ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS)—A predominantly Black denomination and prominent union have joined forces in a new voter mobilization initiative ahead of the midterm elections.

Reviving a partnership from the 1960s, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the AFL-CIO are launching a faith and labor alliance focused on battleground states. They expect to feature summits with other religious and union organizations, as well as door-to-door canvassing to get out the vote.

“We ought to make sure that people have equal access to vote, people are registered to make their voice heard,” David Peoples, convention president, told Religion News Service ahead of the Aug. 11 announcement at the denomination’s annual session in Orlando, Fla. “Not telling anyone who to vote for, but just trying to empower people to understand that each vote and each voice counts.”

He said the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which was the denominational home of Martin Luther King Jr., has more than 1.5 million members, with more than a million in the United States. About 2,000 were expected to attend the meeting.

Progressive National Baptists worked with the AFL-CIO to lobby for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex and on the basis of race in hiring, firing and promotions, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discriminatory voting practices that had limited African American voters.

“We share a mission of justice, fairness and opportunity for all people, especially those in underserved communities,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond. “Our movements are uniquely connected. And now more than ever we need to strengthen that connection, come back together and rebuild the bond between faith and labor.”

According to its website, the AFL-CIO is a federation of 57 international and national unions that represent 12.5 million workers.

Progressive National Baptist Convention leaders said their joint plans with the AFL-CIO come in the wake of dozens of state laws, such as voter identification bills, that have been enacted since 2021 and have been found to disproportionately restrict people of color.

They also have been lobbying for national voting rights legislation, such as the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that has passed in the House but not in the Senate.

Darryl Gray, a national social justice commissioner for the Progressive National Baptist Convention, noted speakers representing religious organizations and organized labor groups took turns at the microphone at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Focusing on ‘consequential states’

Now, Gray said, the voter registration, education and mobilization initiative will focus on 11 “consequential states”: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“These are consequential elections, either gubernatorial races or U.S. Senate races that could affect the landscape of American politics,” said Gray, a Democrat who served in the Kansas Senate in the 1980s and ran an unsuccessful 2020 campaign for Missouri state representative. “It could determine the U.S. Senate” majority party.

History professor Dennis Dickerson said the new juncture is significant given the history of joint lobbying for civil rights legislation and the recent “resurgence of labor activism” that has prompted greater interest in organizing workers.

“This is a natural outgrowth of this earlier forging of a much closer alliance between the civil rights movement and labor,” said the former historiographer for the African Methodist Episcopal Church who teaches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

“Just as the civil rights movement found that having labor allies was important for the advancement of civil rights,” he said, “I think that is correspondingly true now that the labor movement sees a great need to have the alliance of these Black religious communities.”

The Progressive National Baptist Convention and AFL-CIO worked together most recently, along with many other religious and labor groups, in a partnership seeking to improve conditions for U.S. Postal Service workers. Peoples called President Joe Biden’s April signing of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 an example of “building blocks” as groups like these continue to seek better pay and health benefits for employees of various organizations and companies across the country.

Gray said the newest plans will involve meeting in gathering places with which church attenders and union members are familiar.

“Some of our training, some of our rallying, some of our organizing will be split between faith venues or houses of worship and labor halls,” he said. “We want to make that connection between the two and we want these two entities to feel comfortable again as they did in the ’60s.”

At the conclusion of a “Protecting Democracy” town hall, Redmond told Progressive National Baptists meeting in Orlando that, in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, they should explain to fellow churchgoers that voting in November is crucial because legislation like the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act could be in danger.

“These things could be wiped out with a stroke of a pen from a Supreme Court who has no respect for us,” the AFL-CIO leader said in the livestreamed event. “So, we need to constantly remind our members that freedom is not free. Democracy has not been won. And everything is at stake at this election.”

DECATUR, Ga. (BP)—Church planter and pastor Emory Berry Jr.’s passion for serving the educational community has its roots in his second-grade public school teacher of decades ago.

Berry, who holds a doctorate in theology, had begun Lillie Courtney’s second-grade class at Palmetto Elementary School in Pinecrest, Fla., as the lowest-ranking student in reading comprehension.

“This teacher could have easily labeled me and put me in special classes, remedial classes, but she took a personal investment,” said Berry, founding pastor of The Favor Church, said of Courtney. “I guess she saw the potential was there, but I did not have the skillset. And she worked with me and worked with me.

“By the time I finished the second grade, I was still in a reading group by myself, but now I was in the highest reading group. So, I experienced incredible gains with my literacy because this one teacher took an investment in me,” he said. “I know the power of educators. She helped give me a hunger or taste for achievement.”

Berry counts nearly 20 active and retired educators and school administrators among the 100 or so worshipers who attend The Favor Church, which Berry planted at Easter. They include his wife Julie Ann Berry who is an assistant principal. The church sees the three local public schools in its community as a mission field.

“We are really loaded with people who have worked in the educational system,” he said. “They have a huge passion for education.”

Hosted cookout for educators

Aug. 5 at Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School, Berry and a group of church volunteers hosted a cookout for the 100 school teachers and staff members, cooking and serving food, encouraging educators and sharing literature on the church. The outreach spurred motivational conversations, Berry said.

“I wish more churches did this,” Berry quoted Bethune teachers. “Some said, ‘I want to take this back to my church.’ Everything from that to, ‘You know, I’ve been looking for a church home.’ A couple of people opened up about some personal things, you know, ‘If you all don’t mind, could you pray for me?’”

On July 16, The Favor Church hosted a back-to-school cookout and celebration for area elementary through high school students, featuring hot food, snacks, bounce houses, a DJ, games and giveaways including about 200 backpacks of school supplies. Donations from church members and supporters from six states and Washington, D.C., funded the outreach, Berry said.

During the 2022-2023 school year, the church will host free weekly tutoring classes at the church in various subjects, utilizing retired educators and professionals from applicable careers. Church members will volunteer as literacy coaches or book buddies at the local elementary school to improve literacy, and offer outreach to teach parents to better equip their children to succeed educationally.

Berry also is teaching youth in the church to see school as a mission field where students can build relationships, share Christ, invite classmates to church, and model Christian behavior that resolves conflicts and discourages bullying.

