Posted: 6/25/04

Immigration to Texas presents new
opportunities for missions outreach

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

The continuous influx of immigrants to Texas creates an avenue for churches to improve the lives of large numbers of people, according to observers familiar with immigration statistics.

Studies show legal and unauthorized immigrants and their children continue to be one of the state's primary sources of population growth, accounting for as much as 53 percent of population expansion during 1990-2000.

They still primarily come from Mexico, but significant numbers of Iraqis, Bosnians, Iranians, Sudanese, Vietnamese, Somalis and Cubans also have settled in Texas. Nearly 90 nations are represented in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Ethnic groups can be found across Texas–in universities, migrant worker camps, major cities and throughout the Rio Grande Valley, said Patty Lane, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas intercultural initiatives office.

Many of these newcomers need help once they enter the United States, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the independent Center of Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. A significant number of immigrants do not have a high school education or an adequate grasp of English.

As a result, more than half of immigrants and their children live near or below poverty, Camarota noted. More than 40 percent of that group are without health insurance. About one in every five household heads is receiving welfare.

This is where churches can step in and make a difference, Camarota emphasized. Efforts to help immigrants acquire high school graduate equivalency degrees and become fluent in English are keys to improving lives.

Education and use of English open employment opportunities for immigrants that can lead to economic stability, Camarota added.

“All the available evidence suggests the two best indicators of success is education and attainment of English,” he said.

Congregations also can assist immigrants by helping them find housing and providing them with essential needs such as food and clothing, Camarota said.

Many ministries that serve non-Anglo people groups in Texas are funded by the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, promoted by Woman's Missionary Union of Texas. About $200,000 of the 2005 offering budget is earmarked to specifically work with ethnic groups. Additional funds are allocated for community ministries that also may meet the needs of people groups.

Lane said these needs can be met across Texas. Though immigrants are more concentrated in larger cities, pockets of people groups are throughout the state.

These ministries play a key role in sharing the gospel with everyone in Texas, Lane said. Meeting the physical needs of immigrants opens an avenue to telling them about Jesus.

Efforts to translate materials to each group's “heart language” also are funded, Lane noted. Translation helps people better connect with the gospel.

“When they hear it in another language, it may not be a language that connects to their heart,” she said.

“There's a disconnect. It's called a heart language because that's how they feel. That's the language they think.”

Working in all people groups is putting the Great Commission of reaching all people into action, Lane added.

Multi-ethnic ministries give Texas Baptists a glimpse into what heaven will be like, she said.

“We need to always be looking for who are the new groups coming and making sure there is a Christian witness among them,” Lane said.

Posted: 6/25/04

Missions partnerships build
relationships, expand ministries

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communication

Texas Baptists are expanding ministries through relationships fostered by the Texas Partnerships Resource Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

Ministries are expanding rapidly worldwide because of funds from the Mary Hill Davis Offering, said Don Sewell, director of Texas Partnerships.

More than $100,000 of the 2005 offering budget is slated for partnership missions around the world.

Funds are used to train and orient mission teams. They also have been used to improve Baptist encampments in the Northwest United States and work with church growth and international students in New England.

“The spirit of missions is what Mary Hill Davis is all about,” Sewell said. “We carry out that legacy through Texas Partnerships. We gladly work with all kinds of Texas Baptists–the laity, the ministers, the different cultures–and we're honored when we have the opportunity to find a match for them overseas or in the United States.”

Some of the funds will help support 12 indigenous church starters through the European Baptist Federation. Christians are working in nations such as Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine and Latvia.

Most of the workers are beginning churches in areas with little if any Baptist presence, according to reports from Daniel Trusiewicz, who coordinates the effort.

Leaders are using strategies such as youth camps and sports camps to make inroads into communities.

In Moldova, offering-supported church starters focus on reaching children. One offers them music lessons and is hoping to start a youth club in his town. Another organizes evangelistic efforts around Christian holidays. In the summer, he sends children to Christian camps.

