ABILENE—Balloons fell from the ceiling, and the sounds of Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” filled the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Abilene—a congregation more accustomed to hymns and anthems presented by robed choirs with pipe-organ accompaniment.

Alicia Lee, pictured with her son, Ethan, serves as a missionary with her husband, Jeff, in Macedonia. They have been supported by First Baptist Church in Abilene through its “Faces and Places” missions campaign. (PHOTOS/Courtesy of Janie Sellers)First Baptist Church celebrated the completion of a three-year capital campaign that collected more than $3.6 million—a fund-raising endeavor as nontraditional as its celebration.

The “Faces and Places” campaign focused on missions, and the Sunday morning celebration highlighted ways the church has expanded its mission efforts over the last three years.

Worshippers celebrated the work of three global missionary couples supported by Faces and Places—Jimmy and Anjani Cole, who recently completed three years in Spain; Josh and Caroline Smith, who serve in South Africa; and Jeff and Alicia Lee, who serve in Macedonia.

Alicia Lee told the congregation the story of Rinor, an 8-year-old boy who benefited from the mission efforts of First Baptist. On the day she met Rinor, Lee described, he had returned home from the market with a small packet of soup to provide dinner for his family—his parents, grandparents, and four brothers and sisters.

When the Lees opened the trunk of their car, revealing enough groceries to sustain the family for the last few months of the harsh Macedonian winter, they were overwhelmed with gratitude and relief.

Rinor’s mother embraced Lee and said, “Zoti ju bekoftë!” (“God bless you!”)—a blessing Lee relayed to First Baptist Church.

Sunday school classes at First Baptist Church in Abilene wrote words of encouragement and Scripture verses on blessings on boards that will be used in a Habitat for Humanity homebuilding project.Phil Christopher, pastor at First Baptist in Abilene, told the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly last summer about the impact of a missional focus in his church.

“Jimmy Cole grew up in First Baptist Abilene, and when we started talking about what it means to be a missional church, he took what we were saying seriously,” Christopher said. “He resigned as a successful pharmaceutical salesperson, sold his home and said, ‘Here am I, send me.’ Can you imagine?

“If we are going to talk missions in our churches, if we are going to commission field personnel, if we are going to tell the ‘old, old story,’ our churches have a responsibility to make sure the resources are available when people like the Coles, the Smiths and the Lees are called to go and tell the story of Jesus and his love.”

In addition to the campaign’s global impact, Faces and Places also included local mission efforts. During the Sunday celebration, Family Life Center Director Keith Post expressed thanks for the center’s renewed impact due to renovations made possible by the campaign.

The Cole family—(left to right) Carson, Ajani, Currian and Jimmy—served three years in Spain as misisonaries supported by First Baptist Church in Abilene.Friendship House Director Janet Mendenhall described how lives continue to be affected in First Baptist’s neighborhood, thanks to the church’s faithful support.

But the mission work of First Baptist Abilene and the Faces and Places campaign is not over. During the Sunday school hour before the church’s celebration, classes wrote words of encouragement and verses of blessing on two-by-fours, which will be used in a Habitat for Humanity house the church is building during the next couple of months. Representatives of each class carried the decorated boards into the sanctuary at the opening of the service to dedicate the house and its mission to God’s service.

Bob Ellis, who served as the Faces and Places chair, joined other speakers in challenging the church to continue giving to the campaign. The initial goal was $5 million, which included a sizeable endowment for sustained missions support. The church hopes to collect the remaining $1.3 million-plus for the endowment over the next year.

 DALLAS—Messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in San Antonio this summer will consider a recommendation to grant the BGCT Executive Board authority to sell the Baptist Building in Dallas.

The board at its May meeting approved a proposal that—if approved at the state convention’s annual meeting July 14-17 in San Antonio—would grant the Executive Board and an ad hoc committee authority to negotiate the possible sale of the BGCT Executive Board staff office building.

If a sale were determined to be in the BGCT’s best interests, the board would be authorized to approve the sale and to purchase or lease new property for staff offices.