“School is a mission field where they can interact with their peers and learn how to relate one to another in a way that may not be consistent with how the world teaches,” Berry said. “It’s a great way for them to share Christ with their friends, so it’s an evangelistic opportunity.”

Having launched this past Easter and meeting at no cost on the Greater Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church campus, the church is able to use more resources for outreach.

Invest in the future of children

Churches have opportunities to invest in children’s futures and help them succeed, thereby giving them platforms to share the gospel, Berry said.

“We want the community to know that we are invested in their future, particularly the children,” Berry said. “We’re invested in their families. Secondly, we want to be, obviously, the hands and feet of Christ. We have been blessed and we want to be a blessing.

“That’s where our name (rests). The Favor Church, where we are experiencing the favor of God and we’re sharing the favor of God.”

As students excel, “their trajectory can be more positive, where they can go on to do something meaningful because academically, they were ready.”

Berry often tells the story of his second-grade teacher Courtney, who still lives in south Florida. During his childhood, she was his Bible study teacher at Second Baptist Church of Richmond Heights in Miami, Fla.

“Ms. Courtney was not only my second-grade teacher at the public school, but I would see Ms. Courtney on Wednesdays in Bible study.”

As motivation for learning the names of Bible books, memorizing Scripture and telling Bible stories and parables, Courtney offered what Berry calls “Big 60 cookies,” because they came 60 to a pack.

“For us kids, you would have thought those were the double-stuffed Oreos,” he said. “We wanted to master those books so we could get some of those cookies.”

Berry describes his mother Julie Lynette Berry as an “advocate for education” who “has been a positive force” in his educational philosophy, but also credits Courtney as part of the foundation that helped him succeed.

He is among the prestigious Dr. Martin Luther King International Board of Preachers at Morehouse College, is pursuing his second doctorate degree, and just released his latest book, Facts About Favor: Principles That Will Change Your Life.

“All of that’s possible because I had a second-grade teacher who didn’t allow me to be cast aside, but she invested in me,” he said. “And thanks be to God, I’ve been able to touch thousands of lives. But if she didn’t make that investment, I don’t know, my life probably would have taken a different trajectory.”

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor students participated in Love CTX on Aug. 6 as part of Welcome Week. The annual event is designed to provide service opportunities for students. Love CTX 2022 supported One More Child of Belton, which provides Christ-centered services to vulnerable children and struggling families. About 350 UMHB students packed 18,000 meals and wrote notes for Belton Independent School District students. The meals will go to Belton ISD’s Project Heartbeat program to help students who may not have food at home.

Baylor University ranked among the nation’s Top 10 Most Trusted Universities, according to research firm Morning Consult as part of its Most Trusted Brands project. The report measures public trust in the top 135 doctoral research universities featured in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 Best National University Rankings and explores how trust varies among diverse groups and different types of institutions. Baylor—the only Texas university in the Top 10—ranked No. 9 behind Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, the University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Yale University and Harvard University. It ranked ahead of No. 10 Princeton University. Baylor also was ranked No. 2 among Morning Consult’s Most Trusted Universities by parents, behind Princeton and ahead of Duke, Notre Dame and Yale. “Such recognition is certainly a testament to the campus-wide efforts of our dedicated faculty and staff who live and promote Baylor’s Christian mission every day, as well as the overall Baylor Family who serve as our brand ambassadors across the country,” said Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone. “We have made tremendous advances as an institution over the past five-plus years, including our recent recognition as a Research 1 university and unparalleled success in so many areas across the campus.” Morning Consult’s report is based on a survey conducted June 11-15 among a representative sample of 11,050 U.S. adults, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. An additional survey was conducted June 13-24 among 1,000 high schoolers ages 16 to 18, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Dallas Baptist University awarded degrees to 158 graduates—63 baccalaureate degrees, 85 master’s degrees and 10 doctoral degrees—during its summer commencement ceremony Aug. 5. DBU awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree to Pastor Byeong Rack Choi of Kangnam Joongang Baptist Church in Seoul, South Korea. Choi received his bachelor’s degree from Korea Baptist Theological Seminary before moving to Fort Worth, where he continued his ministry studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. While working on his Master of Divinity in Biblical Languages degree, Choi interned at a small church plant and later became its senior pastor. Semihan Baptist Church grew over the years from 15 families to 1,500 under Choi’s pastoral leadership and eventually moved to its current location in Carrollton. The Choi family later returned to South Korea where he accepted a call to serve as senior pastor of Kangnam Joongang Baptist Church. In partnership with Semihan Baptist Church, a special evangelistic cooperative program was established known as WORLD Ministry Institute. Choi currently is a Doctor of Ministry degree candidate at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Lauren have two children, Rachel and Jordan.

David Ummel was named executive director of Buckner Westminister Place in Longview, effective Aug. 8. He most recently served as executive director for Calder Woods senior living community in Beaumont, also operated by Buckner Retirement Services. Ummel worked for Buckner Children and Family Services and Buckner church/ministry engagement prior to his move to Buckner Retirement Services. As church engagement officer, he oversaw Faith Fosters Texas, a statewide initiative to engage the faith-based community with the child welfare system. Before coming to Buckner in 2008, Ummel was an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Plano and held various church ministry leadership positions over a 15-year period, including at First Baptist Church in Longview. Ummel was born in Tyler and grew up in Bryan. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master of Arts degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.

LIVINGSTON—About 200 of the inmates at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit—a Texas Department of Criminal Justice maximum-security prison near Livingston—are housed on Death Row, where prisoners typically spend 23 hours a day in a small single-occupancy cell.

‘Broken men become whole’

But Terry Joe Solley, an inmate in the general prison population who devotes 12 to 14 hours a day visiting those otherwise-isolated prisoners, is committed to turning Death Row into “Life Row.”

“We introduce them to the one who can give them spiritual life. They find spiritual life in a place where they have come to die,” Solley said. “On Life Row, broken men become whole.”

Solley is one of six field ministers at the Polunsky Unit. Field ministers are inmates who have completed a Bachelor of Arts in biblical studies degree program, offered to men at the Darrington Unit in Brazoria County (renamed the TDCJ Memorial Unit last year) and to women at the Hobby Unit in Falls County. They receive certification as field ministers after receiving specialized training from the Heart of Texas Foundation Field Ministers Academy.