Funds from the Mary Hill Davis Offering, promoted by the Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, also support work in the Baptist Convention of New England through a partnership with the BGCT.

Money is allocated to specific requests from the New England convention, particularly to start churches or help ministries on the verge of expanding greatly.

Texas Baptist support “has pushed our work forward at least five years,” said Jim Wideman, executive director of the Baptist Convention of New England.

“In specific areas, it would be more than that.”

Wideman, a Texas native and Baylor University alumnus, said he is grateful for the support from Texas Baptists.

The financial contributions, mission teams and encouragement have helped expand Baptist work in the region, he remarked.

Specifically, he noted Vermont Baptists witnessed a record number of baptisms and mission teams last year.

“That's because Texas Baptists chose to partner with us,” he said.

The Mary Hill Davis Offering supports the following efforts through Texas Partnerships:

Orienting and training for mission teams

Exploring new partnerships

Improving Baptist camps in the Northwest United States

Helping church starting and water purification efforts in Mexico

Working with international students in New England Baptist Student Ministries

Enlisting and encouraging Texas Envoys to minister long-term around the world

Doubling the size of the chaplaincy office at the university in Hong Kong

Starting churches in Germany and Spain

Expanding opportunities in West Africa and Nigeria

Posted: 6/25/04

Subcommittee hears debate on religious expression

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Former judge Roy Moore and church-state expert Brent Walker squared off in a lively debate about religious expression and the First Amendment during recent testimony before a congressional subcommittee.

Moore, Walker and others testified before the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Alabama officials removed Moore as chief justice of the state Supreme Court last year after he defied a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument he had placed in the rotunda of the state judicial headquarters.

Before the Senate subcommmittee, Moore said the debate over religious expression in the public square is a debate between those “who understand the First Amendment and those who do not.”

He said the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion did not apply in his case because his monument was not an establishment of religion and wasn't erected by the federal government.

But Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, said Moore's action to set up the monument is hard to understand as anything other than an establishment of religion.

Moore, himself a Baptist, accused Walker of “hypocrisy” for leading a Baptist group but saying “that a public official cannot represent God.” But Walker denied saying or believing that.

Noting that public officials can allow their belief in God to influence their actions in many ways, Walker said, “What you can't do is put up a monument in the middle of the courthouse that starts by saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods before me.'

“If that's not establishing a religion, I don't know what does,” he continued. “That's not an acknowledgement; that's an establishment.”

Posted: 6/25/04

On the Move

Jerry Duffer has resigned as minister of worship/music at First Church in Friendswood to join a ministry in Botswana, Africa.

George Easter to New Hope Church in Vernon as pastor, where he had been minister of education.

Eric Emblem has resigned as minister to students at First Church in Friendswood.

Bo Faulkner to First Church in Gonzales as summer youth minister.

Will Fish to First Church in Throckmorton as pastor.

Gary Godkin to Red Springs Church in Seymour as pastor.

Bentley Gwynn to First Church in Halfway as pastor.

Kevin Hall to Oakwood Church in Lubbock as pastor from First Church in Haskell.

Heath Powers to First Church in Runge as pastor.

Jason Pratt to Jonesboro Church in Jonesboro as youth minister.

Scott Reed to First Church in Floydada as minister to students from Seven Oaks Church in Wills Point.

Francisco Reza to Primera Iglesia in Lampasas as pastor.

Kevin Rodriguez to First Church in Kenedy as summer youth director.

Kyle Streaun to First Church in Crockett as pastor of family ministries from First Church in Olton, where he was pastor.

Tracy Suits to First Church in Point as minister to youth.

Lee Vrombrock has resigned as pastor of Purmela Church in Purmela.

Posted: 6/25/04

Posted: 6/25/04

African-American Southern Baptists examine their history

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)–Citing progress in minority representation and optimism toward racial inclusiveness, speakers at the annual African American Southern Baptist History Project said God is continuing to work among Southern Baptists.

