Posted: 4/27/07

Disaster relief volunteers prepare
for the worst, hope for the best

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

ALLAS—Gary Smith missed Hurricane Andrew. He was returning by plane from a mission trip to Kosovo when it hit. But he hasn’t missed many severe storms in the past 15 years.

Smith has responded to hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis since he began as a volunteer for Texas Baptist Men 15 years ago. In 2004, he became director of TBM Disaster Relief ministries.

Gary Smith

At the forefront of disaster response, Smith has seen first-hand the damage left by hurricanes such as Charlie, Ivan, Katrina and Rita. One of the worst seasons, he remembers, was when four hurricanes hit Florida in 2004.

But it was a tropical storm that hit the Texas coast in 2001 that stands out in his memory.  

“Even though Allison never really became classified as a hurricane, she came ashore quickly and jumped on Houston,” Smith recalled. “The medical community and the hospitals were flooded. We set up in parking lots.”

Tropical Storm Allison became the most costly tropical storm in U.S. history. There were 24 fatalities and more than $5 billion in damage to the two worst hit areas of the country—southeast Texas and southern Louisiana, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

With so much hurricane experience, Smith didn’t seem worried recently when hurricane experts predicted a “very active” 2007 hurricane season.

“We don’t take extra precautions based on predictions,” Smith explained. “We do the best we can and respond accordingly.”

Hurricane expert William Gray of Colorado State University recently predicted five major hurricanes for 2007, and NOAA experts forecast four to six major hurricanes this year.

Texas Baptist Men volunteers stir up gallons of chili to feed Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Two months before the hurricane season begins, Gray—who has studied tropical weather more than 40 years—predicted a 74 percent chance a hurricane will hit the U.S. coast in 2007.

The prediction is “virtually identical” to the one Gray issued in 2006, which turned out to be quieter than he had forecast, according to Associated Press reports.

“We prepare for the worst,” Smith said. “But we hope for the best.”

Predictions don’t determine how disaster relief preparations are made. Measures are constantly under way to ensure strike teams, feeding and shower units and volunteers are in place.

“We have identified a strike team that can go out within 24 hours notice to get the unit up and running,” Smith added. “Then volunteers come in to replace them within three or four days.”

TBM has 13 emergency food service units that can provide more than 100,000 meals a day. With the exception of the state unit, each food-service unit is owned and operated by a Baptist association, church or region, Smith noted.

“If some type of catastrophe occurred, disaster relief units could go out and respond quickly,” Smith said.

Volunteers staffing each unit try to have at least a three-day supply of food on hand, primarily canned goods. Plans are to provide a shower unit for each feeding unit.

Preparations also are made to ensure equipment is serviced, batteries are charged, tires are aired up, chainsaws are maintained and sharpened, and other tools and volunteer teams are ready to go.

TBM currently has 6,500 trained volunteers, but there is a growing need for more. When a disaster hits, Smith points out that the Retiree Builders ministry team cannot always leave the projects they are working on.

“We’re looking for more volunteers to participate in a new reconstruction recovery team unit which would go in after clean-out teams remove floodwater damage and sanitize,” Smith stressed. “We’re hoping to connect with some Baptists who will take up this ministry effort and restore damaged homes.”

A disability special needs disaster response team also is being developed. This team would work to “send people from the coast that are unable to evacuate themselves to San Antonio to be sheltered and fed by a dedicated feeding unit capable of providing 15,000 to 20,000 meals a day,” Smith noted.

Volunteers interested in helping TBM disaster relief ministries first participate in a “yellow cap” orientation with a spiritual emphasis. Each volunteer is designated a “yellow cap” until given other responsibilities as supervisor or manager.

To prepare for disaster relief efforts, volunteers are urged to attend specialty training workshops which include chainsaw, clean-out, child care, blue tarp (a roofing team), feeding and shower. Specialty training also is offered for point men, security and ham radio operators.

In 2005, the group’s volunteers provided disaster relief for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which combined with Dennis and Wilma made the costliest hurricane season on record, according to news reports.

Hurricane season in the Atlantic runs June 1 through Nov. 30 while the season starts May 15 in the Pacific.

For more information about disaster relief ministries, contact Texas Baptist Men at (214) 828-5350 or e-mail Gary Smith at Wharvester@tx.rr.com.

Posted: 4/27/07

DOWN HOME:
Remember Margie with love & laughter

Thank the Lord, Elijah Peter and Fluretta Ledora Berry decided 14 children were not enough. Who knows how an Oklahoma dryland farm family evaluated the pros and cons of delivering another child into the world—one more mouth to feed/one more hand to harvest crops? Whatever their calculations, on April 3, 1924, the 15th of 16 Berry babies sprang into this world.

I like to imagine little Margie’s first cry sounded like laughter—laughter that echoed from her lungs and through the ears of family and friends for more than eight decades.

