Posted: 9/16/05

Meeting needs with love:
'That's what churches do'

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

HOUSTON–Even before first-responders like the Red Cross or Salvation Army, Copperfield Bap-tist Church in Houston opened its facilities to shelter hurricane evacuees from Louisiana.

The congregation decided to share its building with families fleeing Louisiana be-fore Hurricane Katrina made landfall, and it had people take the church up on its offer the same day the storm struck New Orleans.

The church is committed to sheltering people for three to six months, providing meals and clothes. The ministry is an outgrowth of the congregation's mission, Pastor Larry Womack said.

“We're not Red Cross. We're not (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). One of their representatives asked us, 'So what are you doing?' We said: 'We're a church. That's what churches do,'” Womack said.

“We just feel like we have to carry out the Great Commandment. We're to love our neighbor, so we want to reach our world and carry out the gospel. So, that's what we're doing. We feel like we're doing that through helping these people.”

Many people and groups from the community are contributing to help nearly 100 people sleeping on air mattresses in the church's gym/worship center. Church members are preparing meals. They are staffing the shelter.

But others are pitching in as well. Restaurants are bringing food. Other churches brought supplies.

A person answering phone calls does not belong to the church. Non-Christians have contributed to the shelter.

Copperfield has continued all its other ministries while hosting the shelter. Community groups such as Girl Scouts are meeting in the facilities.

On Sunday, the air mattresses are moved to the sides of the worship center so services can take place.

“We really want our people to see the air mattresses and the clothing and everything that's there,” Womack said. “They really need to touch and feel this ministry.”

Copperfield has tried to treat the evacuees like they are “part of the church.” Members interact with them, and they were invited to the worship services.

“The people are coming from huge tragedy,” Womack said. “Most of the people we talk to have nothing at all. They lost their house. They may not know where their relatives are. Some of them have not heard from relatives in days and are fearful of them being lost or died. They, at the same time, are very thankful that someone took them in.”

Posted: 9/16/05

Duncanville ministry an
advertisement for love of Jesus

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DUNCANVILLE–After the levee broke in New Orleans, the Curry family decided to strike out for the Superdome. Soon the water was chest deep for the mother and her husband as they carried their young children to keep their heads above water.

They made it to a highway overpass, where they broiled for hours with no food or water to sustain themselves or their children.

The real horror didn't come until they actually reached the Superdome. There they were afraid to sleep because of the violence and depredation going on around them. When the buses came, twice they were at the beginning of lines, only to flee the queue out of fear for their children's safety.

When they finally reached a bus, they were told they were going to the Astrodome in Houston. Later, they heard they were rerouted to Reunion Arena in Dallas. And, finally, they were directed to a church in Duncanville.

It was not a happy moment on the bus, Ekeshia Curry recalled. “The whole bus was like, 'We've rode this bus all this time, and now they are going to take us to some little country church.' None of us had ever heard of Duncanville, but it sounded like the middle of nowhere,” she said.

Actually, Duncanville is a suburb on the south side of Dallas, and after only a few hours, Curry and the rest of the 89 people on the bus were glad to have been taken there.

“We had to walk through the river of hell to get to the gates of heaven,” Curry said of her ultimate destination.

That is exactly what Pastor Keith Brister wanted to hear.

“When that bus pulled into the parking lot, I knew God had blessed that bus full of people. Our people loved them before they even arrived,” he said. “I felt like God had prepared us to be a church that would accept anybody, and he had given us a special assignment to live that out.”

Brister said that while his church that averages about 450 in Sunday school has taken the lead in ministry, the effort has really been community wide, especially among members of many churches in the town of a little less than 40,000.

“I'm thrilled with the way the church has responded, and really the whole body of Christ in the community. I'm really excited because this didn't start when Katrina blew in, but five years ago when we as ministers starting meeting together to pray about how we could as a group make a difference in our city,” Brister said.

Brister had encouraged his church in a sermon just two weeks before the storm to go deeper in their efforts to reach unchurched people. The day before Katrina left her mark on New Orleans, Brister had been more specific about how that might happen–multihousing ministries, a language learning center and meeting the needs of underprivileged children.

Within days, all those ministries were to some degree going on within the church's gymnasium.

One of the expected outcomes of the ministries the church envisioned was a more racially and economically diverse church, and with the arrival of the families from New Orleans, “overnight, we became a church of diversity,” Brister said.