Chronicling the growth of racial inclusiveness in the 16-million-member denomination, several speakers pointed to new growth since Southern Baptists became proactive about seeking change. The meeting at Gabriel Missionary Baptist Church was held prior to the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Indianapolis.

“The SBC's racial image is becoming more Christian as churches increasingly reflect the values of Christ toward other people groups,” said Sid Smith, director of the Florida Baptist Convention's African American ministries division.

He spoke on “Southern Baptists Reaching African-Americans,” an article from the Journal of African American Southern Baptist History, which was released at the history gathering.

“The absence of major backlash along with increased acceptance of minorities in mainline leadership are significant factors pointing to the dawning of a bright day of progress,” Smith continued. “The modern SBC is bigger, better and more Christian because of embracing inclusiveness. … As the maturation process continues, the potential of doing even more is great.”

Vaughn Walker, professor of black church studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., spoke on cooperative ministries and racial reconciliation.

The second volume of the Journal of African American Southern Baptist History is available through the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servant's Network. For more information, call (800) 226-8584.

“Life as a slave was a blend of labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, illiteracy, limited diet and primitive living conditions,” Walker said. “Only in their private time of leisure in the evening or on Sundays and holidays could slaves find respite from the relentless demands of bondage. … Essentially, slave culture revolved around three elements: family, music and religion.”

Walker described G.K. Offult, a 1948 Southern Seminary graduate who–because of a Kentucky law–was not allowed to sit in classrooms with white students nor participate in graduation ceremonies but was tutored by seminary professors in their offices. Later, J.V. Bottoms, B.J. Miller and Claude Taylor, 1952 Southern Seminary graduates, sat in hallways to listen to professors' lectures.

“It appears that certain Southern Seminary professors as well as other individuals affiliated with the convention became the leaders for the SBC in the area of racial reconciliation long before the convention proper assumed any significant leadership role,” Walker said.

“If the Christian community–black, white, brown, red–cannot model authentic racial reconciliation, there is little or no hope for our society's survival,” he said. “Racial reconciliation will be realized when each of us decides that racial bias and prejudice has no place in our walk with God, has no place in our individual congregations, and no place in our homes.”

By 1972, cooperative ministries was an official component of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, Walker said. He cited the work of Sid Smith with the SBC Sunday School Board and Emmanuel McCall at the Home Mission Board as pivotal in the development of racial reconciliation in the SBC.

“Many in the SBC, black and white, reviewed the 1995 SBC statement of apology for the 'demonic' institution of American slavery as a significant step toward true racial reconciliation,” Walker said.

David Cornelius, mobilization specialist in church services at the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, traced the history of African-American involvement in international missions.

George Liele, a freed slave and preacher from South Carolina, left the United States in 1783 under persecution and within a year had started the First Baptist Church of Kingston, Jamaica, Cornelius said.

Another freed slave from South Carolina, Prince Williams, was the first African American Baptist missionary to the Bahama Islands. In about 1790, he organized in Nassau what became Bethel Baptist Mission.

Lott Carey in 1815 led in organizing the African Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, the first organization for international missions founded by African Americans in the United States.

Despite the fact the SBC was founded in part over the issue of slavery, a year after the founding in 1845 of its Foreign Mission Board, the new SBC had appointed two African-Americans as missionaries, John Day and A.L. Jones, Cornelius reported. “Over the next 40 years, the board either appointed or gave support to more than 40 black missionaries.”

But in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves, coupled with Jim Crow laws that intensified discrimination, “the vision for world evangelization that many of the early black Christian leaders had exhibited became blurred,” Cornelius said.

“During the 19th century, African-American missionaries serving under appointment of white-administered missionary-sending agencies most often had to have white supervisors available before being sent to the field. It was well past the mid-20th century before most white-administered sending agencies, especially those that are denominationally based, would accept African-American candidates. These hindrances no longer exist.”

Bill Sumners, director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, spoke on “Bridge Builders: Baptist Women and Race Relations at the Turn of the 20th Century.”

