FORT WORTH—A joint meeting of Texas Baptist Men and the Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, prior to the Baptist General Convention annual meeting, 100 years in the making—a celebration for both entities marking the centennial anniversary of the Royal Ambassadors program for boys.

BGCT President Joy Fenner, former Texas WMU executive director, spoke about her experience as an RA leader at First Baptist Church in Paris while in college, acknowledging the importance of that role in the lives of the young men she trained.

TBM Executive Director Emeritus Bob Dixon told the assembly, “Royal Ambassadors changed my life.”

Dixon recalled leading a group in Tennessee while serving as state recreational director. “Through the years, it’s been a joy to watch the boys grown up through RAs. It continues to give us men who are great churchmen, not only for their church but also for the whole world,” he said.

A brief word by Nelda Seal, interim executive director of Texas WMU, and a dramatic presentation that followed brought to life the history of RAs. The organization began as an idea of the Woman’s Missionary Union, presented to the Southern Baptist Convention by President Fannie Heck in 1908 after a committee she headed studied the idea.

Keith Mack, director of children and youth mission and ministry for TBM.

At the 20th annual meeting of the national WMU, Heck made the motion for the women’s mission organization to sponsor a group for boys ages 9-17, proposing that it be called “The Order of Royal Ambassadors.” A WMU leader from Goldsboro, N.C., left the meeting immediately to start the first chapter at First Baptist Church that same week. Later that year in its Fort Worth meeting, Texas WMU was introduced to the new program by President Mary Hill Davis. The group’s original aims were to focus on camping, organization of the chapters by the boys, increasing spiritual growth and encouraging boys to get involved in missions work.

WMU “birthed” the program “because we saw the need for missions education for boys,” Seal said. “We reluctantly turned them over because we felt they needed the leadership of men in the churches. We like to share this celebration, because we have a goal to teach children that not everyone has heard the gospel and that the Great Commission is for all of us.”

Keith Mack, director of children and youth mission and ministry for TBM, said that through the century of its existence, RAs may have changed in methods but three core things have never changed, including the motto, “We are ambassadors for Christ,” taken from 2 Corinthians 5:20.

A dramatic presentation depicted the origin of the Royal Ambassadors program conceived by WMU president Fannie Heck in 1908.

“Also, the needs of boys have not changed. They need to know that God loves them and has a plan for them and wants them to be on mission with him,” Mack said. “And the need for men to lead them has never changed, the need for more men to share with boys what it means to have a relationship with God.”

After a word of greeting from BGCT executive director Randel Everett, who himself was an RA at James Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth as a young man, TBM Executive Director Leo Smith wrapped up the program with a personal testimony of the impact of RAs.

“RAs lays a foundation that never leaves these young men. Those seeds are planted and they grow and grow. Around our world are missionaries that got their vision by being RAs or GAs,” he said.

“I’m here today as a result of being a Texas Royal Ambassador leader. They tried to grow me up to be a Texas Baptist Man, but my heart is still a Royal Ambassador.” 

FORT WORTH —International evangelist Alberto Mottesi condemned adultery, pornography and family violence, telling Hispanic Texas Baptists a relationship with Jesus was the way out of family problems caused by sin.

“Life is edified through family. And when family is broken, a nation crumbles,” Mottesi, an evangelist from Santa Ana, Calif., told the Hispanic Fellowship Rally prior to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

People often get married expecting their spouse to make them happy, rather than seeking to bring happiness to their spouse, he said. Too often, people will be violent, hurtful or insulting to their families.

Mottesi told about a couple who subscribed to a pornographic channel on television. They didn’t realize that their children were watching it, but its influence led to a crisis involving their son impregnating his 12-year-old sister.

In another illustration to show how separation from Jesus hurts the family, he described a man who told his son that if he were a real man, he would jump off a balcony. His son jumped and killed himself.

Mottesi emphasized that walking away from the Fort Worth Convention Center without Jesus was “suicide.” And he encouraged the audience to follow Christ.

FORT WORTH—The call to involve churches in missions and engage members to share the gospel took center stage during missions night at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

BGCT President Joy Fenner requested the evening focus on missions rather than bringing the traditional president’s address to the state convention meeting.

Too often, churches find it difficult to think about what is strategic because they are focused on what is immediate, said Julio Guarneri, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Getsemani in Fort Worth.

“A couple of years ago, we found ourselves overwhelmed with the idea of being missional as a church. … But we weren’t being strategic, so people started pulling their involvement,” Guarneri said.

“WorldconneX helped us … plan strategically how to better involve more people. We learned that we needed to focus more on developing authentic disciples and, to be strategic, we decided to focus on one church plant, in Madrid and KidsHope USA.”

Also during the missions time, Pastor Bill Gravell of Sonterra Fellowship Church, shared his testimony in church planting, saying that his church started with 60 people and will be moving to a new location.