If you view the old Berry Clan portrait, you’ll see a hard-working farm family. Look closely at the adults’ faces, and you’ll recognize long hours in the sun, droughts and prairie fires, blizzards and hailstorms, the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. But study the face of the mop-headed girl tucked underneath her daddy’s left arm, and you’ll see a sparkle in little Margie’s eye.

That sparkle gleams in postwar pictures of a young woman in downtown Fort Worth, as well as a newlywed snuggled close to her skinny husband, a mother laughing with her daughters, a grandmother playing with her grandkids, and even later, an elderly woman snuggled next to her husband of many decades.

Look at her face; you can hear her laughter.

By the time I met her, she long since had married Jim Jarchow and raised three darling daughters, Julia, Janis and Joanna. Years of marriage and child-rearing only sharpened her wit and honed that laughter.

In fact, I remember laughing with her the day we met. Margie and her sister Georgia drove down to Abilene to visit Joanna, and they let me join them for pizza. But with Margie around, a meal always was only a pretense for stories and laughter. She told me this coed I dated had descended from a famous American icon—the woman who helped John Wilkes Boothe escape after shooting Abraham Lincoln.

Despite such disreputable lineage, I fell in love with Joanna and also with her mother. So, by the time I married Jo, I already felt like a son to Jim and Margie.

She kept us laughing through the years—when she deemed her fabulous meals “not fittin’” and when we sat around that same table playing cards. For her, card-playing provided an excuse to tell funny stories. And laugh.

More than I ever enjoyed laughing with her, I loved watching her make our daughters laugh. Lindsay and Molly always thought their Nanny was one of the funniest people they ever met.

Margie last laughed with the girls when we visited her Easter weekend, just days before age and illness caused her laughter to cease.

Margie Jarchow died April 19, after 83 years filled with fun, family and faith. We who love her grieve our loss, celebrate her release from pain and thank God for her life. And her laughter.

–Marv Knox

Posted: 4/27/07

EDITORIAL:
Let’s do something about immigration

Immigration ranks near the top of the list of great moral issues. If it were easy, somebody would have “fixed” it by now. But no matter how you look at it—either concern for the status quo or care for humanity—you see a challenge that needs to be resolved.

An editorial can’t do justice to the complexity of immigration. So, consider this a discussion-starter to accompany the package of articles on immigration in this paper. Let’s structure our thinking in three categories.

Problems

Immigration problems and the passion they stir swirl around three items:

• Security. Since 9-11, America has known it is insecure from terrorism and external catastrophe. Through the intervening years, many Americans have pointed to our porous borders as a source of that insecurity. So, many people want to shut the borders to keep us safe. To some degree, that is understandable. But folks who want to fence out Latin American workers to protect us from Islamic extremists make a huge leap of logic.

• Legality. Most laws, including those that regulate immigration, were made for solid reasons. Society has a vested interest in upholding laws. However, a one-dimensional interpretation that would deport every immigrant whose status is illegal for any reason is insufficient at best and certainly counter-productive.

• Economics. This issue cuts both ways. Some citizens want to regulate immigration to protect “American jobs.” But people in the Southwest who pay attention see two problems with that reasoning. Many immigrants come here to take jobs other residents don’t want. And significant portions of the Southwestern economy, particularly agribusiness, depend upon immigrant labor.

Principles

However they resolve the particular issues, people of faith should affirm at least three biblical principles:

• Care. Over and over, Scripture admonishes us to care for the alien. These Bible passages have not gotten dusty with age. The Old Testament’s admonitions to care for the stranger and Jesus’ call to minister to “the least of these” find abundant illustration among immigrants. Christians should serve immigrants, whatever their status.

• Family. “Family values” has become a political catchphrase. If you’re paying close attention, you see most immigrant workers put the political speechwriters to shame. They embody “family values” as they labor long and hard in demanding and often dangerous jobs so they can send most of their earnings back home to care for their families.

• Nation versus kingdom. Many Americans who are most agitated over immigration talk about “American interests.” And reasonable people understand the importance of national sovereignty and security. But biblically speaking, that’s a moot point. The kingdom of God transcends borders, and God loves all people equally, no matter what flag they wave.

Solutions

Obviously, solutions are difficult and will be hard to come by. But we can focus on three actions that will make a significant difference:

• Reform. As articles elsewhere in this paper note, no reform package is perfect. But giving up is not an option. Congress should start with some version of the STRIVE Act. At least it’s a start and will positively impact thousands of lives.

• Foreign aid. One way to solve the U.S. immigration crisis is by addressing the economic and political crises that drive good people away from their homelands. If we can help them secure freedom and some level of prosperity in their homes, they won’t have incentive to leave for America.

• Ministry. No matter where they came from and how they got here, all people are made in God’s image and deserve care, comfort and love from God’s people. We will determine our legacy by how we minister to them.