Annie Armstrong, memorialized in NAMB's annual Easter offering for North American missions, “more than any other Southern Baptist leader of her time, took action to cross racial barriers,” Sumners said. That was in the late 1800s.

“An immense amount of good can be done–not only in developing the colored women here at home, but in doing work in Africa–if we can get the colored women organized as missionary workers,” Armstrong wrote in 1897 to R.J. Willingham, then-secretary of the Foreign Mission Board.

Nannie Helen Burroughs, daughter of skilled slaves, was Armstrong's counterpart in the black community, Sumners said. She worked to develop summer training opportunities for black youth. Una Roberts, who wrote extensively in WMU and HMB publications in the early 1900s, “championed improved race relations among black and whites and was active in the Commission for Inter-racial Cooperation.

“The efforts of these three women spanned more than three decades of the early 20th century,” Sumners said. “Their cause was not primarily improved race relations, but … it was this spirit of cooperation and inclusiveness on behalf of the gospel that drove these women to challenge the racial code of America.”

Posted: 6/25/04

Bush assures Southern Baptists he will
defend traditional view of marriage

By Steve DeVane

North Carolina Biblical Recorder

INDIANAPOLIS–President Bush promised messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting he would “defend the sanctity of marriage against activist courts.”

Bush's address via satellite marked the third straight year he has spoken to the meeting. Messengers interrupted his speech more than 15 times with applause, including several standing ovations.

Some of the loudest cheers came when Bush mentioned his defense of marriage.

“The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith,” he said. “And government, by strengthening and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all.”

Bush got another standing ovation when he referenced his signing a ban on partial-birth abortions.

“I am working to build a culture of life in America,” he said. “Common sense and conscience tell us that when an expectant mother is killed, two lives have ended and criminals should answer for both.”

Bush added his administration will continue its support for crisis pregnancy centers, adoption incentives and parental notification laws, as well as other measures dear to the pro-life movement.

“I propose to double federal funding for abstinence programs in schools and community-based programs,” he said.

“And I will work with Congress to pass a comprehensive and effective ban on human cloning. Life is a creation of God, not a commodity to be exploited by man.”

Bush talked about military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq but said tough challenges lie ahead. “In Afghanistan and Iraq, we will finish the job.”

Bush thanked Southern Baptists for their strong support of the war on terror. He called freedom “God's gift to every man and woman who lives in this world.”

Bush cited his economic accomplishments and attempts to release federal funding to faith-based groups. He called on lawmakers to stop holding up his judicial appointments.

“It is time for those senators to stop playing politics with American justice,” he said.

Before Bush spoke, SBC President Jack Graham praised Bush's strength and resolve, saying the president and Southern Baptists have “strong, shared values.”

Tim Goeglein, a special assistant who deals with evangelicals for Bush, talked to messengers a short while before Bush. Goeglein thanked Southern Baptists for praying for “the Bush- Cheney administration.”

Bush's address to the SBC this year comes in the middle of his re-election bid. The November election pits Bush against Democrat Sen. John Kerry, with many polls showing the race as a dead heat.

Recently, the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission launched a website, www.iVoteValues.com, to “promote awareness of the immediate and long-term importance of value-based voting.”

At a meeting in Raleigh, N.C., about a month before that election, ERLC President Richard Land told a group God is not a Republican or a Democrat, but God is pro-life, pro-family and not pro-homosexual.

The ERLC website lists issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage on which Bush and many Southern Baptists would likely agree.

An announcement in the SBC Bulletin, distributed daily at the annual meeting, included a statement: “Pastors, you would be amazed at how much freedom you and your church have to legally be involved in the election process–without endangering your non-profit status.”

As part of the iVoteValues.com effort, ERLC officials unveiled a trailer designed to help people register to vote and research campaign issues.

The trailer will be hauled across the country between now and the November election.

With additional reporting by Erin Curry of Baptist Press.

Posted: 6/25/04

LifeWay vice president announces departure;
president to set retirement date early next year

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)–Gene Mims, a key vice president at the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing house for 12 years, announced he is leaving to return to the pastorate.

