Texas Tidbits

Posted: 12/16/05

Texas Tidbits

Baptist Credit Union marks 50th anniversary. Baptist Credit Union–a member-owned financial cooperative–recently marked 50 years of service to Texas Baptist churches and institutions. Ten employees of Baptist Memorial Hospital in San Antonio formed the credit union in 1955, and in 1977, the San Antonio-based credit union merged with the Dallas-based Baptist Employees Credit Union of Texas. Today, it includes more than 7,100 members, serving employees of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, its institutions and associations, and members of churches in Dallas Baptist Association and San Antonio Baptist Association. For more information, call (800) 222-2328.

Baylor students receive book at chapel. Baylor University distributed about 3,000 copies of Understanding God's Will: How to Hack the Equation Without Formulas by Kyle Lake to students attending chapel services recently. Lake died Oct. 30 when he was electrocuted while performing a baptism at University Baptist Church in Waco, where he was pastor seven years. "Kyle Lake did a great job addressing purpose and meaning of life, and I wanted the students to understand what he thought about God's will for our lives," said Byron Weathersbee, interim university chaplain. A group of Baylor alumni who were part of a supper club with Lake helped cover the cost of the book distribution. Relevant Publishing also made "quite a sacrificial gift" to get the books into students' hands, Weathersbee added.

Racial reconciliation workshop slated. Mission Waco will sponsor a Martin Luther King weekend church and community workshop on racial reconciliation Jan. 15-16 at the Meyer Center for Urban Ministries, 1226 Washington in Waco. Featured speakers include George Yancey, sociology professor at the University of North Texas; Glen Kehrein, executive director of Circle Urban Ministries in Chicago; and Alcides Guajardo, president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas. Admission is free, but reservations are requested. Contact Jimmy_Dorrell@baylor.edu or call (254) 753-4900.

Edwards named First Freedom award recipient. Chet Edwards, seven-term U.S. Representative from Waco and proponent of church-state separation, will receive the National First Freedom Award Jan. 18 in Richmond, Va. Other recipients of awards presented by the Council for America's First Freedom are Vaclav Havel, playwright and former president of both the Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia, who will receive the International First Freedom Award, and Robert Alley, professor emeritus of humanities at the University of Richmond, who will receive the Virginia First Freedom Award. The 2006 event marks the 12th year the council has sponsored the First Freedom Awards on or near National Religious Freedom Day, observed annually Jan. 16.

Researcher seeks info on former summer missionaries. Don Coleman needs helps filling in a few blanks to complete a list he is compiling of student missionaries who served through Baptist Student Ministries. Specifically, he needs names and schools of students who served in Juarez, Mexico, in 1951-52. Also, he needs the school attended by Randy Richards, who served in inner-city Dallas in 1978. Send information to Coleman at Elkins Lake Baptist Church, 206 State Highway 19, Huntsville 77340 or e-mail frogger@consolidated.net.