Posted: 4/27/07

Faith Digest

Court dismisses suit against Boy Scouts. A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged the U.S. Department of Defense’s support of the Boy Scouts of America and their national Jamboree. In 1999, the ACLU filed suit claiming the “Boy Scouts’ policy requiring religious oaths” violated the separation of church and state. The ACLU objected to the the Boy Scouts holding their national Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia every four years because the Scout Oath begins: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country.” A lower court had ruled a 1972 law that allowed the Defense Department to support the Scouts was unconstitutional because it advanced religion on government property, but the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that ruling.

Only one Brit in 10 attends church. A survey by a British charity indicates more than half of Britain’s adults claim to be Christian, but only one in 10 regularly attends weekly church services. Tearfund, a Christian relief and development charity, said its poll of 7,000 men and women over age 16 suggests Christianity remains the dominant faith in Britain, with 53 percent—26.2 million—of the adult population adhering to its beliefs. But those figures from 2006 also represent a sharp decline from the last British census, in 2001, when nearly three-quarters of adults identified themselves as Christian. The poll indicates only 7.6 million adults in a nation of more than 60 million people go to church each month, and only one in 10 attends each week. Two-thirds of the people polled said the only times they had gone to church were for weddings, baptisms and funerals.

Evangelical leader named to religious freedom panel. Former National Association of Evangelicals President Don Argue has been appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Argue is expected to start the position May 15, replacing Roman Catholic Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M. Argue is president of Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash., a school affiliated with the Assemblies of God. In 1996, he was appointed to serve on President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom, which led to establishment of the commission. In 1998, Clinton chose Argue to be part of an official delegation of U.S. religious leaders to China. Argue was president of the National Association of Evangelicals from 1995 to 1998, when he resigned to take the university position.

Fingerprint scanner a tool of Antichrist, school employee believes. A public school employee in St. John the Baptist Parish, La., was suspended for refusing to use a biometric time clock that scans fingerprints, claiming the process violates his religious beliefs. Joe Cook, director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, urged the school board to allow Herman Clayton, a school system electrician and Baptist minister, to continue signing in and out of work, as he did for several months before being suspended without pay in February. Clayton objected to the fingerprint scanning system based on his belief in end-times prophecy. The St. John school district implemented the $75,000 fingerprint identification system last fall. Employees use it to clock in and out of work by placing a finger in front of a small scanner that recognizes key points on each employee’s finger.

‘Fundamentalist’ safety drill at school raises hackles. A public safety drill at a New Jersey school caught the ire of several conservative Christian groups and pastors around the country who charged local police and school officials with anti-Christian bias. The groups demanded formal apologies because mock gunmen in the drill at Burlington Township High School were marked as members of a “right-wing fundamentalist group,” the “New Crusaders,” who were intent on avenging the punishment given to a fictional student for praying before class. Walt Corter, who designed the exercise as public safety director for the Burlington police, said future drills will include only generic descriptions of the assailants. In a prepared statement, the Burlington Township School District insisted: “Any perceived insensitivities to our religious community as a result of the emergency exercise scenario are regrettable. It was certainly not the intent to portray any group in a negative manner.”

Posted: 4/27/07

Documentary on the power
of forgiveness cites Amish example

By Mary Warner

Religion News Service

ARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS)— Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier, who set out to explore the nature of forgiveness, was almost finished when the news broke about the Amish school shooting in West Nickel Mines, Pa., last October.

He went to Lancaster County to film a segment on what happened after a gunman invaded the school and killed five girls and then himself. He found an Amish delegation that went to the gunman’s widow to show support and forgiveness.

“We were convinced we could not make the film without the Amish,” Doblmeier said.

Their example is one of the segments featured in The Power of Forgiveness, to be aired next fall on PBS. The director—who made an acclaimed 2006 documentary on German pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer—said his latest topic engages all faith groups and the wider culture.

“People feel as though we’ve become an angry culture,” he said. “We are a nation at war. We are a litigious society. You can feel it in the movies we make, in the news at night.”

The documentary presents religious teachers with spiritual arguments for forgiveness and psychologists with utilitarian ones—about the beneficial effect on blood pressure, for example.

Research on forgiveness has exploded in recent years amid generous funding ear-marked for the topic. The Templeton Foundation and the Fetzer Institute have been eager to fund forgiveness studies, noted Donald Kraybill, who studies the Amish and appears in the documentary.

“I think what was so shocking to people was that the Amish forgave so quickly,” said Kraybill, a sociologist at Elizabethtown College. “Most psychologists would say forgiveness is a journey, but here were these people six hours after the shooting, walking over to say, ‘We forgive.’”

The collective nature of Amish forgiveness also was intriguing, Doblmeier said. With the strong support of the community, bereft parents “didn’t have to act out of anger,” he said.