Mims, 54, vice president of church resources at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, told Associated Baptist Press he will leave Sept. 30 but as yet does not have a church to go to.

Meanwhile, LifeWay President Jimmy Draper said he likely will announce his retirement date early next year. He expects to give LifeWay trustees 12 to 18 months to find his replacement.

Mims' sudden departure without another job “is unusual,” the vice president said, but he insisted he was not pressured to resign.

The church resources division, which employs 645 people, sells Sunday school literature and other materials to most of the SBC's 43,000 churches, as well as non-Baptist congregations.

LifeWay's 2003 revenues–$414 million–were down last year 0.7 percent from the previous year and are expected to be below budget in 2004, according to a February report to trustees. Church resources, by far the largest division in LifeWay, has suffered financially as well.

But both Mims and Draper said the division's financial performance did not factor into Mims' departure, and Draper said such criticism of the division has been misdirected.

Mims said he will stay through September–the end of LifeWay's fiscal year–to finish preparation of next year's budget and allow Draper time to replace him.

According to several LifeWay sources, Mims had hoped to be considered to succeed Draper, 68, who is expected to retire sometime in the next two years.

“That was in a lot of people's minds, but frankly, I have no interest in that,” Mims told ABP. Resigning now rather than waiting for Draper to retire “would stop any speculation in that regard,” he added.

Mims' announcement is “a little unusual,” Draper acknowledged, “but we decided to do that so there would not be any question. … I'm sure he would be honored to be considered (for president), but that is never anything he has campaigned for.”

The two former pastors often have talked about missing the pulpit, Draper said.

Regarding Mims' return to the pastorate, Draper said: “The timing seemed right. … It's a sad-happy time. He's made tremendous contributions for us.”

Mims became LifeWay vice president in December 1991. At that time, he was pastor of First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Tenn., and had served as a LifeWay trustee since 1984.

Mims served as pastor of churches in Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and Texas. He is a native of Mississippi. He and his wife, Ann, have two adult children.

Posted: 6/25/04

Speakers challenge SBC to advance God's kingdom

By Steve DeVane

North Carolina Biblical Recorder

INDIANAPOLIS–Southern Baptists can advance God's kingdom through the renewal of desperate passion, the release of divine power and the recovery of decisive purpose, seminary professor Roy Fish told the Southern Baptist Convention.

Fish, distinguished professor of evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, was one in a series of “kingdom challenge” speakers at the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis.

Using a passage from the fifth chapter of Luke's gospel, Fish told how four men lowering their paralyzed friend through a roof to Jesus “simply weren't going to be stopped.”

Few people these days talk about a burden for souls, he observed.

“I don't hear much today about roofs being torn open so people can be brought into the presence of Jesus,” he said.

Sharing the message of Jesus releases divine power, Fish asserted.

“Suppose the Holy Spirit was taken away from your church. What percentage of people would even miss him?” he asked.

Fish cautioned that there also is a resistance of demonic power, because there is always a demonic aspect when people are spiritually lost.

Jesus is not just another player on the field of world religions; he is superior and totally excludes all others, Fish said.

Southern Baptists not only should be wise enough to believe, but also courageous enough to preach that “Jesus is the only way to God,” he said.

Fish noted Jesus first forgave the paralyzed man's sin, and then healed him. The man's friends brought him to be healed, but Jesus saw a deeper need.

Fish said the conservative resurgence that was celebrated at the SBC meeting was needed. “But we must take heed that this resurgence not degenerate into lifeless orthodoxy where our heads are full, but our hearts are empty.”

Jesus is telling Southern Baptists to rise up and walk, Fish said.

“We have been extremely strong in preaching the gospel,” he said. “I sometimes wonder if we've been that strong living it out.

“Much of our world has heard our proclamation. It's looking for our demonstration.”

Southern Baptists need kingdom vision, kingdom virtue and kingdom valor to do what God is calling them to do, youth evangelist Jay Strack told the convention.