Members of the Company, a drama troupe from Fort Worth, present a theme interpretation during missions night at the BGCT annual meeting. (PHOTO/Robert Rogers/Baylor Photography)

His church quickly sponsored a Hispanic church, and that church is already looking to begin new congregations.

“Anybody can do church planting,” Gravell said. “Some of you may say your church is too small or you don’t need another church. Take a Wal-Mart test. If there are more cars in your local Wal-Mart parking lot than there are in the local church parking lots, you need a new church.”

Randy Wood, a professor of education at Baylor University, shared a testimony involving the Learning English Among Friends program, developed to involve Baylor students in providing literacy training for non-English-speaking families.

“We need to help these folks coming into Texas to appreciate what we have and to learn how to fit into it,” he said. “If you live in a neighborhood where there is a school, I implore you. I beg you. Look to see how you can be a solution to the educational struggles in our state.”

Rick Shaw, director of the Missions Center at Wayland Baptist University and assistant professor of religion, shared the story of a young woman who approached him about her dream of becoming a missionary.

Members of the Company, a drama troupe from Fort Worth, present a theme interpretation during missions night at the BGCT annual meeting. (PHOTO/Eric Guel)

She told him that her mother had abandoned her mother at age 13, but that she wasn’t there to talk to him about her past. She was there to talk about her future. She wanted to be a missionary.

He told her about a trip to Kenya, and she was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to pay for it, but he told her that God would provide.

“We landed in Kenya on July 7. That evening, I asked my students to tell the Kenyan people to tell them what God called them to do. (The girl) said, ‘God has called me to be a missionary. I want to be a missionary nurse and I want to serve the people of your land.’

“They said, ‘You probably don’t’ understand. Many of our women have AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. They aren’t loose women. They’ve been infected by their husbands. But they need someone to minister to them.’

“She said, ‘Dr. Shaw, can I do this?’

“I said, ‘That’s why you’re here.’ …Three of those women died while we were in Kenya.

“On her flight back she said, ‘This was a very hard time in my life, but I figured something about myself and God.’ And she said, ‘I know that this is what the Lord is calling me to do in my life. I know this is what I want to do with my life. Thank you for making this happen.’

“This is what we do at Wayland, and we want to say, ‘thank you’ to Texas Baptists for allowing us to do it.”

FORT WORTH—At a Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting that drew the lowest number of registered messengers in 59 years, participants elected the convention’s first second-generation president, deferred action on a proposed name change for the BGCT and approved a reduced budget for 2009.

The annual meeting drew 1,891 registered messengers from 550 churches—the lowest number since the 1949 meeting in El Paso. In addition, 713 visitors also registered at the Fort Worth meeting.

Newly elected officers of the Baptist General Convention of Texas are (left to right) Bobby Broyles of First Baptist Church in Ballinger, second vice president; David Lowrie of First Baptist Church in Caynon, president; and Carolyn Strickland of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, first vice president. (PHOTO/Brianna McLane/Baylor)

David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Canyon, garnered 53 percent of the votes for president—735 as compared to 644 for Stephen Hatfield, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville.

Bruce Webb, pastor of First Baptist Church in the Woodlands, nominated Lowrie, characterizing him as “thoroughly biblical … unapologetically centered on Jesus Christ … (and) liberal in his love toward all people.”

Lowrie possesses the strength to “listen to the Lord’s voice rather than the voice of the crowd,” Webb said.

Last year, Lowrie narrowly lost the president’s race to Joy Fenner, retired executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas. Texas Baptists Committed—the organization that mobilized political opposition to prevent a fundamentalist takeover of the BGCT—had endorsed Fenner. This year, for the first time in two decades, the group chose not to endorse candidates, answering the call from some Texas Baptists for “open” convention elections.

Lowrie, 48, becomes the first second-generation BGCT president. His father, longtime First Baptist Church of Lubbock Pastor D.L. Lowrie, served two one-year terms in the early 1980s.

Charles Whiteside, a member of First Baptist Church in Kilgore, introduces a motion asking the Executive Board and BGCT staff to research new ways to assist churches with fewer than 50 in attendance. (BGCT PHOTO)

Carolyn Strickland, a deacon at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, drew 52 percent of the votes cast for first vice president—728 as compared to 668 for Ken Coffee, retired associate director of the BGCT State Missions Commission.

George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, noted Strickland’s passionate desire to “call Texas Baptists to live out the whole gospel, body as well as soul … and see that no child goes hungry as long as there is something we can do about it.”

Her late husband, Phil, served 38 years with the BGCT Christian Life Commission, including about a quarter-century as director of the social concerns and public policy agency.

Messengers elected Bobby Broyles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Ballinger, by acclamation as second vice president.