The two field ministers at the Polunsky Unit—Solley and Hubert “Troop” Foster—are assigned specifically to Death Row where they “are basically pastors to the Death Row population,” Chaplain Joaquin Gay said.

Field ministers “are the heart of our Death Row ministry at Polunsky,” Gay said. The field ministers have earned the trust of men housed on Death Row—not only teaching classes and conducting worship services, but also visiting the inmates daily, praying with them and being on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he explained.

The field ministers—who are permitted to enter Death Row without being escorted by a correctional officer—often are awakened in the middle of the night at the request of a condemned inmate who wants to talk.

Some Death Row inmates grow so despondent, they consider suicide, Solley said.

“I’ve had men give me the razor blade they were going to cut themselves with,” he said.

“These men are sons, husbands and fathers. We often lose sight of that. … I want the men on Life Row to see themselves for who they are—people created in God’s image, not just a messed-up life. It’s not about what you did. A single moment doesn’t define us. It’s about who you are.”

‘I wanted to please my father’

Before he surrendered his life to Christ, Solley spent much of his incarceration in administration segregation units—solitary confinement reserved for prisoners considered a safety risk to other inmates or prison staff.

“I spent years on ad seg in a 5-by-9-foot cage, carrying a lot of guilt and shame,” he said. “So, when I talk to the men on Death Row, they know I can relate to them.”

Solley recalled attending First Baptist Church in Lafayette, La., faithfully with his mother from age 7 until he was 14 years old. At that point, his father—who went to prison when his son was 6 years old—was released and came back to his family.

“That’s when he took me to do an armed robbery with him,” Solley said. “I wanted to please my father more than anything.”

At age 18, Solley went to prison, where he served 10 years, seven months and 23 days before being released. Once he returned to the free world, he married, had a child and began a productive life until his father “showed up again,” he said. On March 25, 2006, Solley committed a bank robbery.

“I became everything I said I wouldn’t become,” Solley said.

‘Now I am stronger in the broken places’

During the time he was held in a county jail, before he was convicted and sent to state prison, Solley returned to the faith his mother had tried to teach him and accepted Jesus as Lord of his life.

“God put together the pieces of a broken life, and now I am stronger in the broken places,” he said.

In prison, after he renounced his former gang membership and proved his trustworthiness, he was allowed to enter the seminary program at the Darrington Unit.

“My family was against it, because my dad was at the Darrington Unit,” he said. Initially, Solley wanted no contact with his father, but he eventually agreed to meet him in the prison chapel. His father began attending chapel services regularly.

“He would watch me. One day he said, ‘There’s something different about you,’” Solley said, “I told him, ‘Jesus is now Lord of my life.’”

In April 2012, Solley’s father asked his son to walk with him to the front of the chapel at the end of a worship service.

“He said, ‘I want to give my life to the Lord,’” Solley recalled. Two months later, Solley’s father was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. He died in September 2012.

“Before he died, God mended our relationship,” Solley said. “For the first time, our relationship wasn’t about pistols and ski masks.”

First faith-based designated units on Death Row

After completing his degree and receiving additional training as a field minister, Solley spent 15 months at the T.L. Roach Unit in Childress before he was invited to transfer to the Polunsky Unit to serve Death Row.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he confessed.

But the first inmate he met on Death Row was John Henry Ramirez, who had become a Christian through the prison outreach ministry of Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi.

“We became fast friends and brothers,” Solley said.

Ramirez said the same thing about field ministers Solley and Foster.

“It’s a privilege to have somebody to confide in,” Ramirez said. “We’re not just spending time in our own heads 24/7. Sometimes, the field ministers listen to people rant. Sometimes, they cry. Regardless, they are there.”

Ramirez is among 28 inmates who are part of the first designated faith-based units on Texas Death Row.

“The faith-based program is an intensive, voluntary, 12- to 18-month program that seeks to provide men with a living area separated from the other inmate population that is conducive to change and designed to provide resident offenders with a curriculum of meaningful opportunities for personal growth and improvement,” Chaplain Gay said.

To qualify for the program, inmates must have a clean disciplinary record, and they need to submit a written request to the chaplain’s office. From those who apply, the chaplain compiles a list of inmates he recommends to the warden for a final security check prior to approval.

“The men who are selected to participate in the faith-based program are moved to an area of Death Row semi-separated from other Death Row inmates. The 28 men are divided up into two adjacent living areas that house 14 men each,” Gay explained.

“Our primary goal of the Death Row faith-based program is to help participants reach a point in their lives where they are truly repentant for their actions, seek forgiveness and find inner peace with God.”

Personally, Gay added, he wants inmates not only to experience the most productive and faith-filled lives possible, but also to “prepare them for the eternal life to come by offering them an eternal hope that is only found in Christ.”

‘Changed the dynamics of Death Row’

In recent months, 14 of the inmates in the Death Row faith-based program participated in a modified Kairos retreat. When a Kairos event typically is offered in the general prison population, the spiritual retreat lasts four days and involves volunteers who lead small-group discussions and worship services and who pray individually with inmates.

A dozen certified volunteer chaplain’s assistants, two field ministers and the chaplain led the Texas Death Row event. The retreat followed a compressed schedule, with inmates remaining in their cells, listening to speakers and musical worship leaders on a sound system at the end of the cell block.

“Over the course of two days, 30-minute talks were given on subjects ranging from forgiveness to being part of a church community,” Gay explained. “After every talk, a [certified volunteer chaplain’s assistant] placed a chair directly in front of two cells for a small-group discussion.”

Beyond the Kairos event and the programs offered specifically for the 28 men in what inmates sometimes call “the God Pod,” other Death Row inmates and prisoners in the general population can take courses offered on “The Tank”—a low-power, prisoner-operated radio station—and listen to broadcasts of other faith-based content.

Taken together, the “God Pod,” the field ministers, religious radio content and other faith-based programs dramatically have altered the prison—particularly Death Row, Ramirez said.

“It’s created a big sense of community here,” he said. “Before, we were all alone. It’s changed the dynamics of Death Row.”

He is not alone in that observation.

“All of the staff on Death Row have commented on how much the faith-based program has helped change the atmosphere on Death Row,” Gay said. “What was once a dark place has now become one of the unit’s beacons of light, as the Lord changes and transforms the men living there. None of the men in our Death Row faith-based program have had a disciplinary issue for some time now.”