Strack, president and founder of Student Leadership University in Orlando, Fla., said young people who are in ninth grade will be asked to absorb more information in their senior year of high school than their grandparents had to absorb in their lifetimes.

“We live in a time of great change,” Strack said. “If we don't like change, how do you think we're going to like being irrelevant?”

Preaching from a passage in the first chapter of Joshua, Strack asked Southern Baptists to reach the next generation. A Barna study found young people coming out of evangelical youth groups said they learned a few Bible facts, made good friends and had fun.

“We are failing to raise up a generation,” he said.

David Jeremiah, pastor of Shadow Mountain Baptist Church in El Cajon, Calif., said Jesus is the only person who “stayed on course” his whole life.

“He never lost sight of his goal,” Jeremiah said. “Not for one moment did he step away from his heavenly calling.”

Christians today won't live as perfectly as Jesus, but they can do what God calls them to do, he said. “I can follow the lessons learned from my Savior.”

At the end of Jesus' life, he told God he had finished all that God gave him to do, he added.

“He didn't say he'd finished all the work there is to do,” Jeremiah said. “He said he'd finished all the work God gave him to do.

“The God who called us is also the God who enables us.”

Posted: 6/25/04

Southern Baptist withdrawal from BWA
not reflective of BGCT, executive director says

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

The Southern Baptist Convention's decision to cut ties with the BWA “does not represent the vision of the Baptist General Convention of Texas,” said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade.

“We regret their decision in this matter, but we will continue to pray for them. The BGCT encourages our churches to be supportive of the BWA because we celebrate the unity we have in Christ in the larger Baptist family,” he said.

The BGCT appreciates the opportunity the BWA provides Baptists in North America to have fellowship with members of Baptist Unions who “have known severe persecution and poverty … but … have been steadfast in their loyalty to Christ and to one another,” Wade added.

“We honor our Baptist brothers and sisters from all the nations and cherish our opportunities to encourage and to stand with them. They are a great blessing to Texas Baptists.

“As we have gotten to know one another better over the past few years, we are humbled by their faith and courage, by their fidelity to Christ and their firm support of Baptist principles and doctrine.”

Wade expressed his hope that hundreds of Texas Baptists will attend the Baptist World Congress centennial in Birmingham, England, in 2005, and he pledged the BGCT will continue to “work cooperatively with Baptist churches everywhere to provide opportunities for meaningful mission involvement on the part of our Texas Baptist churches and people.”

Through its Texas Partnerships Resource Center, the BGCT has worked with the BWA to support church-starting initiatives in Eastern Europe. The new WorldconneX missions network, launched by the BGCT, also works closely with Baptist unions affiliated with the BWA.

The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger–promoted by the BGCT Christian Life Commission–provides a significant percentage of the funding for Baptist World Aid, the Baptist World Alliance's relief and development agency.

Posted: 6/25/04

Texan wins national contest
with simple speech about trust

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO–“Just trust” is a simple message, but it's one that Emily Burkhead lives by daily.

Burkhead, an 18-year-old member of First Baptist Church in Cleveland, won the top prize in the national Bible speaker competition in San Antonio with a short lecture that encouraged people to trust God to work in each life.

God sees the larger perspective of how each life fits with others to accomplish his will, Burkhead said. Christians need to trust God to guide their lives rather than relying solely on what they can see or on their individual dreams.

“But I know the one who is the keeper of all dreams, and I strive to keep my eyes focused on him, trusting every step of the way,” she concluded. “I hold firm the promise God made to King David, that 'his unfailing love surrounds those who trust in him'” (Psalm 32:10).

Burkhead's parents indicated her words reflect the passion of her heart. She was fresh from a week at Super Summer, a weeklong youth event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas Center for Strategic Evangelism.

Before that, she and her father, Pastor Howell Burkhead from First Baptist Church in Cleveland, took a trip to Chicago. There, her father saw her take time out to give money to homeless individuals and tell many of the people she met about Jesus.