Doblmeier hopes to study collective forgiveness more thoroughly before his documentary is completed—perhaps by visiting South Africa and its struggle to overcome the legacy of apartheid.

Posted: 4/27/07

Giuliani leads among evangelicals,
Clinton leads among Catholics

By Philip Turner

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Presidential hopefuls Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton hold early leads among key religious voting blocs in the race to win their party nominations, a national survey revealed.

The survey by the Pew Research Center shows religious voters leaning toward more recognizable candidates in the early stages of the race, said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Giuliani, a Republican, leads Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among white evangelical Republican-leaning voters, 27 percent to 23 percent. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was third (7 percent) even though he hasn’t announced his candidacy. The GOP’s fundraising leader, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was fourth (6 percent) among this key group of Republican voters.

White evangelicals gave 78 percent of their votes to President Bush in 2004 and 72 percent to Republican congressional candidates in 2006.

White non-Hispanic Catholics are showing early support for Giuliani among those who lean Republican, at 37 percent. McCain is second (23 percent) among these voters, who went 56 percent in favor of Bush in the 2004 election. Gingrich and Romney are tied at 9 percent each.

Clinton leads among white Catholics who lean Democratic, with 33 percent of their support. According to exit polls, 50 percent of white Catholics voted for Democrats in the 2006 mid-term elections—a slight shift away from the GOP in the 2004 presidential results.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has said he isn’t running for president, is second (22 percent), followed closely by 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards (21 percent). Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is fourth (12 percent).

The impact of campaign funds is about to be felt, likely shifting future poll numbers, Green said, adding that the $25 million raised by Obama and the $23 million by Romney so far this year will give them boosts.

Posted: 4/27/07

Anti-immigrant rhetoric
nothing new, historians say

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

If American Protestants today have trouble knowing how to accept and assimilate a new wave of immigrants, they at least can take comfort in knowing their forebears wrestled with similar issues.

“Americans have always struggled with immigrants. Non-conformist immigrants like Quakers and Baptists were exiled and sent back to England or the Caribbean by the colonial religious establishment,” church historian Bill Leonard noted. “Roger Williams (who founded the first Baptist church in the colonies) was an unacceptable immigrant.”

A “terrible animosity” fueled by anti-Catholic prejudice often characterized the response of the dominant Protestant culture in the United States toward a later influx of Irish, Italian and eastern European immigrants, said Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School.

Protestants often stereotyped Irish Catholics, in particular, as “lazy, clannish people who went to mass on Sunday morning and drank beer all Sunday afternoon,” he noted. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the growth of the immigrant population in the United States, Leonard added.

“We must not forget that the KKK was not simply anti-black; it was also anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish and made a lot out of their immigrant status,” he said.

But anti-Catholic sentiment was not confined to the radical fringe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, historian Barry Hankins added.

“You didn’t have to be in a Klan meeting to hear anti-Catholic rhetoric. In polite Protestant circles—whether evangelical or liberal—anti-Catholic statements were viewed as acceptable and aboveboard,” said Hankins, professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University.

To a large degree, Baptists and other Protestants sometimes disguised their anti-Catholicism by couching it in arguments regarding the separation of church and state, Leonard maintained.

“You could make a case that Baptists in the South in the early 20th century gave greater attention to separation of church and state language and issues because they feared the numbers of Catholic immigrants and their desire to have state funds for parochial schools,” he said.

Like those earlier waves of immigrants, the current influx of Hispanics from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America includes large numbers of Catholics. But today, resistance to immigrants seems to stem less from their religious background and more from issues of language and economics.

“One hundred to 150 years ago, it was assumed that one would want to learn English and, in fact, would have to learn English to become assimilated as an American,” Hankins said. But the United States today—particularly in the southwest—has moved toward a bilingual society, both Hankins and Leonard noted.

Roman Catholic attitudes toward immigrants have varied across the years, Leonard noted.

“Generally, Catholic churches have been welcoming places, as have synagogues,” he said. However, with the shortage of priests in the Roman Catholic Church now, some parishes are struggling to assimilate new Spanish-speaking members, and they are unsure how to respond to the growing number of Pentecostal and charismatic Hispanic immigrants, Leonard said.

Regardless of their feelings about immigration as a political issue, Baptists frequently have viewed various waves of immigrants as opportunities for evangelism, both Leonard and Hankins noted.

Baptists generally have been successful in starting churches for distinctive ethnic and language groups, he said. Their track record at assimilating immigrants into established churches has not always been as exemplary.

Click to view pdf of history timeline of legal immigration to the United States. (Graphic by Andre Malok/Newhouse News Service)

“It’s hard to live out biblical principles. Therein lies the struggle,” said Jon Singletary, director of the Center for Family and Community Ministries at Baylor University.

Baptists believe the Bible, and the Scriptures mandate love for neighbors and command God’s people to “welcome the stranger among us,” Singletary said.

