Baptist Children’s Home runaway killed on San Antonio highway

Posted: 1/08/08

Baptist Children’s Home runaway
killed on San Antonio highway

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO—A 15-year-old resident of San Antonio Baptist Children’s Home was killed by a car Jan. 4 as she ran across U.S. Hwy 90.

She was attempting to cross the highway, which borders the campus, with four other youth. None of the others were injured.

01/08/2008 - By John Rutledge

BaptistWay Bible Series for January 13: There are none so blind

Posted: 1/07/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for January 13

There are none so blind

• Mark 8:11-26

Southern Baptists respond to critical hunger needs in Kenya

Posted: 1/07/08

Southern Baptists respond
to critical hunger needs in Kenya

NASHVILLE—Southern Baptists are responding to critical hunger needs in Kenya, where an estimated 250,000 people have been driven from their homes by violence that broke out after the controversial results of December’s presidential elections were announced.

Food packets containing rice, wheat flour, maize meal, beans, vegetable cooking oil and salt will be distributed in seven cities, with the International Mission Board’s Baptist Mission of Kenya coordinating the project. Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist international relief and development organization, has approved the release of $25,000 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund to fund the relief effort.

“Many displaced people have congregated at safe locations like police stations, Bible schools, Catholic missions and evangelical churches,” said Mark Hatfield, director of Baptist Global Response work in sub-Sahara Africa. “This project will assist 2,500 families in seven cities where Baptists have access to centers of refuge.”

The turmoil has made travel difficult, so Southern Baptists have worked through Baptist Convention of Kenya leaders to assess the situation on the ground, Hatfield said.

01/07/2008 - By John Rutledge

CBF field personnel safe as violence continues in Kenya

Posted: 1/07/08

CBF field personnel safe
as violence continues in Kenya

By Carla Wynn Davis

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

ATLANTA—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s two Kenya-based field personnel are safe despite violent unrest in the East African country following recent controversial presidential elections.

Melody and Sam Harrell, who have served in Kenya with CBF since 1999, are based in Nairobi.

01/07/2008 - By John Rutledge

Huckabee, Obama early victories spotlight religion in 2008 campaign

Posted: 1/07/08

Huckabee, Obama early victories
spotlight religion in 2008 campaign

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Come-from-behind wins by overtly Christian presidential candidates in the Iowa caucuses put even more of the spotlight on faith issues in the 2008 election cycle, according to two experts on religion and politics.

Baptist minister Mike Huckabee played David to Mitt Romney’s Goliath on the Republican side, with the former Arkansas governor walloping the former Massachusetts governor’s better-funded and -staffed campaign.

Huckabee	Obama

01/07/2008 - By John Rutledge

Kenya violence affects Wayland students

Posted: 1/04/08

Kenya violence affects Wayland students

By Jonathan Petty

Wayland Baptist University

LIMURU, Kenya—Students attending the Wayland Baptist University campus near Nairobi have had family members killed in the violence that has erupted following a disputed election. Administrators are monitoring the situation to determine whether to postpone the start of a new semester.

Wayland’s campus, sponsored in conjunction with the Kenya Baptist Theological College, is about 24 kilometers from Nairobi where some of the worst violence has occurred.

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

Christians killed, churches burned in India

Posted: 1/04/08

Christians killed, churches burned in India

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BWA)—Ten Christians were killed, and about 90 churches and 600 homes torched by Hindu militants in eastern India around Christmas, a Baptist official there reported to the Baptist World Alliance.

“Fifty to 70 Hindu radicals pulled out Pastor Junas Digal from a parked bus, paraded him on the road, all the way beating him with sticks and hands, and finally shaved his head to claim him a Hindu,” said Swarupananda Patra, general secretary of the All Orissa Baptist Churches Federation.

In Bamunigham, in the Kandhamal district of Orissa, two Christians were shot and injured, shops operated by Christians destroyed, 20 churches damaged, and three churches razed on Christmas Eve, Patra reported.

On Christmas, Christians were terrorized, Christmas worship services disrupted and churches forced to close, while Christians hid in “forests to evade attacks from these Hindus,” Patra continued.

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

Around the State

Posted: 1/04/08

Around the State

• Don Lane, founder of CityChurch Ministries in Amarillo, was named Man of the Year for 2007 by the Amarillo Globe-News.

• Brady-Coleman-Runnels Baptist Area is now Lake Ivie Baptist Association. Barry Taylor, who had been pastor of First Church in Winters, has been elected ministry director.

• The LifeWay Christian Resources store in Lubbock is relocating. Beginning Jan. 15, its 6,000-square-foot facility will be at the interchange of Loop 289 and Marsha Sharp Freeway at the Canyon West Shopping Center. The grand opening celebration will be held Jan. 26-Feb. 2.

• The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor granted degrees to 183 students during winter commencement ceremonies, including 170 undergraduate degrees and 13 master’s degrees. Stephen Alston of Temple, Kayla Carr of Brenham and Audra Musser of Hewitt won awards for the highest grade-point average.

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

High-tech audio Bibles bring Scriptures to life, users say

Posted: 1/04/08

High-tech audio Bibles bring
Scriptures to life, users say

By Kat Glass

Religion News Service

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (RNS) —Often when Mike Sheppard listens to the stories of the Crucifixion or Mary’s discovery of the empty tomb, he gets so distracted he almost forgets he’s behind the wheel.

“There are points in the New Testament where you’ll be brought to tears while you’re driving down the road,” said Sheppard, 56, a computer software technician in Winston-Salem, N.C.

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

Baptist Briefs

Posted: 1/04/08

Baptist Briefs

Kentucky editor accepts post at Ouachita. Trennis Henderson, editor of the Kentucky Baptist Western Recorder newspaper, has accepted a position as vice president for communications at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark. Henderson, who has edited the Recorder since 1999, has served more than 25 years in Baptist journalism. He previously was editor of the Arkansas Baptist News and managing editor of Missouri’s Word & Way. Henderson, a 1983 graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, also graduated from the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo. Henderson and his wife, Pam, are members of Crestwood (Ky.) Baptist Church, where he is a deacon and she directs the church’s weekday preschool ministry. Their two daughters are students at Taylor University in Upland, Ind.

Novelist Grisham joins New Baptist Covenant lineup. Best-selling author John Grisham, whose recent novels have revealed his Christian faith, will deliver a rare public speech at the New Baptist Covenant meeting in late January. The 53-year-old Grisham, a lifelong Baptist, has taught Sunday school to young couples and 4-year-olds and regularly goes with fellow church members on mission-service trips. Grisham, a member of University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Va., joins a lineup of Baptists who will address the three-day interracial meeting in Atlanta, including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and Republican senators Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa). “The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant,” organized by Carter, will seek to unite an estimated 20 million Baptists Jan. 30-Feb. 1 around an agenda of Christ-centered social ministry. Forty Baptist organizations in the United States and Canada are participating, including the four main black Baptist conventions and most of the other Baptist denominations except the Southern Baptist Convention.

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

Cartoon

Posted: 1/04/08

01/04/2008 - By John Rutledge

Volunteer teachers needed in China

Posted: 1/04/08

Volunteer teachers needed in China

Volunteers for China has 10 service opportunities scheduled in 2008. Most involve teaching conversational English in high schools, colleges or universities.

Job assignments vary in length from one month to one year. A stipend, housing and some airfare assistance is provided in some cases. A valid U.S. passport is required for all assignments.