Bruce Webb, pastor of First Baptist Church in the Woodlands, nominates David Lowrie of First Baptist Church in Canyon for president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. (PHOTO/Brianna McLane/Baylor)

Hatfield, co-chair of the Future Focus Committee, presented a progress report from the strategic planning committee created in response to a motion at last year’s annual meeting in Amarillo. The committee determined three key priorities for the state convention, he noted—missions and evangelism, Christian education and meeting human needs.

Co-chair Andy Pittman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lufkin, characterized the committee’s task as helping to “move the convention into the 21st century.”

The committee has recognized the convention’s future is shaped by a “perfect storm” of factors, Pittman reported.

External factors include the decline of denominational loyalty, the passing of the World War II generation that has provided the financial base for Texas Baptist church giving, the national economic crisis and loss of investment income, he said.

Messengers register at the 2008 Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in Fort Worth. The annual meeting drew 1,891 registered messengers from 550 churches—the lowest number since the 1949 meeting in El Paso. (PHOTO/Eric Guel)

Internal factors include a 10-year decline in Cooperative Program giving, a reduced budget for 2009, loss of trust and decreased participation in denominational life.

On behalf of the committee, Pittman introduced a motion that the articles of incorporation and constitution be amended to change the organization’s name from “Baptist General Convention of Texas” to “Texas Baptist Convention.”

The committee on convention business recommended that the proposed name change be referred to the BGCT Executive Board for further study and deliberation. Hatfield spoke in favor of the referral.

“We believe that every Texas Baptist deserves the time to consider the decision that for some may be easy, logical and simple and for others may be complex,” Hatfield said.

In response to a question by David Cook from First Baptist Church in Devine, Hatfield said the Executive Board would research the legal implications and projected costs for the name change as part of their consideration of the motion.

Messengers approved a $45,755,295 budget for 2009—about 8 percent less than the one approved at the previous annual meeting and down slightly from the current adjusted budget.

Of the total, Texas Baptist Cooperative Program giving will need to provide more than $40.8 million, with the balance expected from investment earnings and other revenue sources.

One year ago, messengers to the annual meeting approved a $50.1 million budget for 2008. But after the first quarter of this year, the convention faced a serious budget shortfall. Staff implemented cutbacks, and the budget was adjusted to $46,186,665.

Messengers to the annual meeting also approved a recommendation that the adopted budget continue to be divided 79 percent for the BGCT and 21 percent to worldwide causes as directed by churches.

For churches that select the BGCT worldwide initiatives giving option, that area will include two additional global missions programs—intercultural international missions and Texas Baptist Men international ministries—along with continuing support for River Ministry/Mexico missions, the WorldconneX missions network, Texas Partnerships and the Baptist World Alliance.

BGCT President Joy Fenner calls for a show of ballots by messengers to the annual meeting. (BGCT PHOTO)

The initiatives are expanded to include four Texas Baptist missions initiatives—the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches, Baptist University of the Americas, the Hispanic Education Task Force and Texas Hope 2010. Total projected revenue for BGCT worldwide initiatives is $1.6 million.

In other business, messengers:

–Gave initial approval to a constitutional change that would provide the potential for increased representation at the annual meeting by small churches that give generously to the BGCT. Constitutional amendments require approval at two consecutive annual meetings.

Currently, the constitution says each church is entitled to two messengers for up to 100 members, plus two additional messengers for the first $250 given to the BGCT budget and one additional messenger for each additional 100 members and each $1,000 given, up to a maximum 25 messengers.

The amendment states that if a church’s giving surpasses its membership, it would be entitled to one additional messenger for each $2,000 given, up to six additional messengers. The maximum number of messengers per church would remain at 25.

–Approved a motion by Charles Whiteside, a member of First Baptist Church in Kilgore, asking the Executive Board and BGCT staff to research new ways to assist churches with fewer than 50 in attendance.

“I just feel there is a need there to be addressed,” he said. “I think it would strengthen our convention if we strengthened those churches.”

–Approved revised special agreements between the BGCT and two related institutions—Buckner International and Hillcrest Health System/Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center.

One agreement changes the percentage of Buckner trustees directly elected by the BGCT from 33 percent to 25 percent. It also stipulates that 75 percent of the trustees elected by Buckner be Baptists, as opposed to the current requirement that the board be 100 percent Baptist.

The other special agreement with Hillcrest provides for BGCT representation on a newly configured governing board created by the memorandum of understanding between Hillcrest and Scott & White Hospital in Temple.

Under terms of the proposal, Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center will be managed by a board of trustees, with half the board elected by Scott & White and half by Hillcrest Health System. The BGCT will directly elect 25 percent of the Hillcrest Health System board, and a majority of the board members will belong to BGCT-affiliated churches.

Terms of the agreement specify Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center and Hillcrest Health System will be operated “within the Christian-oriented aims and ideals of Baptists, including those contained within the Baptist Faith & Message statement of 1963.”