Warden sees correctional work as a calling

Both Ramirez and Solley give credit to the prison administration, particularly Warden Daniel Dickerson.

“Correctional work is a calling more than a job,” Dickerson said. “There has never been one person that I have found that grew up wanting to be a correctional officer. Somehow, we are just led to this work, and when we actually understand the purpose and great responsibility, it becomes a passion.”

Dickerson believes strongly in programs to rehabilitate offenders.

“Society gets better when we do better. We can stop the vicious cycle of family members constantly coming to prison every generation if we put all of our faith and efforts into rehabilitating those incarcerated,” he said.

“It’s not an easy calling, but we have amazing people behind the walls giving it their all every day to provide public safety, which is not only keeping those incarcerated inside, but rebuilding them to enter into society in which they can be productive.”

Even for those who never return to society—including those who ultimately are executed—meaningful transformation can occur, Solley asserted.

“On Life Row, the gospel becomes real. If forgiveness of sins is really for all people, then it’s for them,” Solley said, pointing to the example of the thief on the cross next to Jesus who asked the Lord to remember him when he entered his kingdom. “The first man to come to faith in Christ was in the process of being executed.”

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of CommonCall magazine.

AMARILLO—As families of inmates gather around tables for shared meals at the Hope Welcome Center, they receive more than a nourishing meal. They discover unconditional acceptance and hope.

The Hope Welcome Center opens each weekend to serve the families of inmates incarcerated in five Texas Department of Criminal Justice facilities in the Texas Panhandle.

Soon after he arrived at Amarillo Area Baptist Association in 1997, Harold Scarbrough saw the need for a ministry to serve inmates’ families, and he presented his vision to churches in the area.

Working closely with local leaders—particularly Paul Dunn, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Canyon—and with help from the Baptist General Convention of Texas and some charitable foundations, Scarbrough raised the funds needed to develop the welcome center.

The Hope Welcome Center opened its doors to its first guests in 2005. In the years that followed, the center has developed solid working relationships with area prisons, and TDCJ personnel recommend the facility to visitors as a safe place to find lodging, showers and meals.

Relationships nourished around dinner table

The Texas Baptist Hunger Offering helps the center provide food for families, with support from several churches in the area.

Each Saturday evening, a host church prepares the main dish for the meal visiting families enjoy, and on-site coordinator Don and Dickie Blankenship add side items to complete the meal. They also provide a continental breakfast to overnight guests on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

A fully stocked kitchen is equipped with easily prepared food items the families also can make for themselves. Tea and coffee always are available, along with plenty of snacks for children. Older teenagers typically stay at the Hope Welcome Center to watch their younger siblings while a parent or grandparent visits their incarcerated loved ones.

Family members build relationships as they share meals and lodging. They also have opportunities to spend time together in the center’s common room.

The Blankenships are responsible for purchasing the food and necessary disposable products. Paper plates and plastic utensils make clean-up easy. Families typically volunteer to help clear the tables and perform other chores, although they are not required to do so.

Opportunity to hear the gospel message

After the Saturday evening meal, a devotion time is scheduled featuring hymn singing, a brief message and a time of prayer. Guests are not required to attend, but most participate.

“In the last two years during our devotion time, we have witnessed four professions of faith” in Christ, Dunn said. “In addition, there have been five or six rededications. We see about one decision a month.”

The Hope Welcome Center had to close for a year and a half due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it reopened last fall.

“We average about 25 people per month—usually two or three families per weekend,” said Dunn, who has served on the center’s board of directors since its beginning.

Prior to the pandemic, the Hope Welcome Center was filled to capacity nearly every weekend, he noted. Since demand has not reached pre-pandemic levels, the center has relaxed some of its policies.

“We’ve broken our own rules,” Dunn said. “Before the pandemic guests had to make reservations at least a week in advance. Now, if they show up and need a place to stay, we’ll take them in. They are so grateful.”

A safe and affordable place

Dunn recalled a particular woman who stayed at the Hope Welcome Center.

“After she returned home, she wrote a note thanking them for having a safe place to stay … a place that she could afford. Not many people would express love this way, but this woman was truly thankful.”

About one-fourth of the guests respond in some way. A small donation is accepted but not required.

With rising inflation—particularly escalating gasoline prices—the center makes family visits at area prisons possible for some who otherwise could not afford them. In particular, they appreciate having food available at no cost to them.

“We would have to go without food if it was not provided,” one guest said. “With fuel costs so high and having to drive 200 miles one way, the food is greatly appreciated.”

Doors open at the Hope Welcome Center every Friday at 3 p.m., and the center closes at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

“This ministry reaches every age group—from infants to the elderly,” Dunn said. “Mothers bring infants and young children when they visit their husbands. Grandparents visit grandsons and nephews.”

Concerned Christians can support Hope Welcome Center either by giving financially or becoming a prayer partner, he added.

The center not only ministers to inmate families, but also indirectly affects the incarcerated. Frequent family visits build stronger family relationships when inmates are released. And as family members come to know Christ, they influence their loved ones in prison.

“Our inmate population is an overlooked group,” Dunn said. “After they are released, they can make a difference in our world. Families come from foreign countries and from Florida to California. This ministry … is vital in telling others about Christ.”

Carolyn Tomlin writes for the Christian market and teaches the Boot Camp for Christian Writers.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—No small number of millennials was first introduced to personal technology tending to their tamagotchis during recess. Only later did the dot-com revolution, smartphones and social media invade every part of their lives, from relationships to health to music—and faith.

Today, meditation podcasts, TikTok sermons and livestreams of Friday (Jumah) prayers are all at everyone’s fingertips.

A study out of Canada suggests this last generation to experience a smartphone-free childhood still is keeping one foot firmly planted in the real world—at least when it comes to religion.

The study, led by University of Waterloo sociologist Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, found that a sizable minority of millennials in the United States and Canada (32 percent) turns to digital religious or spiritual activities on at least a monthly basis. But only 5 percent said they do so without engaging in in-person forms of religion or spirituality once a month or more.

“For the most part, people are both involved in person and supplement that through digital religion,” Wilkins-Laflamme explained.