But when the stranger speaks a different language and comes from an unfamiliar culture, fear of the unknown presents a barrier to ministry—a barrier that becomes greater when many immigrants lack legal documentation, he acknowledged.

Even so, Singletary remains optimistic. Working with the Baptist General Convention of Texas Immigration Services Network, he has seen churches in the Waco area begin to seek ways to “walk alongside people, including the strangers among us.”

Tihara Vargas, a graduate student in Baylor University’s School of Social Work and Truett Theological Seminary, works with the network to help dispel stereotypes about undocumented workers and encourage churches to see their responsibility to immigrants—regardless of their legal status.

“We try to help people get the documentation they need to come under the protection of the law and into compliance with the law,” she said.

She points to Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan as motivation for ministry.

“If Jesus were telling the story today, he’d probably talk about a migrant Mexican worker instead of a Samaritan,” Vargas said.

Posted: 4/27/07

How can churches legally
minister to illegal immigrants?

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

hen the doorbell rings at many churches, a person in need may be standing in the doorway seeking some food, clothes, counseling or encouragement.

If that individual is an undocumented immigrant, his presence presents legal and ethical issues many congregations do not know how to address, said Krista Gregory, consultant with the Baptist Immigration Services Network, started by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

The network aims to educate church leaders about immigration matters and train Baptists to start church-based immigration centers that would help address people’s citizenship status issues.

“Baptist Immigration Services Network was created to assist churches in providing compassionate, legal and timely ministry to documented and undocumented immigrants of all nationalities,” she said. 

“In doing so, we often talk with pastors and church members who struggle with their understanding of Christ’s calling to minister to the least of these and their questions about changing immigration law.” 

Encounters with undocumented immigrants happen more often and in more places than people realize, Gregory said. While she receives calls from along the Texas-Mexico border and in major Texas cities, she also has heard from Baptists in New York, California, Georgia, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas who have questions about ministering to undocumented residents.

“People need to understand the law, but they don’t need to be so scared of the law to not provide adequate ministry,” she said.

Ministers must use some common sense in their ministry. Transporting an undocumented immigrant a long distance away from the border may be prosecutable. Employing an undocumented resident is illegal. Churches must ask about citizenship status of each person they hire.

Also, it is illegal for a church to house undocumented workers in the sanctuary or parsonage.

Ministry to undocumented residents is permissible. A church can give undocumented residents food and clothes and can allow them to be full members of the congregation. A congregation is not required to report undocumented residents. If a minister knows an individual is an undocumented resident, he or she still can minister to that person.

The best advice is the simplest, Gregory said: Don’t ask people about their citizenship status. There’s no need. Since ministers don’t ask every person they help about their citizenship status, there’s no compelling reason why they should when they serve a particular ethnic group.

“If a neighbor wants to go to church, you’re going to take them to church,” she said. “You’re not going to ask immigration status.”

In some situations, churches feel they have to choose between performing ministry they feel God is calling them to do and the law. Some congregations have decided to break the law. Others keep it. The choice is theirs, Gregory said.

Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago is one congregation that felt it needed to break the law. The church has housed undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano and her 8-year-old U.S citizen son eight months since she received a deportation order. Federal authorities have said they will apprehend her at a time and place of their choosing.

David Lazo, vice president of strategic partnerships for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, understands why the Chicago church made the decision it did. Congregations are between “a rock and a hard place” when ministering to undocumented immigrants, he acknowledged.

Gregory encourages ministers and church leaders to become educated about immigration law by contacting the Baptist Immigration Services Network. The group can guide Baptists to experts across the country who can help people address citizenship issues and provide insight into what the law says about specific situations. Then, Baptists can make wise ministry choices. “Our churches and our pastors are going to be facing these kinds of ethical decisions.”

Posted: 4/27/07

Relationships key to helping
immigrants, Baptist workers say

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (ABP)—Every afternoon, Felicitas does something she thought might never happen. She meets the school bus near her Virginia apartment complex to pick up her son, Carlos, as he returns from another day of elementary school.

Carlos has spina bifida, which prevents him from walking. When Felicitas first came to the United States, she spoke little English and had neither a job nor transportation. Her husband had difficulty maintaining a steady job, and Child Protective Services was preparing to take Carlos away from them because of his low weight and poor health.

Then Felicitas met Greg and Sue Smith, who helped connect her with Spanish-speaking doctors and lawyers. They gave her food and encouraged her to start a business in her home. And they worked with the school system to ensure Carlos’ needs were met in the classroom.

The Smiths are co-founders of LUCHA Ministries, an organization in Fredericksburg, Va., created to help Latinos cope with a new life in the United States. “Lucha” means “struggle” in Spanish, but LUCHA also is an acronym for the Spanish equivalent of “Latinos United through Christ in Brotherhood and Support.”