–Gave final approval to a constitutional amendment that clarifies the authority of messengers to the annual meeting to direct the BGCT Executive Board and the board’s responsibility to follow those directions.

The amendment, approved on first reading at last year’s annual meeting, states: “The Executive Board shall have charge and control, except when otherwise direction by the convention, of all the work of the convention, including missions, education and beneficence, in the interim between its sessions.”

–Passed seven resolutions, including statements encouraging Texas Baptist churches to support adult education, oppose gambling, pray for national and state elected leaders, and support churches and individuals that are continuing to rebuild in the aftermath of hurricanes Dolly, Gustav and Ike.

FORT WORTH—Messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting approved a $45,755,295 budget—about 8 percent less than the one approved at the previous annual meeting and down slightly from the current adjusted budget.

Of the total, Texas Baptist Cooperative Program giving will need to provide more than $40.8 million, with the balance expected from investment earnings and other revenue sources.

One year ago, messengers to the annual meeting approved a $50.1 million budget for 2008. But after the first quarter of this year, the convention faced a serious budget shortfall. Staff implemented cutbacks, and the budget was adjusted to $46,186,665.

Messengers to the annual meeting also approved a recommendation that the adopted budget continue to be divided 79 percent for the BGCT and 21 percent to worldwide causes as directed by churches.

For churches that select the BGCT worldwide initiatives giving option, that area will include two additional global missions programs—intercultural international missions and Texas Baptist Men international ministries—along with continuing support for River Ministry/Mexico missions, the WorldconneX missions network, Texas Partnerships and the Baptist World Alliance.

The initiatives are expanded to include four Texas Baptist missions initiatives—the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches, Baptist University of the Americas, the Hispanic Education Task Force and Texas Hope 2010.

Total projected revenue for BGCT worldwide initiatives is $1.6 million.

FORT WORTH—David Lowrie won the Baptist General Convention of Texas president’s race with 53 percent of the votes cast, but he believes messengers to the annual meeting issued a unanimous mandate for change.

“I truly believe 100 percent of the people who voted were voting for positive, progressive change,” Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Canyon, said in an interview soon after his election.

Both he and the other nominee for president—Stephen Hatfield, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville—share a common commitment to see the convention embrace the “God-sized” Texas Hope 2010 challenge to share the gospel with every Texan by Easter 2010 and ensure no child in the state goes hungry, Lowrie said.

Hatfield serves as co-chair of the BGCT Future Focus Committee, the convention’s strategic planning committee on which Lowrie also serves.

“There’s a consensus that we need to simplify and clearly articulate our primary values,” Lowrie said, when asked about the committee.

In his committee report to the annual meeting, Hatfield identified three priorities—missions and evangelism, Christian education and meeting human needs. Those priorities are “bedrock” and “the heartbeat of who we need to be,” Lowrie said.

He praised BGCT Executive Director Randel Everett for casting the Texas Hope 2010 vision. First Baptist Church already has prayed for every person listed in the Canyon phonebook, prayer-walked the streets of their town and started knocking on the doors of every household in Canyon, Lowrie noted.

“Texas Hope 2010 is more than a motto” to Lowrie and members of his church, Everett said. “It’s what they already are doing.”

Last year, Lowrie narrowly lost the BGCT president’s race to Joy Fenner, former executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas.

Lowrie characterized himself as “a centrist-type leader” who is “representative of people within the BGCT who continue to identify themselves as Southern Baptist.”

He noted his “deepened appreciation” over the last two years for Texas Baptists who were involved in political action to protect the BGCT and preserve its commitments to historic Baptist principles.

Texas Baptists Committed—the organization that mobilized political opposition to any fundamentalist inroads into the BGCT—did not endorse any candidates for office this year for the first time in more than 20 years.

Lowrie praised the “open convention” this year and the absence of political machinations.

“Political days had their purpose, but those days are over,” he said.

Lowrie, 48, becomes the first second-generation BGCT president. His father, longtime First Baptist Church of Lubbock Pastor D.L. Lowrie, served two one-year terms in the early 1980s.

FORT WORTH—Messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting elected as president David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Canyon and as first vice president, Carolyn Strickland, a deacon at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

Lowrie garnered 53 percent of the votes—735 as compared to 644 for Stephen Hatfield, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville.

Bruce Webb, pastor of First Baptist Church in the Woodlands, nominated Lowrie, characterizing him as “thoroughly biblical … unapologetically centered on Jesus Christ … (and) liberal in his love toward all people.”

Lowrie possesses the strength to “listen to the Lord’s voice rather than the voice of the crowd,” Webb said.

Strickland drew 52 percent of the votes cast for first vice president—728 as compared to 668 for Ken Coffee, retired associate director of the BGCT State Missions Commission.