Many who arrived on the bus have expressed a desire to remain in Duncanville. And because of the relationships that have developed through ministry, that suits Brister fine.

“These people have not only come to our church as a temporary shelter, but also now have a place in our hearts and lives,” he said.

The ministry to the evacuees has been broad-based with hundreds helping.

“This has given us an opportunity to move from being a church that talks about being a missions-minded church to being a missions-doing church,” Brister said.

The church's ministry to the evacuees has caught the attention of the community. Many people unfamiliar with the church have brought by donations. Relationships with community leaders have deepened. Doctors have come to the church to dispense shots and other medical care. The local newspaper featured the church's ministry on its front page.

“What this has been is a big old advertisement throughout this town about the love of Jesus,” Brister said.

Posted: 9/16/05

Disaster relief gifts top $900,000

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Texas Baptists have donated more than $900,000 to the Baptist General Convention of Texas' disaster response, including the ministry of Texas Baptist Men.

Individuals and congregations around the world gave money to help support Texas Baptists who are feeding, clothing and sheltering victims of Hurricane Katrina in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

More than 600 donations have been made through the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation of the BGCT. Individual gifts of at least $1,000 are coming in regularly.

First Baptist Church in Canyon donated more than $9,000 to Texas Baptist Men. Gene Jones, the congregation's associate pastor of education, said members responded to an opportunity to help victims of the hurricane. He would like to see the money go directly to help the needs of people forced to evacuate their homes.

The Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany, a fellow member of the Baptist World Alliance with the BGCT and long-time partner in ministry, contributed nearly $31,000 to the Texas Baptist response to Hurricane Katrina.

“We are humbled and grateful as Texas Baptists to know that our German Baptist friends are so united with us in this cause to minister to those who have lost everything,” said Don Sewell, who leads the BGCT's worldwide partnerships.

“We have a small, but wonderful, world when German Baptists can respond so quickly and so effectively in their love for us.”

Donations through the BGCT do not represent the totality of the outpouring of Texas Baptists' hearts. Some churches are giving directly to other congregations to help support specific ministries or areas.

First Baptist Church in Longview sent nearly $39,000, along with two truckloads of donated supplies, to the Louisiana Baptist Convention. The donated items immediately were placed where hurricane evacuees could get them. “I promised (church members) if they gave, we would go to Louisiana,” Pastor Tim Watson said.

Congregations have collected supplies to help victims in shelters across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Many of these shelters are located in church gyms and fellowship halls. Texas Baptist churches are partnering with churches in areas that were hit hardest by the storm.

On top of these donations, the BGCT Administrative Committee allocated $1 million to help with disaster relief in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

The funds will be channeled to churches in those three states seeking to meet the needs of people victimized by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade said.

A system will be set up involving state Baptist groups in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in order to assure the money gets to people in need.

“By working with churches and state groups, we will have access to a ready-made system of communication and channels for handling the money,” Wade said. “The people in the churches know the people in their communities and where the most desperate needs exist.

“We're grateful we can give the money, but even more, we are grateful that we can be with them in their loss and grief,” Wade said. “And the prayers of our people, from every church, will be continuous until everyone is cared for.”

Ferrell Foster of Texas Baptist Com-munications contributed to this article.

Posted: 9/16/05

Huntsville pastor welcomes
evacuees to a safe place

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

HUNTSVILLE–About 250 evacuees from New Orleans packed into the facilities of First Baptist Church in Huntsville, but they would not leave for another newly opened shelter because they felt safe and secure, Pastor David Valentine said.

“We've opened another shelter in town, but they won't budge,” Valentine said. They want to stay because “they got burned so badly at the Superdome,” where they had sought shelter from Hurricane Katrina.

A total of 340 evacuees arrived at the church at 1:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 2, after a 16-hour ride from New Orleans to Houston–where they were turned away from the Astrodome–to Huntsville. The church had 30 minutes advance notice.

Valentine boarded each bus and gave them a simple message. “I know you've been in hell; welcome to heaven,” he remembers telling them. “I can't imagine what you've been through, but there's a warm cot, hot meal and hot shower waiting for you here. You're in the safest place in the United States.”

The church's facilities are next door to a prison operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and the congregation has regular, ongoing ministries with the prison and its workers.

The evacuees arrived in terrible condition. They wore clothes stained with blood and human waste, the pastor said. “It was the nastiest thing I've ever seen.”