Digital worship complements in-person religion

The findings will comfort faith leaders who worry that technology will displace religiosity, said Pauline Cheong, a professor at Arizona State University who researches religion and communication technologies but wasn’t involved in the Canadian study.

Digital religion “is not a disruption or huge tear in the social fabric,” Cheong said. “There are a lot of savvy religious users using it to complement existing ties” to religion.

A millennial herself, Wilkins-Laflamme set out to gauge to what extent her generation, which is less likely to participate in organized religion than previous generations, engages with religion online.

She surveyed 2,514 respondents in March 2019. The study, therefore, does not account for how the pandemic may have changed millennials’ digital habits during a time when many houses of worship went online.

“The overall takeaway for me was that digital religion is definitely a thing, but it’s a thing that only a chunk of the (millennial) population does,” Wilkins-Laflamme said.

Millennials also participate in digital religion to varying degrees. Wilkins-Laflamme left the definition of digital religion largely up to respondents; it could include anything from using a Bible app to watching a spirituality-themed Instagram reel.

Forty-one percent of U.S. respondents reported passively consuming any kind of religious or spiritual digital content at least once a month, while only 32 percent of U.S. respondents took the time to post about religion or spirituality on social media monthly.

Millennials in Canada, where the population is less religious overall, were active at lower rates, with 29 percent taking in digital religious content and 17 percent posting it.

What about Gen Z?

It’s not yet clear whether Gen Z, who are more digitally native than millennials, will engage in real-world religion as much as their elders. Paul McClure, a sociologist who studies religion and technology at the University of Lynchburg, applauded Wilkins-Laflamme’s study but noted that his own research shows that greater Internet use is associated with lower levels of religiosity.

His latest study, published in June, found that among U.S. youth ages 13 to 19 years, increased screen time is negatively associated with religious commitment, even when their parents are highly religious.

“We cannot say for sure that screen-based media is actively making adolescents less religious,” McClure’s study states. “But it is clear that screen time either displaces or substitutes for religious belief, identity and practice among adolescents from religious families.”

Cheong agrees that while millennials are taking advantage of new virtual resources, digital advances alone won’t be enough to appeal to younger generations.

“Moving forward, religious organizations and leaders need to do what they can to maintain and sustain the trust, to cultivate healthy relationships,” she said.

That may mean trying to bypass their smartphones and getting young people involved face-to-face. But Wilkins-Laflamme’s study suggests that any religious leader interested in connecting with both Gen Zers or millennials needs to take digital religion seriously.

“Religious groups who don’t have an online presence will really struggle with those two generations,” she said.

Ahead of the Trend is a collaborative effort between Religion News Service and the Association of Religion Data Archives made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.

Leon Kemp Aduddell, a longtime Texas Baptist pastor active in denominational service, died Jan. 5 in Plano. He was 91. Aduddell was born May 3, 1930, in Wellington to Annie and Herbert Aduddell Sr. He professed his faith in Jesus Christ at age 9 at Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi. He responded to God’s call to ministry at age 15, preached his first sermon at age 16 and was pastor of his first church at age 19. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University and met his wife of 71 years Dot when they were students at HPU. He went on to graduate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. After serving as senior pastor for decades in Texas Baptist churches, he became an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Plano. He served on the State Missions Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and as a trustee of Howard Payne University. He is survived by his wife Dot; son Michael and his wife Marcie; son Patrick and his wife Debby; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

NINEVAH PLAINS, IRAQ (BP)—Christians largely remain displaced from the once vibrant Nineveh Plains eight years after the Islamic State decimated the region, a Christian charity working in the area said.

Of the estimated 100,000 or more Christians who fled their homes in the 2014 invasion, perhaps 20,000 have returned to date since repatriation efforts began in 2017, said Max Wood, chairman of the nondenominational American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.

“It was very peaceful until ISIS came along. It’s got its own charm. It’s just horrible that so many people have had to flee that area in 2014,” Wood said after the eighth anniversary of the invasion that refugees remember as The Black Day. “We learned about The Black Day from working with refugees in Jordan.”

Remembering those who died or were displaced

About 200 refugees gathered at the American FRRME’s Olive Tree Center in Madaba, Jordan, Aug. 6 in prayer, dance, poetry and song to commemorate those who died or were displaced in the invasion. About 40,000 Christians displaced from the Nineveh Plains are in Jordan, Wood said, where the government prevents their employment. Iraqi Christians rely solely on humanitarian aid.

Stavro, a Christian teenager who was 6 years old when ISIS invaded northern Iraq, shared his memories of the invasion.

“A part of us died that day. We had to flee our city overnight, because if we stayed, we would have starved or died. We walked many miles to get away, with so many dead people, burned houses, and bodies,” Stavro said during the commemoration in 2021.

“We asked our parents when we could return to our joys, our schools, and normal life, but we had no answer. We didn’t know how we would survive, but we believed God was with us. We came to Madaba, [and I] fell in love with this city, [where] we prayed that the war would end and for all nations to know God.”

‘An ongoing humanitarian crisis’

Susan Greer, executive director of American Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, said Iraqi Christians are still suffering eight years after the invasion, and more than five years after ISIS was defeated in northern Iraq.

“This is an ongoing humanitarian crisis,” Greer said. “Eight years later and these people are still suffering, not only from the trauma of what ISIS fighters did to them and their families, but from an acute lack of reconstruction and reconciliation efforts in a region that continues to be plagued by violence and security threats.”

Those who remained in Iraq during the invasion “were forced into slavery, captured, forced to convert to Islam, or were killed. To this day, many of the missing still have not been accounted for,” she said. Those who fled and haven’t returned cite “lack of financial aid, services, livelihoods, security and social cohesion” as primary reasons keeping them away.

The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East is one of numerous nongovernmental organizations, many of them Christian, working to help displaced Iraqis return home and restore their livelihoods.

Wood encourages Christians to pray for displaced Iraqi Christians and those who have returned to the region, to educate themselves about the plight of Iraqi Christians, and to financially support reputable organizations helping internally displaced persons and refugees.

One of Top 15 most dangerous places for Christians

As recently as 2003, between 800,000 and 1.4 million Christians lived in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, the U.S. State Department said in its 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom. The number has dwindled to 250,000, the State Department said, including about 2,000 evangelical Christians.