George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, noted Strickland's passionate desire to "call Texas Baptists to live out the whole gospel, body as well as soul … and see that no child goes hungry as long as there is something we can do about it."

Hatfield, co-chair of the Future Focus Committee, presented a progress report from the strategic planning committee created in response to a motion at last year’s annual meeting in Amarillo.

The committee determined three key priorities for the state convention, he noted—missions and evangelism, Christian education and meeting human needs.

Co-chair Andy Pittman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lufkin, characterized the committee’s task as helping to “move the convention into the 21st century.” 

The committee has recognized the convention’s future is shaped by a “perfect storm” of factors, Pittman reported.

A choir and orchestra provide music for an early session of the BGCT annual meeting in Fort Worth.

External factors include the decline of denominational loyalty, the passing of the World War II generation that has provided the financial base for Texas Baptist church giving, the national economic crisis and loss of investment income, he said.

Internal factors include a 10-year decline in Cooperative Program giving, a reduced budget for 2009, loss of trust and decreased participation in denominational life.

On behalf of the committee, Pittman introduced a motion that the articles of incorporation and constitution be amended to change the organization’s name from “Baptist General Convention of Texas” to “Texas Baptist Convention.”

In other business, messengers:

–Gave initial approval to a constitutional change that would provide the potential for increased representation at the annual meeting by small churches that give generously to the BGCT. Constitutional amendments require approval at two consecutive annual meetings.

Currently, the constitution says each church is entitled to two messengers for up to 100 members, plus two additional messengers for the first $250 given to the BGCT budget and one additional messenger for each additional 100 members and each $1,000 given, up to a maximum 25 messengers.

The amendment states that if a church’s giving surpasses its membership, it would be entitled to one additional messenger for each $2,000 given, up to six additional messengers. The maximum number of messengers per church would remain at 25.

–Approved revised special agreements between the BGCT and two related institutions—Buckner International and Hillcrest Health System/Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center.

One agreement changes the percentage of Buckner trustees directly elected by the BGCT from 33 percent to 25 percent. It also stipulates that 75 percent of the trustees elected by Buckner be Baptists, as opposed to the current requirement that the board be 100 percent Baptist.

The other special agreement with Hillcrest provides for BGCT representation on a newly configured governing board created by the memorandum of understanding between Hillcrest and Scott & White Hospital in Temple.

Under terms of the proposal, Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center will be managed by a board of trustees, with half the board elected by Scott & White and half by Hillcrest Health System. The BGCT will directly elect 25 percent of the Hillcrest Health System board, and a majority of the board members will belong to BGCT-affiliated churches.

Terms of the agreement specify Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center and Hillcrest Health System will be operated “within the Christian-oriented aims and ideals of Baptists, including those contained within the Baptist Faith & Message statement of 1963.”

–Gave final approval to a constitutional amendment that clarifies the authority of messengers to the annual meeting to direct the BGCT Executive Board and the board’s responsibility to follow those directions. 

The amendment, approved on first reading at last year’s annual meeting, states: “The Executive Board shall have charge and control, except when otherwise direction by the convention, of all the work of the convention, including missions, education and beneficence, in the interim between its sessions.”

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—Rachel Garton has heard every pun imaginable during her 18 months as director of Buckner International’s Shoes for Orphan Souls ministry.

They range from, “putting the best foot forward,” to “if the shoe fits, wear it.” She’s even been called the “Queen of Sole.”

There’s no question in the minds of Buckner officials that Shoes for Orphan Souls has allowed the ministry to get its foot into many doors in the United States and internationally in the 10 years since Buckner took over the program from Dallas-based radio station KCBI.

“Shoes for Orphans Souls as a ministry in and of itself has provided shoes for literally millions of children around the world,” said Ken Hall, president of Buckner. “But at the same time, it has opened numerous doors for Buckner around the world. It has given all of what Buckner does credibility to those who don’t know us.”

In January, Buckner begins a yearlong celebration of 10 years since it took over the program. In 1999, KCBI was ending a half-decade of leading what it called “Shoes for Russian Souls,” a campaign the radio station used to collect shoes for Russian orphans. It was the brainchild of station manager Ron Harris.

But after five years, Harris approached Buckner officials about taking over the program. Hall said the immediate answer was “Yes!”

“We had so much respect for Ron and what KCBI had done to that point,” Hall said. “At the same time, we were deeply involved in Russia and opening work in other countries. We knew this could be a vehicle for Buckner in so many ways.”

Still, even Hall and others at Buckner admit that while they knew the shoe program had great potential, the past 10 years have eclipsed what they expected.

“We have Shoes for Orphan Souls drives in almost every state. We have distributed nearly 2 million pairs of shoes in 55 countries. And so many different segments of society, from churches to civic clubs, schools, Christian radio stations, just about everyone you can imagine does a shoe drive now,” Hall said.