First Baptist Church took the people in and made them feel welcome.

“Our people have been good,” Valentine said. Most of the evacuees now want to stay in Huntsville, he added.

The church expects to house evacuees for 12 to 16 weeks, but the building can handle no more than 150 people over such a long term.

Crowding is so great now that the people cannot sit at tables to eat, said Jerry Phillips, associate pastor for community ministry.

The church, however, has been aided in handling the evacuees. The prison is doing all of the laundry, and the TDCJ staff is partnering with the Huntsville Police in providing security.

The local telephone company provided five telephones for evacuees to contact family members; a university set up a computer room; and 12 portable showers were put in place. Also, First Baptist is a certified Red Cross shelter and thus has liability protection.

Valentine traced the church's successful ministry in this situation back to a $5,000 gift from the Baptist General Convention of Texas that helped establish the criminal justice ministries now in place. The church has taken that initial ministry investment and turned it into a variety of community ministries that served as the foundation for its hurricane response.

Posted: 9/16/05

Evacuees double size of Lackland Baptist

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO–Lackland Baptist Church doubled in size overnight, welcoming more than 100 survivors of Hurricane Katrina to its facilities.

The church has evacuees sleeping on cots throughout its gym and special-needs individuals staying with family members in Sunday school rooms. The shelter is among a half-dozen sponsored by Baptist Child & Family Services. The governor's office assigned to the Baptist agency coordination of care for all special-need evacuees, except for people requiring hospitalization.

Despite the large influx of newcomers, volunteers–primarily from San Antonio congregations–know most of the residents by name. Often, they know where evacuees came from, where other family members are located and issues people are facing.

Lackland Baptist Church Pastor John Franklin can go from cot to cot, revisiting nearly every family's trek from Louisiana to San Antonio. Often the journey involved multiple modes of transportation, including buses, airplanes and helicopters.

Tears well up in Franklin's eyes when he relives the arrival of a mother and her child the first night of the shelter. The church did not have enough cots for both of them. The mother slept on a cushion from a church pew that she placed on the gym floor while her child lay in a cot next to her. Details like these change how a person views Hurricane Katrina, he said.

“You sit down and listen to them tell their stories,” Franklin said. “It makes a human connection. There's a human dimension there. It isn't something you're reading in the paper. This is somebody talking to you, telling you, 'This is what happened to me.' It can be overwhelming.”

Facilitating the shelter is tiring for many of the volunteers. Workers serve long hours to the point that some of them also have been sleeping at the church. But the hurricane victims need help, said Evelyn Thompson of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church.

“Nothing I'm going through in my life or anybody in my family is going through is as hard as what these people are facing,” she said.

Volunteers' efforts are paying off. Some people in the shelter are finding jobs in San Antonio. Others are reconnecting with family members. Evacuees are finding their physical, emotional and spiritual needs met.

“I hope years from now when all this is behind us that people that we have here will be able to look back at a small congregation in San Antonio and say: 'Those people put my family back together,' Franklin said. 'That God ministered to me from them, and helped me in the darkest time in my life.'”

Hurricane victims are not the only ones seeing their lives change, Franklin said. Volunteers are putting their faith into practice, and God is altering their lives.

“We're coming up on in-gathering for Mary Hill Davis Offering for state missions. My church has just become a church made up completely of missionaries. This is mission right here, and this is so exciting,” Franklin said.

“God has used this situation to give my people on-hands experience at working and putting the rubber to the road in ministry and becoming missionaries. I think our church is going to be receiving a blessing from this years from now.”

Posted: 9/16/05

Texas Baptist Men volunteers prepare a pot of corn for victims of Hurricane Katrina staying in Orange. TBM has prepared more than 500,000 meals for people who evacuated Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. At right, a young evacuee receives a hot meal and clean water. (Photos by John Hall and John Shelton)

Ongoing Mary Hill Davis
Offering support needed, leaders say

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

For nearly four decades, Texas Baptist ministry to people affected by natural disaster has been closely related to ongoing state missions.

In 1967, Hurricane Beulah devastated the Texas-Mexico border, destroying the lives of multitudes in South Texas. Bob Dixon of Texas Baptist Men began preparing meals with gallon-sized buckets he turned into “buddy burners,” marking the birth of Texas Baptist disaster relief.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas began focusing on long-term needs on the Texas-Mexico border, sharing the gospel and supplying clothes and food to the region.

