones” (vv. 6, 10, 14). Earlier in Matthew, those on mission for Jesus were depicted as “little ones” (10:42). Here, “little ones” appear to describe disciples who are for whatever reason(s) spiritually (and culturally?) vulnerable. These believers may be similar to the “weak” of whom Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians (8:7, 9-12) and Romans (14:1-2; 15:1). Even as Paul cautions the Romans (14:13, 21) and the Corinthians (8:9) not to become a stumbling block for a weaker Christian, Jesus declares that whoever might cause a little one to stumble would be better off with a large millstone hung around his or her neck and drowned in the depth of the sea (18:6).

A millstone is a large, circular stone driven by a donkey and used for grinding grain. I will never forget being taken aback by the sheer size of a millstone when I first had the occasion to see one in Capernaum five years ago.

Two “woes” follow the stark warning in 18:6–a woe to the world and a woe to the one who causes a “little one” to stumble (18:7). In biblical literature, a “woe” tends to introduce a prophetic oracle of lament or condemnation. Here, one can detect an admixture of doom and pity. Although stumbling blocks invariably will arise (because of the fallen state of humanity), this serves as no consolation to either the cosmos or the one who gives offense. The person who compromises the faith of a “little one” is subject to divine chastisement, and there are cosmic repercussions of human disobedience to God as the world is further reinforced and ensnarled in its sinful, sin-filled state (Romans 8:18-25). Auditors of the first Gospel would probably have regarded Judas as a woeful individual (26:24).

Believers should see themselves as vulnerable and susceptible to sin to the extent they are willing to take extreme precautions to protect both themselves and others from stumbling, that is, falling away from the faith (18:8-9; 5:29-30). We would do well to pray with regularity: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, Lord, take it, seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”

Disciples are not to cause “little ones” to stumble, nor are they to look down upon them. If angels who continually gaze at God care about and advocate for them, how much more so should mere mortals (15:10). Each and every “little one” is of great value to God, even as each and every sheep is of tremendous worth to a shepherd. It is not sufficient for a good shepherd to be satisfied with the loss of a single sheep. Rather, a shepherd who cares for his flock seeks out a lost sheep and rejoices greatly upon finding it (18:12-13).

If we would feign to work with God, then we will recognize that the Lord values all people, be they lost, little or numbered among the 99. It is not the Father's will that a single “little one” be lost. Neither should it be our desire. “I love thee, I love thee, I love thee, I know; just how much I love thee my actions will show.”

Discussion questions

What does it mean to come to Christ with a childlike faith?

What characteristics seem to come naturally to children that people seem to lose as they age?

Posted: 1/21/05

Mirzha Leija faces a complicated future as an "illegal." Though she grew up in Texas and graduated from Seguin High School, she is not eligible for any government assistance for college expenses.(Photo by Craig Bird)

Pastor sees BUA as 'God-sent'
opportunity for undocumented student

By Craig Bird

Baptist University of the Americas

SEGUIN–The first time Carlos and Olga Martinez met Mirzha Leija, the girl with the light-up-the-room smile, they were impressed. Nothing in the past decade has changed their minds.

In fact, their admiration has grown steadily. And so has their desire to help her reach her full potential–both spiritually and educationally.

That's quite a goal for an 18-year-old without “papers” and thus an illegal resident of the country where she has grown up, which means she is not eligible for any government aid for college expenses; a cultural Catholic (“I don't go to mass very often”) who buried her mother two years ago and was abandoned by her father, leaving her to raise her younger sister alone.

See Related Stories: • 'We are here illegally': Texas Baptist family describes life as undocumented aliens • Pastor sees BUA as 'God-sent' opportunity for undocumented student • Pastor helps immigrants gain legal status • Austin woman believes citizens can shape immigration policy • Immigration and churches • Congress expected to address immigration issues • FAQs: How can churches help undocumented immigrants? • Hispanic but multi-ethnic • By The Numbers: Ministering to Immigrants • Student develops resource to help churches grasp immigration issues

But the Martinezes have continued to tell Mirzha about Jesus. And they have started telling her about Baptist University of the Americas.

“BUA has said they can help her because Texas Baptists and other Christians provide funds that aren't limited to American citizens,” explained Carlos Martinez, who graduated from the San Antonio school–then called Hispanic Baptist Theological Seminary–in 1984 as the top academic student. “It's a God-sent opportunity, because Mirzha could never afford to pay all of it on her own.”

“She always had it all, even that first time she came to Vacation Bible School,” Martinez explained. “Perfect manners, well-spoken, enjoying each and every activity. She was a joy. And still is.”

Eight-year-old, 9-year-old and 10-year-old Mirzha never missed a VBS and became close friends with the Martinezes' daughter Letty. But that never translated into regular attendance at either Emmanuel Baptist Church in Seguin, where Martinez was pastor from 1990 to 1995, or at Nueva Vida Baptist Church, the new congregation he has been leading the past five years.