Most Christians there, about 67 percent, are Chaldean Catholics, an eastern rite of the Roman Catholic Church. Another 20 percent are members of the Assyrian Church of the East, and the remainder are Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Anglican and other Protestants.

Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors ranks Iraq 14 among the 50 countries where it is most dangerous for Christians to live, where Islamic oppression plagues an estimated Christian population of 166,000.

“Iraq remains plagued by conflict, despite the recent territorial losses of the Islamic State group, which continues to gravely affect the country’s minority Christian population,” Open Doors said in its report. “However, encouragingly, there has been a substantial drop in reported incidents of violence in the last year.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—In the midst of the back-to-school season, Baptist churches are loving and serving the students, teachers and schools in their communities.

Churches are meeting needs in a variety of ways including hosting back-to-school bashes, offering free school supplies and giving away free backpacks.

‘Leave a legacy in the community’

First Baptist Church of Pensacola, Fla., hosted its annual back-to-school bash on July 30. This event included giveaways, games, distribution of resources and free food.

Peter Burnmeister, the church’s associate pastor of discipleship and assimilation, said the event is a great opportunity to serve their local school, C.A. Weis Elementary.

First Baptist’s relationship with the school began more than 10 years ago when members realized the school did not have a PTA. So, they formed an organization called “First Friends” that acts in a similar role.

The church also developed a ministry called Weis Initiatives, which plans out ways to serve the school beyond the back-to-school season.

After the initial year of the partnership, the school’s overall grade point average went up an entire letter grade from an F to a D.

Within a few years, the school became eligible for a significant financial grant. And the church recently broke ground on a new building specifically for ministries related to the school.

“I hope we’re beginning to leave a legacy in the community,” Burnmeister said.

“For me it’s a reminder of what can happen by having a personalized ministry partner. We’re just astonished by what has happened through simple acts of faith from people in our church.”

‘Be intentional to love and serve’

Lake Mystic Baptist Church in Bristol, Fla., is located just half a mile from W.R. Tolar K-8 School.

For the first time this year, Lake Mystic planned to give out free backpacks to registered families during the school’s open house on Aug. 8.

Located in one of least populated counties in Florida, W.R. Tolar has only a little more than 400 students among all of the grades. The nearly 100 backpacks Lake Mystic planned to give away will cover a large percentage of the student body. Each of the backpacks was filled with school supplies based on the lists provided by the school’s teachers.

Due in part to its proximity, Lake Mystic has a close relationship to the faculty and staff at the school. Many of the school’s teachers are members of the church, and the principal is even a former youth pastor at Lake Mystic.

Pastor Cody Watson said the church wants to continue to use these connections to build a strong relationship with the school.

“We just want to be intentional to love and serve,” Watson said. “With us being the closest geographical church to the school, we try to minister and truly reach those families and teachers.”

Many of the backpacks Lake Mystic will give away were given to the church by Send Relief as a part of its Backpack Sunday initiative Aug. 7.

Lake Mystic is not the only church to take advantage of the opportunity to receive backpacks from Send Relief.

North Hills Church in West Monroe, La., gave away nearly 90 backpacks to families during its back-to-school bash on Aug. 6.

Evan Knies, pastor of families and missions at North Hills, said the needs in the community are great.

He explained the church works with several schools in the area through a community Facebook page designed to meet practical needs. The church posted the sign-up form to receive a backpack on the page, and all of the slots were filled within two hours. The church purchased a few extra backpacks to meet the demand.

“There is great need that’s in our community, and we want to use this as an opportunity to meet families and to meet kids,” Knies said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—At 8 a.m. on Tuesdays in July, as usual, John Perkins was participating in his weekly Zoom Bible study.

Officially the leader and the attraction for the more than 200 who log on each week, Perkins is far from the sole speaker, and that’s the way he wants it.

“I’m learning from them, because they are doing really good research,” said Perkins, 92, of his co-leaders, both pastors and lay people, each of whom teaches from their perspective. “We want our Bible class to be a model of what the influential pastor or the influential leader can do back in their own hometown.”

This collective approach has been Perkins’ way of doing ministry since he began.

In November, shortly after having surgery for colon cancer, Perkins went where he has gone for years—the annual meeting of the Christian Community Development Association, which he helped organize decades before.

It was worth the journey from Mississippi to Missouri, he said, to see his friends and to continue to motivate them while he could.

“Really to pass on, in my own way, this mission that we have arrived at together,” he said in a phone interview. “I just came to encourage and to say goodbye.”

A farewell tour it may be, but Perkins has been in motion as long as he’s been in ministry, moving mostly between his native Mississippi to California and back, always focused on his goals of transforming communities through faith and racial reconciliation.

Overcoming hatred and bitterness

Along the way Perkins has overcome the deaths of loved ones and his onetime hatred of white people, who included police who took the life of his brother and, years later, nearly killed him. Perkins, who at times was one of the few Black leaders in predominantly white evangelical settings, credits particular Caucasians for being there for him to introduce him to the Christian faith, bind his wounds and comfort him when he was mourning.

Born in 1930, Perkins lost his mother to starvation when he was just 7 months old. When he was 16, his brother was killed by a police chief after the young man grabbed the blackjack the officer had used to strike him.

Perkins fled to California in the 1940s after his brother’s death and a decade later launched a union of foundry workers in that state. After the Korean War broke out, he was drafted and served three years in Okinawa, Japan. After he returned stateside, he later became a Christian and was ordained a Baptist minister.

Returning to his native state in 1960, Perkins turned out to be as much an organizer as a clergyman. He started a ministry in Mendenhall that provided day care, youth programs, cooperative farming and health care. He registered Black voters and boycotted white retailers. When he visited college students at a Brandon, Miss., jail who had been arrested after a protest in 1970, he was tortured—“beaten almost to death,” he writes in his latest book—by law enforcement officers.

After recovering, he moved to Jackson, Mississippi’s capital, where he mentored college students.

Relocation, redistribution, reconciliation

In 1976, Perkins published his influential book Let Justice Roll Down, codifying his principles of relocation, redistribution and reconciliation—known as Perkins’ “Three Rs”—as a way to address systemic racism with social action.

“Justice is an economic issue,” Perkins said. “It’s the management and stewardship of God’s resources on the Earth.”