Amendment

The board also recommended an amendment to the state convention’s constitution, removing a specific reference to the Baptist Building address.

“This is a not a vote to sell the building. We do not have an offer on the building,” explained Van Christian, chair of the board and the ad hoc committee appointed in February to study the possible sale of the Executive Board staff office building.

Instead, it would provide freedom to negotiate a sale “if it benefits the mission of the BGCT” rather than delay any action until the next BGCT annual meeting in November 2014, said Christian, pastor of First Baptist Church in Comanche.

Baylor University approached BGCT Executive Board staff leaders early this year about buying the Baptist Building to house Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing. The nursing school’s building on the Baylor Health Care System campus is at capacity, and several faculty members already use office space in the Baptist Building, located adjacent to the health care system campus east of downtown Dallas.

The BGCT Executive Board staff headquarters was built in 1988 at 333 N. Washington on land leased from Baylor Health Care System. The Executive Board used proceeds from the sale of property in downtown Dallas, combined with trust funds, to pay for construction. Ten years later, the health care system’s board of directors voted to give the land, valued at $2.5 million, to the BGCT Executive Board.

Approval for sale

Consequently, Baylor Health Care System has first right of refusal on any sale of the building, but President Joel Allison already has given verbal approval to the proposed sale to Baylor, according to a report from the Executive Board’s administration support committee.

In other business, the board voted to postpone until its Sept. 23-24 meeting consideration of a recommendation that would grant the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation status as a nonprofit corporation affiliated with the BGCT. 

The foundation has raised about $110 million for Texas Baptist missions causes since 1985, and it has operated since its beginning within the Executive Board staff structure.

Bill Arnold, president of the foundation, noted status as a nonprofit corporation with its own governing board would give the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation greater visibility and make it easier to apply for grants from other foundations.

However, several Executive Board members expressed concern about specific provisions in the governing documents for the foundation. After extended discussion, the board approved a motion to postpone consideration until its fall meeting.

The board also:

• Elected officers. Ron Lyles, pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Pasadena, was elected chairman, and Ernest Dagohoy, pastor of First Philippine Baptist Church in Missouri City, was elected vice chair. They will assume office after the BGCT annual meeting in July.

• Approved recommendations regarding institutions. The board authorized South Texas Children’s Home Ministries to reduce the number of directors on its governing board from 24 members to a range of 16 to 20 members. It also approved a request from the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center board that will make board members eligible for three consecutive terms, bringing the center in line with other Texas Baptist institutions.

• Recommended changes. One proposed change brings the bylaws in line with constitutional changes approved at the last two BGCT annual meetings, which grant the presidents of recognized ethnic fellowships voting privileges on the BGCT Executive Board. Another change in the bylaws would allow out-of-state Baptists to serve on groups, teams, councils and other Texas Baptist entities. The board also recommended changes in the bylaws and constitution to delete language that gives detailed descriptions of committees and their duties. All proposed changes will be presented to messengers at the BGCT annual meeting.

• Heard updates on finances. The Texas portion of Cooperative Program receipts at the end of the first quarter totaled 94.3 percent of budget, compared to 98.8 percent of budget at the same time last year, said Jill Larsen, BGCT chief financial officer and treasurer. However, by the end of April, Texas Cooperative Program receipts increased to 100.5 percent of budget, she reported.

• Filled vacancies. The board elected Kendall Holden, a certified public accountant and member of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, to a three-year term on the institutions audit group and Randy Pullin, a member of First Baptist Church in Houston, to the Baylor University board of regents. 

Wayland offers online divinity degree. Wayland Baptist University is accepting applications for its Master of Divinity degree program that begins in the fall. Students may complete the 86-hour degree program entirely online, but courses also will be offered at Plainview or at many of Wayland’s branch campuses. Paul Sadler, dean of Wayland’s School of Religion and Philosophy, noted the degree program was designed to make ministerial education accessible to students who already are serving in churches far from a campus, working on the mission field or serving in the military. For more information, contact Sarah Langston in the graduate programs office at (806) 291-3421 or langstons@wbu.edu, or call the School of Religion and Philosophy at (806) 291-1160. 