Olga Martinez, left, and her husband, Carlos, continue their friendship with Leija, which started a decade ago when the 8 year-old came to Vacation Bible School at their church. (Photo by Craig Bird)

In fact, in 2002, they lost contact completely for almost a year.

“We kept going by to see her, but no one was ever home,” Martinez said. “We didn't know her mom had stomach cancer and that Mirzha was working and going to school.”

But not long after her mother died, Mirzha and Letty wound up working at the same restaurant.

“By then, her mom had died, her father had moved on and she was trying to raise a 14-year-old sister,” Martinez continued. Still she managed to graduate from high school, earning honors as one of the top French students in her class. Recently, her sister moved in with an aunt more capable of dealing with what Mirzha calls her “typical teenage rebellion.” Now she lives by herself, working as a waitress at a Seguin restaurant and in sales at a mall store in San Marcos, 25 miles away.

All this time, the Martinezes have been there, encouraging her, showing they love her and telling her about a God who loves her even more. They have no doubt the seeds are planted and growing.

Mirzha has asked for information to begin the BUA application process for next fall. “I'm confident she will be a great student at BUA,” Martinez predicted. “And she is going to be a great Christian.”

Additional Resources on Immigration:
• Proposed federal Legislation to Legalize Undocumented Farm Workers: The Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003

• Undocumented Immigrants: Fact and Figures from the Urban Institute Immigration Studies Program, 2004

• The Border Security and immigration Reform Act of 2003, section by section summary

(PDF files will open with the free Adobe Reader available here.)

Posted: 1/21/05

Pastor helps immigrants gain legal status

By Sarah Farris

Special to the Baptist Standard

MCKINNEY–Before Alex Camacho felt God's call to ministry, he planned to become a lawyer. Now he combines his passion for God, law and the Hispanic community as director of Immigration Services–a nonprofit organization accredited by the Board of Immigration Appeals–and pastor of Iglesia Bautista Cristiana in McKinney.

Camancho helps guide immigrants through the logistical maze of becoming a documented worker or legal United States citizen.

When he started, he was partially accredited to work with immigration. Partial accreditation allows a person to fill out applications.

See Related Stories: • 'We are here illegally': Texas Baptist family describes life as undocumented aliens • Pastor sees BUA as 'God-sent' opportunity for undocumented student • Pastor helps immigrants gain legal status • Austin woman believes citizens can shape immigration policy • Immigration and churches • Congress expected to address immigration issues • FAQs: How can churches help undocumented immigrants? • Hispanic but multi-ethnic • By The Numbers: Ministering to Immigrants • Student develops resource to help churches grasp immigration issues

Accreditation requires taking 70 hours of class on immigration law, exhibiting knowledge of immigration law, being aware of any updates in law, and having knowledge of the Code of Federal Regulations and the Naturalization Act.

Immigrants must put a lot of trust in the person working with their paperwork, Camacho said. “Immigration is very sensitive. If done wrong, the person is removed, … and once gone, there is no coming back.”

Immigration attorneys typically charge anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 to file the application, so many people try to do it on their own.

After realizing the limits on the help he could provide without being an attorney, Camacho got a degree in immigration law. He also became fully accredited with the Justice Department, now the Homeland Security Department. He not only helps clients navigate through the vast amount of paperwork, he represents clients in immigration court and with the board of immigration appeals.

“I did it because I'm crazy or something,” Camacho quipped.

There are limitations to what Camacho and his team of two secretaries and volunteers can do.

“Even though we practice immigration law, we can't have a bunch of cases, because we do it pro bono (free to clients), and money is limited,” Camacho said. He estimates 1,200 people contact the agency annually, and they are able to take the cases of about 300 people each year.

He does not take cases related to drugs or any other major crimes, but he does help in situations where someone now is being refused citizenship because of a juvenile offense or some misdemeanors.

In one of his recent cases, a man going through the immigration process was about to be deported because of his criminal record. When he was 17, he stole liquor from a store in Mexico. He now is 45, the pastor of a Dallas church and a vital member of his community. Camacho and his team needed two years to help him, but eventually they won the case.

Camacho works in immigration because he sees it as a priority need among Hispanics.

Rather than going out and finding people to whom he can minister, Camacho has people coming to him. About 50 percent of his congregation came to him looking for help. He took that opportunity to tell them about the church.

But he also receives phone calls from people seeking help from all over Texas and from Arizona, New Mexico and Florida.

Camacho balances his time as pastor and director of Immigration Services by viewing himself as a bivocational pastor.

“The church is the priority,” he said. “I see this as a ministry. I love going to court …, but some pastors don't have the same calling. Maybe they teach or they fix cars. Everyone has their own calling.”

In 1986, the U.S. government asked churches to help with immigration. “Catholic Charities is the leader in immigration in Texas and other states, but there is a lot of space for Baptist charities to get involved. Every (Baptist) association could open a center, and they would all be packed,” Camacho said.

Churches can minister to immigrants by opening an immigration center, hosting a conference where an expert in immigration law can speak to immigrants who are going through the process, or the church can call an attorney.