Through September, Garton said, the 2008 shoe drive year-to-date is running far ahead of last year. Already, more than 830 shoe drives have been held nationwide, and close to 250,000 pairs of shoes have been collected through the first nine months of the year, she said.

“We sometimes wonder if people will move on to something else after awhile,” Garton said. “But our folks are faithful, and they just keep collecting shoes and financial contributions to support us.”

Two years ago, the Shoes for Orphan Souls program took a big step forward when the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid opened in east Dallas. The 45,000-square-foot building serves as the receiving and shipping center for the ministry.

Paula Scott enjoys sharing new shoes with a Russian orphan during a Shoes for Orphan Souls Buckner mission trip to St. Petersburg. Scott, from Illinois, joined volunteers from across the nation.

Each year, more than 5,000 volunteers log in excess of 20,000 hours sorting shoes and preparing them for shipment around the world. The warehouse has become a popular spot for church youth groups and mission teams from around the country. Already this year, more than 240,000 pairs of shoes have passed through the center.

That number doesn’t include shoes purchased by Buckner in many countries where shoes are distributed. In those cases, Buckner buys shoes locally with money donated to Buckner rather than shipping them, because it’s more cost-effective.

“The financial contributions we receive to support Shoes for Orphan Souls are used to ship shoes around the world, but also to purchase shoes in a lot of places where it’s more convenient and better stewardship to buy locally,” Garton said.

In Russia, where it all started for Buckner 10 years ago, shoes, especially warm boots, are bought locally. In October, a team of volunteers from the United States spent eight days visiting 11 orphanages delivering shoes to children.

For Ludmila Baranova, retired director of Orphanage No. 2 in St. Petersburg, one of the first recipients of shoes in 1999, the shoes have had a “direct impact, first and foremost on the physical condition of the children.”

But she added that having teams of Americans come to the orphanage to give the shoes to the children also has had an “emotional impact on the condition of the children. They have fond memories of the time they spent with the groups,” Baranova said. “Their happy memories are all about hope. This hope helps them in the future. It’s hard to overstate what Buckner has done.”

And while shoes are shipped around the world to 55 countries, some of the most profound impact of the ministry is right back in Texas, where the most recent Shoes for Orphan Souls mission trip took 24 volunteers to the El Paso/Juarez, Mexico area.

According to Jorge Zapata, ministry director for Buckner Border Ministries, the mission team from all over the United States ministered to 950 people on both sides of the border. The team saw 63 people accept Christ through the shoe distribution efforts, he said. And the mission trip generated local television coverage on Univision, the Spanish-language station. “They opened the story by saying that because of all the violence going on in Juarez, many religious groups have cancelled their trips, but Buckner International came anyway to make a difference in Juarez,” Zapata said.

Cindy Terry, one of seven women from First Baptist Church in Longview who was on the trip, said the experience provided a special blessing for her.

“I am so grateful for this mission experience, and I feel so personally blessed,” she said. “Each time I get a close-up glance of God at work, I am moved beyond words.”

Moody Barker’s transfer from stateside duty to the Pacific in the final days of World War II led to two encounters he considers “divine appointments.” One reunited him with his brother. The other reintroduced him to a boyhood friend who helped usher him into the family of God.

After Barker, who lives at the Christian Care Center retirement facility in Mesquite, told members of his Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Garland how he saw God at work when he was serving in the military more than 63 years ago, they persuaded him to write about his experience.

As Barker relates the story, he was drafted into the U.S. Army four months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the war. After he completed basic training in Virginia, he was stationed at Norton’s Point in Seagate, N.Y., at the north end of the Coney Island Boardwalk.

Moody Barker (center and right) was reunited with his brother, Bill (left), in the Pacific during the final days of World War II—one of two key encounters he considers “divine appointments.”

Although he was trained as a gun commander on a 90-millimeter emplaced to defend against aircraft or marine enemy, he discovered his primary duty was to check incoming and departing vessels passing through the New York Harbor submarine net.

“We were known as Coney Island Commandos. Our greatest danger was fighting the crowds on the subways to Times Square,” he recalled.

In contrast, his younger brother, Bill, received his basic training at Camp Beale in California and combat training in Hawaii, and then he participated in an island-hopping series of missions across the Pacific. He finally was sent to Leyte in the Philippines, where he was part of a multinational 12-million-man force that was being trained for an anticipated invasion of Japan.

Moody Barker married Jewett Watts during a Christmas furlough in 1944. When he returned to base, he received his orders to ship out for the Pacific. After stops in Pennsylvania and California, he boarded the Brigadier General Howze—“a faster ship than most, so we went unescorted across the Pacific.”

Not long after Barker arrived in the Philippines, he confirmed that his brother also was stationed somewhere in that area, but as he noted, “There were about 12 million men in the area at the time preparing for the invasion of Japan, so I figured finding Bill might be kind of hard.”