Howard Payne receives grant. Howard Payne University received $25,000 in scholarship funds from TexasBank through the Doss Foundation. The gift to Howard Payne was part of a $79,000 contribution to high schools and colleges in Brown, Comanche and Erath counties. HPU President Bill Ellis announced the funds will support the university’s Heart of Texas Scholarship.

Tessa McGinnis recently graduated from Hardin-Simmons University with a perfect grade- point average, earning a bachelor of business administration degree in economics and finance. But while she joins other recent graduates in looking for a job, she hopes eventually to apply what she learned to help children in Africa.

HSU graduate Tessa McGinnis with Kenyan children during one of her missions trips to Africa.“My dream job would be helping impoverished children in some way,” McGinnis said. “I particularly have a love for Kenya and really enjoy the people and culture a lot.”

She has served on four mission trips to Kenya, and this summer, she will return to the Nyanza Province, where she has been studying the culture and made many friends.

As part of the HSU honors program, she was so inspired by the people and the culture, she based her required year-end research project on her study of the Luo Tribe.

The segment of the tribe she studied most extensively primarily work as fishermen, live on the western and southernmost shores of Lake Victoria, and speak mostly Swahili and English.

In her capstone research project—“Theories of Charitably Sourced Development within the Nyanza Province, Kenya”—she applied what she learned in her business administration classes to her study of a culture she has grown to love.

“I wanted to create a plan that would help develop their economy in a self-sufficient, culturally appropriate manner,” she said. “One day, I hope to implement my capstone project.”

McGinnis started going on mission trips during her freshman year in high school, with previous trips including Mexico, Romania, South Korea and Uganda. But Kenya “grabbed at my heart,” she said.

Her trip this summer will include continued support for churches planted there.

“We feel it’s very important to stress the continued relationship between church plants and ourselves, so they do not feel like we have abandoned them. Also on this mission trip, we will do a lot of evangelism in the community. This includes talking to people in their homes, the marketplace, schools and prisons.”

GRANBURY—Texas Baptist Men disaster relief volunteers offered comfort to injured people, helped clear debris and provided meals to rescue workers after tornadoes ripped through North Central Texas Wednesday evening, May 15.

A series of tornadoes touched down around Granbury and Cleburne, south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, killing at least six people, injuring dozens and leaving hundreds homeless.

TBM chaplains and a recovery crew helped transport some of the injured to Acton Baptist Church in Granbury, which acted as a triage center and as on-site headquarters for TBM disaster relief.

Many people displaced by the storms spent the night in shelters at First Christian Church and First United Methodist Church in Granbury.

Chainsaw crews from Ellis and Paluxy counties began clearing downed trees and large limbs the morning after the storm, and other crews were placed on alert for possible mobilization.

An emergency food service crew that has been serving meals in West following a deadly fertilizer plant explosion last month sent 200 meals to first responders in Granbury on the evening the tornado hit. The West-based team planned to continue to provide meals in Granbury as needed.

A “blue tarp” volunteer team from Austin Baptist Association will provide temporary roofing help to Granbury-area residents whose roofs sustained serious damage.

Victim Relief Ministries is working in coordination with Cindy Wesch, TBM disaster relief area director for Central Texas.

TBM disaster relief workers and Baptist General Convention of Texas disaster recovery personnel were in Cleburne May 16, continuing to assess needs. BGCT disaster recovery will enlist volunteers to help with clean-up and rebuilding homes, focusing on the uninsured and underinsured.

TBM disaster relief relies entirely on donations. To give, click here or send a check designated “disaster relief” to Texas Baptist Men, 5351 Catron, Dallas 75227.

To support Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery efforts financially, click here.

This story was updated at 3:30 p.m. May 16 to add additional information.

DALLAS—Imagine going through more than 200 diapers a week, countless bottles, bibs, outfits and innumerable cans of formula. That’s reality for Dallas Baptist University alumna Carrie Peterson Jones and her husband, Gavin, as they care for their 9-month-old quintuplets—Will, David, Marcie, Seth and Grace.