The effort evolved into BGCT River Ministry along the Rio Grande, which now reaches thousands each year on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.

Charles McLaughlin, director of the State Missions Commission at the time, later wrote: “Texas Baptists opened disaster relief centers, and one of them existed for six months, dispensing 2.5 million pounds of food, clothing and supplies.

“And you gave the money not only to hurting Beulah victims, but you gave the money for the State Missions Offering (now Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions) and guaranteed the Rio Grande River Ministry. God was at work in the storm.”

Carolyn Porterfield, executive director/treasurer of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, believes Hurricane Katrina could have a similar effect on Texas Baptist life as Beulah. Shelters eventually will close, but many people who evacuated Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will settle in Texas, creating a need for churches to serve them.

Texas Baptists will create and strengthen ministries to help their new neighbors, Porterfield said. Clothes closets, food pantries and new churches will be started with the help of the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

The offering, to which money can be given year-round, supports a great variety of Texas Baptist efforts, including community ministries, new churches, Christian Men's and Women's Job Corps and leadership development.

The influx of hurricane victims has forever changed the face of Texas, Porterfield said. Texas Baptists must proactively consider how they can minister in this setting. “If we only think about right now, we might miss out on what God might have for the future.”

Texas WMU's offering goal of $5 million may seem difficult when money is needed immediately to help hurricane victims, but each dollar contributed to the Mary Hill Davis Offering helps believers spread the gospel, she said.

“Texas Baptists are deeply blessed,” she said. “But with that blessing comes great responsibility. Wouldn't it be great if churches would give to Katrina relief and an equal amount to Mary Hill Davis?”

God will help believers give what he wants to make ministries possible, Porterfield continued. “If God's people will listen to him and his people will do what he asks, we will have the resources where he wants them. It's not a matter of resources. It's a matter of obedience.”

The Texas WMU-promoted offering works in conjunction with disaster-specific requests, Porterfield said. $40,000 is marked to buy equipment for Texas Baptist Men disaster relief. Mary Hill Davis paves the way for TBM relief work.

“It's time for Texas Baptists to sacrifice,” she said. “We can be generous with disaster relief and Mary Hill Davis. They work together.”

Posted: 9/16/05

TBM volunteer: 'My heart
is drawn to those in need'

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ORANGE–Like many Texas Baptists, Donna Radmore wanted to pitch in and lend a helping hand when she heard how people were affected by Hurricane Katrina.

She started with her congregation, Clear Lake Baptist Church in Houston, helping members cook meals for victims of the storm who relocated near the church. Volunteers posted fliers at local hotels encouraging evacuees to come to the church for food.

Workers fed 75 families the first day. Then church leaders noticed some people could not come to the church, because they had no money for transportation.

That was no reason to get discouraged, simply an opportunity to discern God's will, Radmore said. “First we wanted them to come to us at our church. Just because of logistics, it didn't work out. So we realized, “God is calling us to bring it to them,'” she said.

The church delivered meals hotel by hotel to families that needed them.

That experience, along with the disaster relief training she had last year, helped prepare Radmore to extend her efforts beyond her local community as part of a Texas Baptist Men emergency food service team in Orange that prepared about 1,000 meals a day for evacuees.

The food the team prepared was delivered by the Salvation Army to shelters across the city, including ones in two Texas Baptist churches.

“My heart just wanted to be there to help people. People have helped me in the past, and I wanted to in turn help others. This is a wonderful opportunity to do so,” she said.

“They're without food, without water. It's something we can give them. It's something that I can do for someone else in need. My heart is drawn to those in need.”

Ministering to the evacuees will have long-term effects, Radmore said. Members of Clear Lake Baptist Church invited the displaced people to join them at worship services. Christians prayed with them. And some former Louisiana residents are thinking about settling in Houston, creating the chance for further ministry.

“The Bible says you've got to take care of their water, their physical need, their food, before you can take care of their spiritual need,” Radmore said. “That was the need at the time. We also had the blessing to pray with them and invite them to church on Sunday. Now we're finding they're going to be moving into our area. That opens a lot of doors.”

Posted: 9/16/05

Disaster of epic proportions
makes impact on individual lives

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

SLIDELL, La. (ABP)–Hurricane Katrina's maelstrom of wind and water killed untold numbers of coastal residents and set off an urban catastrophe from which New Orleans may never recover fully.