Burkhead and her parents were surprised at the announcement that she won first place.

Her father, who helped her hone her speaking style in rehearsals at home, said: “I'm so proud; it couldn't be put into words. She loves Jesus with as pure a heart as when she was 6 years old.”

Her mother–who helped her memorize the text of the speech–called the victory the cap to an “amazing year” for her daughter, who also was valedictorian of her high school class. “She's a strong Christian young lady, and the Lord has many plans for her,” she said.

She will use the scholarship she won in the state-level competition to attend the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton. She won a trophy and $400 from the BGCT Bible Study/Discipleship Center for the national victory.

Posted: 6/25/04

Texas Tidbits

Brazilian missions immersion trip planned. Rob Sellers, missions professor at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology, and his wife, Janie, will lead six Logsdon students on a discovery tour of Brazilian history, culture and religion July 5 to Aug. 5. They will visit Brazilia, Manaus, Recife, Salvador, Rio de Janerio and Sao Paulo. Explorations will include rainforest ecological institutes, Candomblé (spiritist religion) worship centers and a tour of the world's second-largest Catholic cathedral and complex. Lectures by professors, priests and pastors–plus hands-on involvement in orphanages, prisons and low-income favelas–will enable students to learn about topics as varied as liberation theology, Pentecostalism, evangelical social ministries and Roman Catholicism. Brazilian Baptists will join other Christian groups to help serve as hosts to the Hardin-Simmons team.

Palacios camp urgently needs volunteers. Texas Baptist Encampment at Palacios urgently needs volunteer teams to finish a dorm before more than 600 youth arrive July 5 for the summer's largest camp. Workers primarily will paint, move furniture and finish the electrical, plumbing and air conditioning for the first of three dorms being constructed after Hurricane Claudette destroyed a large dorm, a staff building and a tabernacle last year. Construction was delayed several months due to heavy rains. Hotel rooms and recreational vehicle connections are available for volunteers. Encampment staff will provide free meals. Volunteers can work through July 5 or a portion of that time. For more information, contact the encampment office at (361) 972-2717.

ETBU economic impact assessed. Officials at East Texas Baptist University have estimated the university contributes more than $173 million to the local economy each year during the 11 months classes are in session. "The Marshall Chamber of Commerce has told us that a dollar turns over seven times before leaving the community," said ETBU President Bob Riley. The dollar amount was calculated by a formula based on figures of ETBU's $20.9 million annual budget; about 1,200 full-time students on campus each month; an estimated $300 per month average local expenditure per student; about 10,000 campus visitors in the last year and an estimated $84 that each visitor spent in the community. Charles Williams, dean of the Fred Hale School of Business, noted 78 percent of ETBU students come from outside of Harrison County, bringing millions of dollars into the area that otherwise would go elsewhere.

Scholarship to help UMHB nursing students. The ForeSight Foundation established a Tomorrow's Leaders Endowed Scholarship for nursing students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in memory of Byron and Lillian McKibben of Temple.

Scholarship to aid Logsdon students. The remainder of a trust fund established 10 years ago by Ernest and Virginia Westmoreland of Clovis, N.M., has become the corpus of an endowed scholarship benefiting ministerial students at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. The Westmorelands established the scholarship in 1994 through a trust at the New Mexico Baptist Foundation and received income from the trust until their deaths–she in 1999 and he in April at age 83.

Correction noted. An article in the June 14 issue of the Baptist Standard, "U.S. News & World Report names Baylor among top graduate schools," incorrectly identified the Baylor College of Medicine with Baylor University. The two institutions have not been related for 35 years. Baylor College of Medicine dates to 1900, when it was organized as the University of Dallas Medical Department. In 1903, the name was changed when the college allied with Baylor University in Waco. The college moved to temporary facilities in Houston in 1943, and four years later, moved to its present site at the Texas Medical Center. Baylor College of Medicine established its own identity in 1969 when it separated from Baylor University and became an independent institution.