Whichever route is chosen, Camacho warns immigration must be taken carefully from the beginning to avoid major problems that lead to deportation or incur large attorney's fees.

Economic reality and the opportunities the United States offers draw immigrants from across the Rio Grande, Camacho said.

“There is no future in Mexico,” he said, noting available jobs there offer little more than sustenance for day-to-day survival. “There are no dreams.”

Two former Mexican doctors attend Iglesia Bautista Cristiana in McKinney, he noted. One works at a discount store and says he has more opportunities for his family now than he ever did in Mexico.

Immigration will remain a hot topic in Texas and other border states, Camacho predicted. And the need for ministry to immigrants will continue, he added.

“Once someone becomes a citizen, that is not the end,” Camacho said. Some have to renew documents annually; many people work to bring their families into the United States. But, as he noted, “We are a country of immigrants.”

Camacho can be reached at Immigration Services at (972) 562-4561.

Additional Resources on Immigration:
• Proposed federal Legislation to Legalize Undocumented Farm Workers: The Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003

• Undocumented Immigrants: Fact and Figures from the Urban Institute Immigration Studies Program, 2004

• The Border Security and immigration Reform Act of 2003, section by section summary

(PDF files will open with the free Adobe Reader available here.)

Posted: 1/21/05

Austin woman believes citizens can shape immigration policy

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

AUSTIN–Carmelita Hernandez believes one person can make a difference–even when it comes to big issues like shaping the United States' immigration policy.

Hernandez, a member of Iglesia Bautista Principe de Paz in Austin, started working as a volunteer with undocumented workers during an amnesty program in the mid-1980s.

“I was so excited at the time, because it looked like our government cared enough to try to solve the problem of clearing up the status for people who were here then,” she said. “I thought it might lead to a new system of handling the immigration problem, but nothing happened.”

See Related Stories: • 'We are here illegally': Texas Baptist family describes life as undocumented aliens • Pastor sees BUA as 'God-sent' opportunity for undocumented student • Pastor helps immigrants gain legal status • Austin woman believes citizens can shape immigration policy • Immigration and churches • Congress expected to address immigration issues • FAQs: How can churches help undocumented immigrants? • Hispanic but multi-ethnic • By The Numbers: Ministering to Immigrants • Student develops resource to help churches grasp immigration issues

Hernandez said her faith in Christ motivates her each morning to ask, “OK, Lord, what do you want me to do today?”

She believed God opened her eyes to see an immigration system that tears families apart by placing workers in a position of choosing between being with their families or living where they can find jobs to support them.

She saw hard-working laborers who sent most of every paycheck back home to family in Mexico but who lacked the freedom to travel back home themselves because they feared they wouldn't be able to cross back over the border.

And she believed God led her to take action to remedy that perceived injustice.

Her passion for helping foreign-born workers in the United States grew so intense that she went back to school and earned an undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Texas with a concentration in immigration studies.

In 2000, she started writing a proposal for a guestworker pilot program that would allow immigrant workers temporary legal residency in the United States for designated time periods. She worked off-and-on preparing the proposal for more than a year before mailing it to President Bush.

“That was right before 9/11,” she lamented, thinking her proposal not only would get lost in the flurry of activity, but also might not be received as sympathetically by an administration focused on tightening homeland security.

When she received what appeared to be a routine form letter from the Department of Health and Human Services in October 2001, which acknowledged receipt of her proposal, she feared that meant her hard work was being relegated to bureaucratic limbo.

But she was pleasantly surprised when Sen. John Cornyn introduced the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003.

While Hernandez is unsure whether Cornyn is just “likeminded” or whether her ideas were forwarded to him, the guestworker program recommended by his bill closely tracks her proposal.

As long as employers in the United States offer the allure of higher-paying jobs than workers can find in Mexico, laborers will find a way to cross the border, Hernandez believes.

“The problem is not going to go away,” she said.

Hernandez believes that if the United States and Mexico worked together to facilitate the legal border-crossing of guestworkers rather than trying to prohibit undocumented laborers, it would strengthen security by providing both nations a mechanism for regulation.

From contacts within her own church, she concluded the current system forces desperate workers to live in constant terror of discovery and deportation, and it disrupts families.

A guestworker program would allow a laborer to work legally in the United States, return to his native country to spend time with family, and then return to his job without fear, she believes.

“Most people (from Mexico) who are working here don't really want to stay here,” she said. “They want to be where their parents and grandparents are–where they have roots. They just want a job to provide for their families.”

For more information about the Border Security and Immigration Act, contact Suzii Paynter with the Baptist General Convention of Texas' Christian Life Commission in Austin at (512) 473-2288 or suzii.painter@bgct.org.

Additional Resources on Immigration:
• Proposed federal Legislation to Legalize Undocumented Farm Workers: The Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003

• Undocumented Immigrants: Fact and Figures from the Urban Institute Immigration Studies Program, 2004

• The Border Security and immigration Reform Act of 2003, section by section summary

(PDF files will open with the free Adobe Reader available here.)