But it also was a disaster of personal stories–costing Ginger Adams of Pass Christian, Miss., her home and family heirlooms; making Chris Wallace ponder how he would rebuild his life in Slidell, La.; and imposing a logistical nightmare on disaster relief volunteer Dempsey Haymon as he began to figure out how he was going to take care of all the people he had been called to Covington, La., to feed.

Adams lost her rented home to the massive storm surge and howling winds. The house was located half a block from the beach on Pass Christian's Henderson Point, just behind one that had belonged to her great-grandfather. Her parents were in another historic town, just across the now-obliterated U.S. 90 bridge from Henderson Point.

“My parents have–well, had–a house in Bay St. Louis that has been in our family for 150 years,” Adams said, after picking through what was left of her belongings.

Adams returned to Pass Christian from Florida, where she had evacuated during the storm. She managed to salvage little more than an antique pitcher and a box of family-heirloom jewelry. She showed a reporter a metal pin from it, token of a Mardi Gras ball she attended as a young debutante in New Orleans. “That has to be from 25 years ago,” she said.

It weathered the storm, but little else of Pass Christian's historical artifacts did. “All these houses that have survived Camille and Betsy (in 1965), and the 1947 hurricane are gone,” she said. “These are houses that had been here a long time.”

Meanwhile, Haymon led a team of Louisiana Baptist disaster-relief volunteers operating a mobile kitchen in Covington, a rapidly growing area across Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans.

The Louisiana team joined several similar ones from Oklahoma, Nevada and other states in a staging area at Covington's First Baptist Church, along with a Texas Baptist Men chainsaw crew from Enon Baptist Association.

Haymon, in the midst of cooking a stew for Red Cross workers to deliver to local households, said he was having difficulty communicating with other volunteers scheduled to arrive.

“Communication is such a problem,” he said four days after the storm made landfall. “I haven't talked to anyone (at Louisiana Baptist Convention offices) in Alexandria since I got here.”

Mobile phone service and electric power were virtually nonexistent in Covington and other areas near the heart of the massive hurricane's path. Haymon of Hornbeck, La., said he was waiting on a refrigeration truck to complete his kitchen, making it possible for him to serve all kinds of meals.

About 30 miles to east of there, in Slidell, Wallace stood outside his uncle's modest home and helped him air out soaked clothing, rugs and linens.

Although the house is, by his estimation, more than six miles from the Lake Ponchartrain waterfront, the storm surge flooded it with two feet of water.

Wallace hadn't even seen his newly purchased mobile home yet. Too many trees still blocked his street for him to get a look.

“I'm afraid I'll have to start over,” he said.

His uncle, Vincent Santilla, was fortunate enough to have federally subsidized flood insurance. “We're just going to try to clean up,” Santilla said.

That may be difficult in the near term, as a massive oak tree still leaned against the home's roof, and he was sure the hole it made would leak the rain starting to fall.

Still, Wallace and Santilla were thankful they and their families escaped alive, after a harrowing 14-hour evacuation to Winfield, La., a town that should have been about a four-hour drive.

Back in Pass Christian, Mitch Kegley pointed to his three-story home far from the beachfront and several blocks from St. Louis Bay. It survived the storm, but the surge still got up to the second floor, destroying many of his possessions. Although he had evacuated to Mobile, he returned Sept. 1–at his children's behest–to look for their pets.

“The cats were alive,” he said, amazed. He found one in the house, and the other on a nearby building. Kegley surmised that one had been washed out of the house but tried to swim back.

“Before they left, our kids said their prayers, and they both prayed for their cats,” he noted. When a reporter said maybe the youngsters' prayers had been effective, Kegley smiled and agreed. “Yes, their prayers were answered,” he said.

Posted: 9/16/05

Texas Baptists open hearts and homes to evacuees

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Texas Baptists responded to the exodus of evacuees from the Gulf Coast by opening their church buildings, homes, wallets and hearts.

Churches around the state converted fellowship halls, Sunday school classrooms, gyms and even sanctuaries into temporary shelters for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Many other churches collected bottled water, canned goods, shoes, clothing and linens for storm evacuees, as well as receiving offerings to benefit Texas Baptist Men and Baptist General Convention of Texas disaster relief.

In the Houston area, Union Baptist Association initially used its website to provide a periodically updated list of its member churches that offered emergency shelters, as well as listing available resources and needs.