While he was in the process of trying to find out where his brother was serving, Barker saw a banner on a bulletin board at a service club near Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters. It said, “Bomb equal to 20,000 tons of TNT dropped on Japan.”

When a companion asked Barker what he thought about that, “I told him it had to be more propaganda.”

But that night, Barker’s squad leader woke everyone in earshot at 3 a.m., firing twin Thompson submachine guns and shouting, “The war is over, and we are all going home!”

Moody Barker (3rd from left, standing) spent most of World War II stationed in Seagate, N.Y., checking incoming and departing vessels that passed through New York Harbor with a group who called themselves the “Coney Island Commandos.” Near the end of the war, he was transferred to the Pacific, where he experienced what he considers two “divine appointments.” (Photos/Courtesy of Moody Barker family)

“The next day, I was called to the office and told that I was the first of all the replacements to be assigned to a new unit, and my orders were to fly to Tacloban, Leyte,” Barker said. He was told to report to the 945th Anti-aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion—on the same island where his brother was stationed. Barker began searching for his brother’s unit, the 155th Combat Engineers. Eventually, he found a phone operator who connected him to the unit.

“I asked if they had a Barker on their roster, and the operator said they sure did, and he was there getting a haircut,” he recalled. The operator summoned Bill Barker, and before long he was on the phone, eager to find out his brother’s location.

“I told him, and he said he would be there in 10 minutes. Sure enough, he showed up in 10 minutes, with half his hair cut—one side neatly trimmed and the other side very bushy, but he sure looked good to me,” Barker recalled.

Later, Bill Barker’s commanding officer asked Moody Barker if he would like to be transferred to the engineers. Barker told the captain he knew nothing about engineering, but the commanding officer asked him if he could drive a nail in a board without bending it. Barker assured him he could.

As Barker remembers it, the captain responded: “You’re a first class engineer. Now go back to your company and write a letter requesting a transfer to 155th Combat Engineers, and I guarantee that if it reaches our headquarters, you will soon be an engineer.”

Five days later he received his transfer orders—not only to the 155th Combat Engineers, but also to Company C, where he ended up sharing a tent with his brother.

Soon after the brothers’ reunion, their unit was relocated to Amori, Japan—the northernmost city on the island of Honshu—where Barker kept his “second divine appointment.”

Walking down the street in a city of 130,000, he heard a familiar voice call his name. He saw Rayford Clinkscales, a boyhood friend from New Gulf, an unincorporated community in Wharton County. He discovered Clinkscales was serving as a chaplain’s assistant.

“We had a nice visit, and during our conversation, he told me about five Protestant chaplains who were having meetings every night and invited me to come,” Barker recalled. “I explained how busy I was with my squad building Quonset huts to help us move out of tents and into warmer quarters.”

But Clinkscales proved persistent, visiting him again the next day and inviting him to another meeting that evening.

“I went and was so touched that I went again the next night. I experienced the love of the Holy Spirit, prayed the sinner’s prayer and asked Jesus to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior,” Barker said. “I had always believed in God and Jesus but never had a personal relationship with him. Everything changed for me that night.”

Barker has no doubts God brought together a series of events within just a few months—his marriage to “a wonderful Christian lady,” a reunion with a brother than demonstrated God’s wonder-working power and his visit with childhood friend who invited him to a place where he could hear the gospel.

“I’ll always thank God for Rayford and his part in my salvation,” Barker said.

“Rayford wrote to Jewett right after that and assured her that I was on the right road. He was right, because my trip down that road has been filled with so many blessings and—after each bump—the road always smoothed out.”

Based on a first-person report by Moody Barker, with additional reporting by Ken Camp

VIDOR—A junior economics student at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor recently rallied support to help make a difference in a community more than 250 miles away from the Belton campus.

Tommy Wilson, 22, said he felt a strong desire to get involved with relief efforts soon after Hurricane Ike ravaged parts of the Texas coast.

“I felt the call to go,” he said. “I asked God to open some doors.”

Wilson shared his feelings with Shawn Shannon, director of Baptist Student Ministries at UMHB, and Tom Henderson, director of missions for Bell Baptist Association. Shannon forwarded to Wilson an e-mail noting the Baptist General Convention of Texas listed a need in Vidor.

Wilson then worked through Nehemiah’s Vision, a nonprofit organization created after Hurricane Rita to help rebuild homes and churches in Southeast Texas.

“I called them and asked, ‘What do y’all need?’” he said.

Once Wilson found out there was a need for laborers to help clean up and repair structures, he got to work contacting university students. Wilson knew that with fall break approaching in mid-October, many students would be available and willing to lend a hand.

After making announcements in classes, during chapel and on a social networking group site, 23 students signed up for service in Vidor.

While the trip wasn’t officially sponsored by the university, UMHB paid fuel costs for the students’ trip.