In 2006, Christianity Today placed Let Justice Roll Down at No. 14 on a list of the top 50 books that had shaped evangelicals over the previous five decades.

The late Ron Sider, former president of Evangelicals for Social Action (now Christians for Social Action), said Perkins has “phenomenal” influence, cultivating—possibly more than “any single American”—holistic ministries meeting both spiritual and physical needs of people in rural and urban settings.

The ministry at Sider’s Mennonite church in Philadelphia, said Sider in an interview before his death on July 27, “is modeled on John Perkins, as are hundreds of others around the country.”

Perkins encouraged “collective prosperity,” where wealth is distributed equitably, and living in neighborhoods close to the poor, something he has done in the South and in the West.

“I’d say a lot of white suburban folks like me were deeply challenged by his call to justice and to the three Rs of his ministry,” said Jo Kadlecek, communication manager of Baptist World Aid Australia, who was inspired by Let Justice Roll Down and later co-authored a book with Perkins after he sought her out.

“‘You know Jesus didn’t commute from heaven,’ he’d say frequently, referring to urban ministers’ belief that Christians who help poor and underserved communities should consider residing near them.

Leaving a lasting legacy

Perkins returned to California in the 1980s, in part to hand off the leadership of what he’d built in Mississippi and to let others develop those skills. Perkins’ family founded the Harambee Christian Family Center in a high-crime area of Pasadena, offering after-school and teen programs and providing urban missions training to visiting church work groups.

“You win the trust of parents, you win the trust of community leaders, because you’re proving, day by day, that you want to develop children and young people,” said Rudy Carrasco, who served as the center’s executive director and is now a program director for the Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Wash. “I learned that from John Perkins. … And he’s doing it now.”

In 1989, Perkins cofounded the CCDA, taking his ideas from his own books and his own previous ministries. The group urges thousands of annual conference attendees to focus on building churches and sharing the gospel in local communities while also renovating houses, hosting medical clinics and tutoring schoolchildren to prepare them for college.

Sider said Perkins’ efforts on racial reconciliation contributed to the “evangelical center” growing more diverse to the point that the National Association of Evangelicals—on whose board Perkins served in the 1980s—now has an African American board chair, an Asian American president and a woman vice chair.

“That’s enormous progress, and it’s the sort of thing that John’s influence has helped to create,” Sider said.

In the 1990s, after returning to Jackson, Perkins founded the Spencer Perkins Center, named for his son who died suddenly in 1998 after suffering a heart attack at the age of 44. The center focused, as had other ministries of his father, on evangelism, affordable housing and helping poor children and families.

‘The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering’

The elder Perkins has summed up his life’s work and learnings in what he calls his “manifesto,” a trilogy of books that concluded with the publication of Count It All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering.

In the book, Perkins recounts some of the tragedies he has faced but talks of suffering as a part of faith, rather than a failure of it.

“This is the message that I want to leave as a witness to the next generation,” he writes in the introduction. “It’s not only given that we should believe on God, but that we should suffer for his names’ sake.”

Shane Claiborne, co-founder of Red Letter Christians and who has known and worked with Perkins more than 20 years, said Perkins has long demonstrated “ministry of presence.”

Claiborne said Perkins’ approach to Bible study, whether early in the morning at CCDA conferences or online on YouTube and Facebook, is symbolic of the way he has lived his life.

“Almost everything that John does is collaborative,” said Claiborne, who co-wrote with him the 2009 book Follow Me to Freedom: Leading and Following as an Ordinary Radical. Claiborne has joined Perkins in an online Bible study, as has megachurch pastor Rick Warren and civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson.

Participants “might not have all the same theological assumptions, but they’ve got some wisdom he wants them to share, and they’re his friends,” Claiborne said.

Perkins has been trying to build co-laborers rather than view himself as the only one to emulate.

“My dad, he has a hard time with people thinking that he is this person that people should be following,” Priscilla Perkins, co-president of her parents’ foundation, said as the online Bible study came to a close. “No, it’s Christ that we’re following, so we want to make sure that everybody knows that.”

Over the last two decades, institutions of higher learning such as evangelical Calvin University and Jackson State University—a historically Black school—have recognized her father with a program, or with a scholarship named in honor of Perkins and his wife Vera Mae.

Seattle Pacific University has had a John Perkins Center since 2004 and has held training events, lectures and a day of service for incoming students in hopes of moving them from charitable to community development activities.

John Perkins Center Executive Director Caenisha Warren said Perkins’ principles have become ingrained in her. She recalled seeing an article about adding a fourth R to the 3 R’s.

She started reading it, “only to discover it was talking about the other 3 R’s of reading, writing and arithmetic, when I truly assumed it was the Perkins 3 R’s—relocation, redistribution, reconciliation,” she said in an email to RNS.

Perkins once said he didn’t want buildings erected in his name because they might not last. “I have to say it: It feels good,” he said of the programs named for him.

But his sense of satisfaction does not mean he feels the work he accomplished with his wife of seven decades has been sufficient.

“Deep down in my heart I find joy, but I also see that we could have done more,” said Perkins, who was honored in June as a Black Christian “elder” at a Museum of the Bible gala. “But I’m thankful as I look back at it.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Russell Moore, the former Southern Baptist ethicist, was named editor in chief at Christianity Today.

Moore takes over editorial leadership from president and CEO Tim Dalrymple, who assumed dual roles following the departure of former Editor-in-Chief Daniel Harrell.

Moore joined Christianity Today as a public theologian in 2021 after resigning as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. His tenure there had been controversial, in part because of his opposition to Donald Trump and for advocating for sexual abuse reforms.

“I could have won the conflict that needed to be fought,” he said last fall, in reflecting on his departure with fellow former Southern Baptist Beth Moore. “But I realized I would have to have a conflict. And I didn’t want to be the kind of person I would be on the other side of that.”

Moore previously was dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dalrymple said Moore will help Christianity Today answer the question: “What does it look like to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ in our time?”

 Christianity Today is considered the premier publication for evangelicals, founded in 1956 by legendary evangelist Billy Graham.

The publication also named Kate Shellnutt, a longtime staffer, as editorial director of news and online and brought on Christian publishing veteran Joy Allmond as chief of staff of editorial.