LUCHA exists to empower Latino immigrants to confront situations that are beyond their control, Sue Smith said. “Latinos face many struggles when they come to the United States—struggles with family, with language, with cultural acquisition, with earning enough money to send back home to help their families,” Greg Smith said.

“And, whether it’s helping someone with translation, taking someone to the doctor … or even by helping non-Latinos understand the Latino culture, we want to communicate the love of God in Jesus Christ and salvation through him.”

The Smiths, who are volunteer missionaries of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, also work to connect people—like prospective employers—with resources.

LUCHA staffers build relationships with government and social-service agencies, property managers, churches, schools and law-enforcement officers in order to connect Latino immigrants with the community at large.

Posted: 4/27/07

Immigration laws have an impact on who
a church can call as pastor or hire as staff

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO—Claudia Munoz feels called to serve on church staff and is doing everything she can to prepare herself to fulfill that calling. She received a student visa and traveled from her home country of Chile to enroll at Baptist University of the Americas. She went on to graduate and began optional career training, working as a graphic artist at the school, the same position she hopes to hold one day on a church staff in Chile.

Months before her student visa expired, she applied for a religious visa so she could work on a church staff in the United States while her husband finished his master’s degree. Months after it expired, she continues waiting. Munoz remains in the country legally, but she can’t legally hold a job. She and her husband, who also is on a student visa, are living off the support they receive from their parents.

“I’m still waiting, hoping and praying I receive it soon because I need to work,” she said.

Her situation is not unique. The U.S. immigration system affects who churches can call as ministers. Immigrants and churches generally do not understand the intricacies of immigration law or how to access immigration officials to obtain more information. And the situation has been exacerbated by a government report that indicated a 33 percent fraud rate in the country’s religious visa program, which allows individuals to immigrate into the United States in order to work in churches. The study led to increased scrutiny of religious visa applications.

One Midwest director of missions has waited nearly a year for his Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board-appointed church starter to arrive because of the immigration system. The pastor-to-be has not received final approval for his religious visa despite already being in the country legally on a student visa.

Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, where 20 percent of its student population is in the country on a student visa, has high interest in the visa situation. Many who enter the country on student visas apply for religious visas through a church that hires them.

Krista Gregory, consultant with the Baptist Immigration Services Network of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, encourages congregations to ask potential staff members about their citizenship status to determine if an individual is not a citizen or is in the country on a visa. “The only time they need to ask that question is if they are thinking about hiring them as a full-time status,” she said.

A religious visa is connected to a specific church. If a person with a religious visa becomes employed by another congregation, that individual and church must apply to get the religious visa changed to that congregation. A person with a religious visa also cannot hold another job, meaning the church would need to support that individual. People who hold student visas are not supposed to earn money outside of a work-study job through the school they are attending. Congregations cannot legally pay a person with a student visa to be a permanent staff member.

Students can take the option to hold full-time jobs while they are in college if the school requires it as part of career training. But that position cannot last longer than two consecutive semesters. Students also have the option to devote the year after they graduate to a full-time job as part of optional career training. At the end of the year, they must leave the country, apply for citizenship or apply for a different visa.

Mary Ranjel, BUA director of admissions, said most of the time requests for visas go right through, but the government is taking a harder look at this situation. Recently a student told her a government agent visited him, taking pictures of the building where the student wanted to work. “Basically all the information is pretty standard,” she said. “But after 9-11 it’s been much more rigid.”

Posted: 4/27/07

Almost any immigration reform
better than nothing, advocates say

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—As Congress begins to take up immigration-reform proposals, some Christian immigration activists say there is no perfect legislation in the pipeline. But time is of the essence in getting something passed, nonetheless, they insist.

A reform bill with broad bipartisan support already has been introduced in the House. The Senate is likely to begin its consideration of the issue in May.

The House bill, H.R. 1645, is known as the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act of 2007, or the STRIVE Act. Its chief sponsors are Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

A similar bill passed the Senate last year with broad support. However, the Republican leaders then in charge of the House pushed through a competing measure that took a hard line on immigration. The two chambers couldn’t reconcile their differences, and the bill died with the end of the 109th Congress.

With the House’s new Democratic leaders more amenable to broader immigration reform, immigrant advocates are hoping a compromise bill can pass both chambers and gain President Bush’s signature. Bush broke with many immigration hard-liners in his own party last year by signaling White House support for aspects of reform sought by advocates for the millions of undocumented laborers already working in the United States.

Bush has begun to outline his own proposal for passing immigration reform in this session of Congress. However, according to the Kevin Appleby of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bush’s proposal “is just a non-starter as far as we are concerned.”

Appleby, who serves as director of immigration policy for American Catholics, said Bush’s proposals include enforcement provisions that are too harsh for many immigrants. For example, he noted, like the STRIVE Act, it would assess a penalty for workers who have been breaking the law by living and working in the United States illegally. However, he said, the Bush plan’s fines would be “exorbitant”—$64,000 and 25 years for a family of five to obtain green cards, for instance.