Within a week, the website developed into a comprehensive matrix connecting churches, social services and volunteers with links to interdenominational and community-based programs to benefit Katrina evacuees.

Many church members–particularly in African-American churches–took displaced families into their own homes, said Ricky Bradshaw, associate with Union Baptist Association.

“Many of them don't have showers or a gymnasium, so they don't have facilities to offer shelter in their church buildings. But their members just took in whole families,” Bradshaw said, noting many of the church members live in small homes or crowded apartments.

Union Baptist Asso-ciation is working closely with the Neighbor 2Neighbor community program to provide a long-term link between Houston residents and newly arrived families. Established families will serve as mentors to their new neighbors, helping them learn how to navigate the city and its social services, he explained.

Multiple Baptist associations sent Texas Baptist Men disaster relief volunteers and victim relief chaplains to Louisiana and Mississippi, along with specially equipped field kitchens, child care units, mobile laundry and shower facilities, and crews with chain saws.

Texas Baptist churches also worked in partnership with churches in the storm-ravaged region, often joining hands with Baptist agencies to provide assistance.

Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas collected more than $90,000 for relief in less than two weeks, about one-third of it used to buy supplies sent to University Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, La. Buckner Baptist Benevolences provided 2,500 pairs of shoes for the effort.

Volunteers at Wilshire, ranging in age from 3-year-old Mission Friends to 90-year-old senior adults, assembled about 8,000 hygiene kits and an ever-growing number of gift bags for the Texas Baptist Men child care units.

Wilshire also worked with Buckner and the Interfaith Housing Coalition to resettle 20 families in the first couple of weeks after the storm, and Associate Pastor Mark Wingfield expected the church to help another dozen families within the next week.

The church discovered it could furnish an apartment with linens, kitchenware and other essential items for about $1,500 per family, Wingfield noted.

At least 150 volunteers have worked in various aspects of the church's ministry to evacuees, he said.

“We've involved people from the community who are not church members anywhere,” he said. “Internally, we've had people involved in this ministry who never volunteered for anything before, and I'm sure many have given who are not regular contributors. We've engaged new people in ministry. It's been a great entry point for involvement.”

Posted: 9/16/05

Baptist schools among nation's
best, magazine ranking shows

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)–Colleges and universities historically affiliated with Baptist state conventions featured prominently, once again, in a popular annual ranking of schools–including several Baptist General Convention of Texas-affiliated schools.

U.S. News and World Report magazine's “Best Colleges 2006” issue listed 24 of the 53 members of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools in the top halves of their respective categories, said the group's director, Bob Agee.

Baylor University was tied for 78th out of 248 schools in the category of “best national universities.” Those, according to the magazine, were schools that offer comprehensive undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs.

The magazine also ranked liberal arts colleges nationally as well as categories it called “comprehensive colleges” and “master's universities.”

Comprehensive colleges are schools that focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half of their degrees in traditional liberal arts disciplines, and master's universities are schools that offer a wide array of undergraduate and master's programs but grant few or no doctoral degrees.

Three Texas Baptist schools were included in top-half of the western division master's universities–Hardin-Simmons University (ranked 42nd), the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (43rd) and Houston Baptist University (57th).

For western comprehensive colleges, East Texas Baptist University (11th), and Howard Payne University in Texas (13th) were ranked in the top half.

Rankings are based on a number of factors, including student-to-faculty ratio, selectivity of admissions, retention of freshman students, and four-year graduation rates. Schools also are sub-ranked in those categories

Posted: 9/16/05

TBM serves more than 500,000 meals

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Texas Baptist Men emergency food service disaster relief teams have prepared more than 500,000 meals for victims of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

About 30 teams of Texas Baptist Men disaster relief volunteers, including 10 feeding teams, are ministering across three states where evacuees remain. Primary sites for TBM work include Covington, Alexandria and Hammond, La.; Biloxi, Miss.; San Antonio and Houston.

Unlike many recent relief efforts in which Texas Baptist volunteers have prepared meals delivered by Red Cross workers, Baptist teams are getting a chance to serve the meals they have prepared in some locations. Line feeding encourages volunteers because they get to see the results of their work, said TBM Executive Director Leo Smith. They see smiles on people's faces and hear words of gratitude. They also get to share the gospel on occasion, he added.