The students helped complete a mud-out of three houses—shoveling mud out of homes, removing damaged drywall and spraying the interior with disinfectant.

They also patched a roof at the Baptist Student Ministry building near Lamar University in Vidor. Wilson arranged for Cecil Rankin, a roofer from his hometown of Charlotte, about 60 miles south of San Antonio, to travel to Vidor to provide guidance.

“I thought it was amazing,” Wilson said about the trip. “It was really, really fun, but at the same time challenging. Most of us college students have never done that type of work before, but we figured it out and got it done.”

BELTON—Students from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor spent a recent Saturday clearing out storage rooms, washing dishes, moving heavy boxes and generally cleaning the facilities of service agencies throughout Bell County as part of the university’s Reaching Out community initiative.

“I think UMHB and the community have a really positive relationship, and a contributing factor is Reaching Out,” Director of Student Organizations Kristy Brischke said. “We do service events three times a year, and these agencies are always anxious to get us back each year, so I think we really have been a positive light to them.”

Planned by the UMHB Student Government Association chaplains, the event scattered groups of students across Bell County for volunteer service.

“I hope students understand that there is a community in need right outside our doors. I also want them to be touched by the agencies we help and possibly develop a desire to impact them in a greater way in the future,” Brischke said.

Senior English major Christy Schulte, who serves as assistant director for the 2008 Miss Mary Hardin-Baylor pageant, points to Reaching Out as a highlight for pageant contestants.

“Every year, they have the pageant girls come to a community service opportunity as a bonding experience, but also to say: ‘This isn’t about us. We want to reach out to the community and share the love of Jesus with others.’”

Twenty pageant participants and directors worked at the Ronald McDonald House in Temple, organizing Christmas supplies, helping clean the facilities and taking care of other time-consuming tasks.

In Belton, students volunteered at Helping Hands Ministry food pantry. Several workers helped move heavy items to the organization’s new location, while others sorted supplies for distribution.

Junior nursing major Yarickza Shirley, a Student Government Association chaplain who helped organize Reaching Out, said the best thing about volunteering was “leaving at the end of the day and, knowing that even though it was four or five hours, feeling good about yourself.”

At the Central Texas Christian School, a small group of students helped clean the school and pick up trash.

Senior Patrick McDonald said: “I get a great joy out of volunteering because there is no way anything can come back to me physically. I don’t get paid for this. I don’t get anything from this but a great joy from helping people.”

MARSHALL—Bob Hogberg and Marc Heath have only met face-to-face once, but they are friends for life—in this case, Hogberg’s life.

Their friendship began with an unselfish gift—bone marrow donated by Heath, who lives in Greensboro, N.C., and received by Hogberg, mechanical maintenance manager at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall.

In June 2004, Hogberg was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. Doc-tors said his best chance for a complete recovery would be a bone-marrow transplant, but no one in Hogberg’s family was a match.  

New cases of AML are diagnosed in more than 11,900 people each year, and the average age of a person with AML is 65. Hogberg, who is now 64, received his bone marrow transplant in January 2006 at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“My grandfather died of leukemia when I was 8 years old,” said Heath.

“I actually got on the registry because of a bone-marrow drive while I was a student at Liberty University. The main reason I did this was to honor my grandfather, and I did not want someone else’s grandfather to pass away.”

At the time Hogberg was diagnosed, he had five grandchildren; now he has nine.

He and his wife, Judy, are members of Central Baptist Church in Marshall, and they give God all the glory for the gift from Heath.

“Without Marc’s contribution and God’s hand, I would not be here today,” Hogberg said. “The feeling of meeting Marc face to face is indescribable. I am thankful that he was willing to do what he did so I could live.”

“Because I Care,” a recruitment group affiliated with the National Marrow Donor Program, arranged for the meeting between 29-year old Heath and Hogberg at a press conference in Longview.

Earlier this year, Heath and his wife, Sara, found out they would be able to meet the person who received his marrow donation.

“When we found out we could come to Texas and meet Bob, the level of excitement for me was like a child waiting for Christmas morning,” Heath said, as Hogberg led him on a tour of the ETBU campus.

“When I gave, I was told that I would not have any contact with the person. So, I thought that one day I possibly could find out through the FBI who it was,” Heath said, grinning.

The donor and recipient cannot talk to one another for one year after the transplant.

“Meeting Bob and his wife is so overwhelming because I never expected this to happen,” Heath said.

The Hogbergs served as hosts to the Heaths for a weekend during their first visit to Texas. Heath was introduced to all the Hogberg’s children and grandchildren and, he noted, they immediately made him an honorary member of the family.

Hogberg told the Longview News-Journal: “I believe there’s a divine purpose in all our lives, and things work out when we hand them over to God.

“Marc gave of himself in a very real and personal way. I have a Savior in heaven who’s given me eternal life and a buddy here on Earth who’s given me physical life.”