The White House plan “eviscerates family provisions,” harming the family fabric of many immigrant families, for whom living with extended family members is much more a part of their culture than in Anglo societies, Appleby maintained.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was the chief sponsor of last year’s Senate version of immigration reform. A spokesperson in his Senate office said she couldn’t give details of what he would propose this time around because Kennedy and his colleagues still were hammering out details. However, she noted Kennedy was “very supportive of the STRIVE Act in the House.”

The Catholic bishops’ conference’s Appleby said the STRIVE Act has “some enforcement provisions that give us some heartburn”—such as passport-fraud provisions that he said could hurt asylum-seekers from troubled countries.

But, he continued, it was a better bill. “Overall, though, we can hopefully get some changes in those things as we move forward and get a good bill,” he said.

The time is ripe to pass immigration reform this year, Appleby said. As the 2008 elections begin to loom, he noted, “the conventional wisdom” is that political pressures will prevent Congress from moving aggressively on such a volatile issue in the heat of the campaign season.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in a recent press statement, said he was dissatisfied with the options.

“Each of the bills falls short in some critical areas,” he said.

“Senate measures have been too lenient and have not adequately addressed border security. (Last year’s) House bill … was inadequate in that it focused almost exclusively on border security and failed to position the government to deal ‘realistically with the immigration crisis in a way that would restore trust among the citizenry,’” Land continued, quoting language from a resolution on immigration reform that messengers to the 2006 SBC annual meeting passed.

However, Land appeared at a March 29 Capitol Hill press conference with Kennedy, the sponsors of the STRIVE Act and Latino Christian leaders to push for reform.

Suzii Paynter, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Christian Life Commission, believes the bills proposed in the House provide hope immigration reform can happen. The legislation proposed in the House is closer to what the Senate proposed last year, she said.

“Even though the solutions proposed in the House and Senate legislation are not the same, at least the House and Senate bills are talking about the same issues,” she said.

Posted: 4/27/07

Texas Baptist Forum

God & Allah

My wife and I served as International Mission Board missionaries in the Middle East for almost 30 years. Baptists in each country in the area call God “Allah.” It is the generic Arabic name for God.

Christians and Muslims agree on some of the characteristics of God/Allah. We agree he is the one and only Supreme Being; he created all things, including human beings. He is a moral God, so those who “do good” are assured a place in heaven and those who disobey are assured of punishment in hell.

• Jump to online-only letters below

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“If I make exceptions to following God’s rule, even if it is only once, there will be more exceptions that will follow.” Elliot Huck Fourteen-year-old who made it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2005 and 2006, but refused to compete in the Bloomington, Ind., regional bee this year because it was scheduled on a Sunday (World/RNS) “Evangelical Christians are the most incompetently portrayed group in America—in TV, in fiction, in the news. When Christians say the media gets them wrong, Christians are absolutely right.” Ira Glass Host of Public Radio International's This American Life (The Forward/RNS) “I’m afraid that people have gotten to the point where they are worshipping America. I want to be loyal to America as a nation, but my loyalty ultimately belongs to Jesus. I respect America and want to serve American interests, but if those interests run contrary to serving Jesus Christ, then in fact I must stand against my nation.” Tony Campolo Evangelical author (The Washington Times/RNS)

After that, our view of the basic character of God/Allah varies greatly. Christians believe in one God expressed in the Holy Trinity. Muslims believe in one Allah expressed only as Supreme power and will.

The Muslim view of Allah is more nearly like the Old Testament concept of God as Creator of everything, sometimes even of evil. He is a warrior God who always is victorious and wants his people to be victorious by whatever means it takes.

Of course, the Christian view of a loving God—who desires a personal relationship with sinful people through the atonement of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, the power of the resurrection and the indwelling Holy Spirit—is completely foreign to Islam.

Arab Christians believe and preach Allah is the Father of our Lord Jesus, and he loves us, wants to save us and will, if we trust him.

We must respectfully disagree with our Muslim friends about the true nature of God/Allah.

David King

Marshall

There is one way to tell if a person worships the one and only living God: If he acknowledges that Jesus is Lord. 

Call God whatever you like—YHWH, Allah, God, Gott, Jehovah—but if a person rejects Jesus, he does not worship God. Muslims, Jews, even Baptists can be saved by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, but anyone who rejects Jesus as being God rejects God (John 14:6). 

The Muslims and the Jews believe that Jesus was a prophet, but they reject him as being divine. They may think they worship the one true God, and some Baptists may think the same,  but on the day of judgment, Jesus will say to them, “Depart from me; I never knew you.”