After an initial period of assessing needs and ministry feasibility, TBM has units in places where they can serve for several weeks. Each team has enough supplies to prepare meals for at least four months, though volunteers may not be needed for that long. The number of meals requested has remained constant, but it likely will drop off as evacuees return to their homes or relocate into permanent housing.

The situation in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will begin to change as people leave temporary shelters to try to piece their lives back together, Smith said. Organizations are trying to encourage people to begin the recovery as soon as possible.

“What they are trying to do is get the people out of the shelters and into a trailer building or temporary shelter, putting family units together,” he said. “We want to see that.”

As the situation changes, TBM will shift into the recovery process as Louisiana becomes safer to work in, Smith said. Chainsaw and clean-up teams will be more in demand. TBM already is building a list of volunteers who want to serve on these teams.

“When you go in with the feeding, that's the disaster mode,” Smith said. “Once people starting disbursing from the shelters, that's the recovery. That recovery mode could go on for months and months.”

Even as Texas Baptist Men teams serve victims of Hurricane Katrina in three states, the organization stands ready to minister in the wake of Hurricane Ophelia, which was threatening North Carolina at press time.

Three feeding teams currently working in Louisiana have been placed on standby to serve in North Carolina. The teams could relocate quickly and start preparing up to 80,000 meals a day.

The storm, barely strong enough to be classified as a hurricane, pushed North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley to encourage residents in low-lying areas to evacuate. At this point, forecasters believe Ophelia could lead to a tidal surge of up to 10 feet and drop as much as 15 inches of rain in places.

Posted: 9/16/05

Texas Tidbits

Foundation donates to disaster relief. The new Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio donated $100,000 to the Baptist General Convention of Texas disaster relief effort to provide food and medical supplies for victims of Hurricane Katrina, ?Foundation President Frank Elston announced. The foundation's trustees also approved an additional $25,000 disbursement for use by Baptist Health System chaplains to assist Katrina victims and their families with special needs while they are in a Baptist hospital or at the time of discharge.

Nominating committee meeting set. The Baptist General Convention of Texas committee to nominate Executive Board members will hold its final meeting of the year at 2 p.m. Oct. 4. Anyone wishing to submit names for consideration for the 2006 Executive Board should send their information to Chairperson Cassandra Northcutt, c/o Office of Committee Support, 333 N. Washington, Dallas 75246 or email debbie.moody@bgct.org.

El Paso minister named to DBU post. Ron Bowles, minister of worship and communications at First Baptist Church of El Paso, has been named special assistant to the president at Dallas Baptist University. Bowles, who has served in El Paso 22 years, will teach in the communications and music departments at DBU. He earned a bachelor's degree in music education and a master's degree in communications from Baylor University and a master's degree in church music from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Bowles previously served on staff at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Amarillo and First Baptist Church in Waco.

Senior Saints Day set at UMHB. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor will host its third annual Senior Saints Day on campus Sept. 29. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m., and the event will be held from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Featured speakers are Tim Cross, a Baptist chaplain who recently returned from Iraq; Robert Remlinger, a consumer issues specialist with AARP who will discuss how seniors can protect themselves against identity theft; and George Harrison, director of student relations and community services at UMHB. Senior Saints Day is sponsored by the UMHB church relations office in the College of Christian Studies and is open to senior adults age 55 and above. Early registration is available for $20 per person if postmarked by Sept. 22. Late registration and payment at the door is $25. Registration includes all sessions, lunch and a concert. For more information, contact Bill Muske at (254) 295-4606 or bill.muske@umhb.edu.

Three to be inducted during Howard Payne homecoming. During homecoming activities at Howard Payne University Oct. 21, the Daniel Baker College Ex-Students Association will induct Bill Little of McCamey, Billy Miller of Burnet and the late Hue Ben Ray of San Angelo into its Sports Hall of Honor. Daniel Baker College consolidated with Howard Payne in 1953. Little earned two letters in both football and basketball at Daniel Baker College and was center linebacker for the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets two seasons. He was a teacher, coach and principal before being named superintendent for the McCamey Independent School District. Miller excelled in football and basketball at Daniel Baker from 1949 to 1951. Following his military service in the Korean War, he enrolled in Southwest Texas State University at San Marcos. He later served that school 14 years as head football coach and then as director of athletics. Ray enrolled at Daniel Baker College in 1946 and became a four-year basketball starter and letterman. He graduated cum laude from Daniel Baker in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. During his business and professional career, he worked for telephone companies in Texas, California, Illinois and Florida.