Around the State: ETBU students serve at elementary schools, Levi Price receives award

Learning and Leading classes at East Texas Baptist University staffed fall festivals Oct. 8 for four Marshall schools—David Crockett Elementary, Sam Houston Elementary, William B. Travis Elementary, and Price T. Young Elementary. More than 400 ETBU students from 21 Learning and Leading sections set up booths allowing about 1,000 children to play games and win prizes. The Learning and Leading course is offered for freshmen and transfer students during their first semester at ETBU.

Levi W. Price received the 2018 Maples-Williamson-Daehnert Award as the outstanding interim pastor of the year for Texas Baptists’ Interim Ministry Network. “Dr. Levi Price models excellence in pastoral care, preaching and leadership that helps interim churches resolve their issues and prepare for the calling of a new pastor,” said Karl Fickling, coordinator of Interim Church Services for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. “Serving over 20 interim churches, he has proven again and again that the interim period can be a critical moment for preparing a church for the future.” Price was pastor of First Baptist Church of El Paso for 17 years after serving several churches in California. He was the first professor of pastoral care at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary and also has been an adjunct professor for Wayland Baptist University, Hardin-Simmons University and Howard Payne University.

Brownwood’s The ARK—Advocacy, Respect, Kindness—domestic violence and sexual assault shelter will host a candlelight vigil, open to the public, at Howard Payne University’s Bettie and Robert Girling Center for Social Justice. The event at 6 p.m. Oct. 18 is designed to honor the victims of domestic abuse, celebrate the survivors and announce the community’s commitment to ending domestic violence. Survivors of domestic violence will speak at the event. The vigil is held at HPU each October as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month in conjunction with The ARK’s Empty Shoes display. Each pair of shoes in the exhibit represents a Central Texas individual who has died as a result of domestic violence.

Laura Brandenburg, dean of the School of Languages and Literature at Wayland Baptist University, received the 2018 Genesis Award for unpublished authors from the American Christian Fiction Writers conference for her short novel, Harvesting Love, a contemporary Christian romance set on a West Texas cotton farm. It marked her second year of recognition at the conference. In 2017, her full-length novel, Restless Heart, finished as a semifinalist.

Buckner International opened its 27th Family Hope Center and Buckner Family Pathways program. More than 150 people— government officials, religious leaders, Buckner executives and staff, clients, and community and corporate donors—attended an Oct. 16 ceremonial ribbon cutting for the Buckner Family Hope Center of Houston. The center on Reed Road is located on the Cornerstone Community campus, a collaborative nonprofit venture in partnership with Star of Hope, New Hope Housing and WorkFaith Connection.