Jerl Watkins

Sweeny

Executive director

The Baptist General Convention of Texas stands at a critical crossroads with the announced retirement of Charles Wade. Over his tenure, we have navigated through a storm of fundamentalism and change. As he steps aside, we still have storm clouds on the horizon; these clouds reek with apathy, controversy and uncertainty. To weather this storm, we don’t just need a manager or an administrator; we need a leader.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins identified through insightful research that leadership emerges as one of the keys to great Fortune 500 companies. He coined the term “Level 5” leaders to describe these men and women who “channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company… . They are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.”

I believe Jesus called these leaders “servants of all,” and the best place to find them will be either sitting at the back, or better yet, serving the tables.

David L. Lowrie Jr.

Canyon

The BGCT executive director needs to retire now, not in 2008. The Executive Board needs to immediately bring in an “intentional” interim executive director. This person would be charged with three tasks—dispel the toxic fumes of mistrust, lack of integrity and discouragement that have permeated the Baptist Building; reset the standards of financial integrity and transparency for which the BGCT was once known; and provide a healthy break between what has tragically been and what hopefully will be.

This administration has nothing to teach the next one. For directors of the Executive Board to do otherwise is simply to allow the folks who carted off the family jewels to come back and get the silver service as well!

If this last year is indicative of the leadership of our new Executive Board directors, the future is both clouded and for some of us profoundly sad.

Michael R. Chancellor

Abilene

I’ve read about the retirement of Charles Wade as executive director of the BGCT Executive Board.

As a lifetime Texas Baptist, I would like to request that the search begin for someone, first and foremost, who can bring inspiration to those of us still laboring in the vineyard.

Charles Wade has his strengths, and he used them well, but it is urgent that the search committee bring some freshness to the BGCT. I request that the search committee not ask, “Who will organize us well?” but instead ask, “Who would I drive across the state to spend five minutes with?”

Randy Wallace

Killeen

Faithful servant

On April 9, a pastor-friend of mine died and went to be with the Lord. Carlos Paredes will long be remembered by many Texas Baptists for his many contributions to the cause of Christ and to Baptists.

His accomplishments and contributions during a 67-year ministry are too many to mention. He was a pastor, an evangelist, executive-director of the Mexican Baptist Convention of Texas, president of the Mexican Baptist Convention of Texas, vice president of the BGCT, staff associate in the BGCT evangelism division, a statesman and a gentleman. 

Perhaps Carlos Paredes’ greatest contribution in ministry was to pastor Primera Iglesia Bautista of Austin for almost 28 years and to be interim pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista of Dallas when the church most needed his leadership and wisdom.

When all the words about his contribution to the cause of Christ and Texas Baptists are said and long forgotten, he will continue to be remembered by the many members and former members of these two churches that were blessed by his pastor/preaching ministry. Carlos Paredes’ life and ministry reminds us that at the end of a person’s life, his or her greatest mark in ministry is faithful service to the Lord in a Baptist church.

I salute him today and thank the Lord, because Texas Baptists are a better people as a result of his ministry.

Jimmy Garcia

Duncanville

Intentional

I became aware of the Intentional Interim Ministry about 15 years ago, when I visited a church in Georgia that was involved in one.

In a nation where the population is growing daily, churches are facing alarming decline. It is estimated that churches declining range from 50 percent to 85 percent. Either number is far too high! The Intentional Interim Ministry is an opportunity to reverse this trend.

The purpose is not to reinvent the church or to build a large church, but to find God’s plan and purpose for the local congregation.

We must learn how to continue the good things we are doing while discovering new methods to improve our involvement in the community, develop relationships and find opportunity to witness.

Dream with me as we seek a church for a new century, where Jesus is Lord, the Holy Spirit controls, loving care meets needs, evangelism is relational, leaders are multiplying, lay people do ministry and God’s truth is lived out in everyday life.

J.B. Word

Corpus Christi

Differing viewpoints

“A distinct Baptist witness” apparently is absent from the New Baptist Covenant, according to Chuck Pace (April 16). How does he reach this conclusion?

Very simply: Anyone’s viewpoint other than his is defective. His implied assertion that Baptists have all the answers should have insulted every thinking Baptist.

Why should a Baptist viewpoint have any more validity than a Mormon’s or a Muslim’s? Viewpoints are individual. What gives anyone the right to claim theirs is “right”?

Our nation is filled with denominational groups with unique interpretations of Scripture. Is any one of them more right than the others? Such arrogance is why Baptists are considering the New Baptist Covenant. These Baptists want to be seen as problem solvers rather than fault finders.

Scott Presnall

Waxahachie

Question & data

Morris Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, recently asked, “Is our our convention any better spiritually because biblical conservatives are leading?” 

“Americans who said they had no religious identity at all” increased “from 8 percent of the U.S. population in 1990 to 14 percent in 2001” (April 2).

Interesting bit of data.

Bob Scarborough

Fort Worth