As editor in chief, Moore will set the vision and direction for the editorial team and will also speak into “the great questions and challenges of our time,” Dalrymple wrote in an email. He called Moore a man of conviction who has a vision for the kingdom of God and “casts that vision with courage and grace.”

“I really do believe this is a moment of extraordinary peril and extraordinary potential for the church,” Dalrymple said. “The forces driving us apart are powerful. But if we can recapture a compelling vision of the kingdom of God, and reclaim the unity that is already ours in the spirit, it could change the course of history.”

Old Testament scholar Slava Gerasimchuk understands more about the Hebrew Exile now than before the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced him and his family from their home.

For more than five months, Gerasimchuk, professor of Old Testament at Odesa Theological Seminary in Ukraine, and his family have lived as refugees in Moldova.

“It’s not home,” Gerasimchuk said of Moldova during a recent trip to the United States. “Even though I was born and grew up there, I’ve lived outside of Moldova more than I have lived in Moldova. For me, Odesa is my home now.”

When the seminary published the summer issue of its journal Bogomyslie (Thinking About God), editors selected “God Among Ruins” as its theme. Writers explored theological responses to the war in Ukraine.

For his part, Gerasimchuk wrote about his article, “The Time of the Silent Harps,” about a Song of Exile, Psalm 137. The psalm describes the mourning of exiles in Babylon, who hung their harps on willows and asked, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

He noted the United Nations reports at least 12 million Ukrainians have left their homes, with 5 million living as refugees in other countries and 7 million living as internally displaced people. So, the theme of living in exile has particular resonance for many Ukrainians.

“I think the parallels are more obvious to the refugees who are outside of Ukraine,” he said, noting particularly the issue of family separation for many women and children whose husbands, sons and fathers remain in Ukraine.

Many Ukrainians can relate to the pain and anger of Psalm 137 and other imprecatory psalms, as God’s people cried out to the Lord asking him to punish their enemies, he observed.

‘Feeling of detachment … never leaves you’

In early April, Gerasimchuk’s wife Tetiana participated in an online roundtable discussion, “The Russia-Ukraine War: Women’s Voices,” providing the perspective of a Ukrainian family living as refugees. Unlike her husband, who holds a Moldovan passport, she was born in Odesa and spent most of her life there.

“You are uprooted, and you start to live in a place where you don’t belong,” she said. “No matter how many good, nice and kind people you meet on your way or how comfortable your conditions are at the moment, the feeling of detachment is always there and never leaves you.”

She described living with uncertainty and the inability to make plans for the future, comparing it to “solving an equation with too many unknowns.”

Even though her family seems to be safe in Moldova, “No one can guarantee Moldova is not the next dish on Mr. Putin’s menu,” she said.

At the same time, she expressed a measure of survivor’s guilt, knowing her family lives in relative comfort while others in Ukraine exist in constant peril, she noted.

Repurposed as center for practical theology

During a July speaking engagement at Magnolia Baptist Church in Anaheim, Calif., Gerasimchuk explained how Odesa Theological Seminary has reshaped itself as a center for practical theology.

“We are all learning right now to live in the new reality of war,” he said. “Even though the war had been with us for eight years, it had been concentrated in one corner of the country—the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine.”

After the Russian invasion, the seminary expanded its mission beyond traditional theological training, initially distributing food and water, offering transportation to help families evacuate and delivering medicine and basic health care supplies.

The seminary now sees advocacy and communication as part of its mission—“To share the truth about the Russian-Ukrainian war,” Gerasimchuk said.

The seminary has continued to offer theological training classes, primarily through online instruction, successfully completing the 2021-2022 academic year and graduating 45 students. Currently, the seminary is enrolling students for the next academic year.

To help Ukrainian Christians apply practical theology, seminary leaders are participating in online seminars, conferences and other programs focused on specific needs, Gerasimchuk noted.

Oleksandr Geychenko, president and rector of Odesa Theological Seminary, took part in an online roundtable discussion on March 22, “The Russia-Ukraine War: Evangelical Voices.”

“Many people fit their life into a suitcase,” he said regarding the rapid evacuation many Ukrainians experienced soon after the invasion began.

In reflecting on an observance of the Lord’s Supper with Ukrainian Christians in mid-March, Geychenko said: “I knew God was and is in the midst of this suffering of our people. He is sharing the pain and sorrow of all those who have been impacted by this cruel and inhuman war.”

Institute holds private doctoral graduation ceremony

In a brief respite from the reality of suffering, Gerasimchuk was grateful for an expected time of celebration in Texas. He had completed his doctoral studies with the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, but travel restrictions prevented him from journeying to the United States for the May graduation ceremony.

On July 26, he visited the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute offices in Irving to receive his diploma, hoping he might be able to visit with one or two of the faculty.

To his surprise, the institute held a graduation ceremony just for him. Stan Moore, founding senior fellow, and Karen Bullock, distinguished professor of Christian heritage and director of the Ph.D. program, placed the doctoral hood on Gerasimchuk. Institute President Gene Wilkes presented his diploma.

“It was very special. It certainly was the highlight of my trip,” he said. “I know they were doing it not only for me, but also for Ukraine and for our seminary there.”

Wilkes characterized the graduation as “a small ceremony, but Dr. Gerasimchuk’s impact will be felt internationally as he and others return to rebuild the seminary in the future.”

Gerasimchuk looks forward to bringing the diploma and hood home, knowing his wife and family will be “over the moon” with joy.

‘At a crossroads’

At this point, he and his family face hard choices about returning to Odesa.

“We are kind of at a crossroads at the moment,” he said.

Some family members are eager to return, including his 19-year-old daughter who wants to go back to the university in Odesa to pursue her studies in architecture and his homesick mother-in-law.

Having made two 10-day trips to Odesa in the past five months, Gerasimchuk recognizes the continuing danger there.

“Almost every three to four hours, you would hear air-raid sirens. … If we knew that Russia was aiming only at military targets, that would be one thing. But they are destroying civilian buildings, as well. That’s why you never feel safe,” he said.

Once Gerasimchuk returns to Moldova on Aug. 11, his family will be praying about what to do next.

“It’s really a difficult decision,” Gerasimchuk said. “My main prayer request while talking to my friends here in the States is to pray that God will give wisdom in this regard—to know what we are supposed to do.”