The Jones quintuplets—(left to right) David, Grace, Will, Marcie, and Seth—are the children of Dallas Baptist University alumna Carrie Jones and her husband, Gavin, who serve as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators.The couple hoped their son Isaac would be able to grow up with a sibling. They never dreamed when they prayed for a second child God would give them five, but they do not doubt his sovereignty or timing.

As missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Joneses are commissioned for service in Papua, New Guinea, where he has served as a helicopter pilot and she worked as a community health worker. In winter 2011, the couple and Isaac were on furlough in the United States when they found out about the babies on the way.

Doctors advised them to reduce the number of babies, but the couple adamantly refused. They saw each precious baby entrusted to their care as a gift from God. The couple understood that exponentially multiplying their family would bring its challenges, but the Joneses resolved God would sustain them.

Learning dependence on God

Carrie Jones learned dependence on God at an early age from her parents, Neal and Jane Peterson, as they served on the foreign mission field.

Throughout her life, she witnessed God’s provision, including during her undergraduate years at DBU, when she received scholarship money above what she could imagine to allow her to graduate debt-free. Knowing God to be faithful in the past, the Joneses felt confident he would be faithful in the future.

Neal Peterson, a DBU adjunct professor the past 15 years, and his wife, Jane, were among the first people to hear about the multiple pregnancy.

In the Lord’s hands

“When Carrie first informed us she was pregnant with quintuplets, we were concerned for her health and for the health of the babies,” Peterson said. “It caused us to pray a lot and reminded us, even as tiny as they were, the babies were in the Lord’s hands.”

The Petersons soon welcomed the growing Jones family into their home in Duncanville. As the family waited on the arrival of the quints, the pregnancy went well. Two weeks before delivery, doctors at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center of Dallas admitted Carrie Jones to the hospital for closer monitoring.

She went into labor at 27  weeks, which was a concern for her health and the health of the babies. However, last Aug. 9, they welcomed five tiny babies: Will Edward at 2 lbs. 10 oz.; David Stephen at 2 lbs. 6 oz.; Marcie Jane at 2 lbs. 0 oz.; Seth Jared at 2 lbs. 1 oz.; and Grace Elise at 1 lb. 12 oz.

For several months, the quintuplets stayed in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit as they developed and grew. “Under the excellent care of the doctors, the quints began to survive and thrive,” Neal Peterson recalled.

Blogging their progress

The babies’ parents chronicled their journey on a family blog that garnered national attention and more than 1 million page views. Throughout the trials, they continued to seek God and entrust their tiny babies into his hands.

A couple of weeks after the babies’ births, their mother wrote: “Please continue to pray for these babies. I didn’t realize until today how precarious their situation still is. The doctor really laid it out there for us. Naïve optimism is gone; we realize the Lord is these babies’ only hope for life on earth and for all eternity. He is greater than any challenge and sovereign over each atom of their being. Thank you for joining with us as their prayer warriors.”

As the months went by and the babies came home, it was clear the Joneses needed more space, and the Petersons needed less. When a duplex down the street became available, the Petersons decided to take out a mortgage and give their home to their children.

“Grandpadad” and “Grandma,” as they are known, remain involved in the day-to-day care of the quintuplets and provide support for the babies’ parents.

Now, all five babies are thriving. Their activity levels and need for interaction and attention keep their caregivers busy. Almost every moment, someone has a pressing need.

Although the nights can be long and the days full of constant caring for the quints, their parents express gratitude for the blessings God bestowed upon their family.

They also are eager to return to Papua, New Guinea, and continue their missionary work—this time with a few more family members in tow.

DESOTO—All it took was a phone call.

Oscar Epps, pastor of Community Missionary Baptist Church in DeSoto, phoned Lelious Johnson, pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church in Dallas, and Michael Evans, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield and president of the African-American Fellowship of Texas. When he asked about the possibility of their churches raising money to help with disaster recovery after a devastating explosion in West, their answer was an emphatic “yes.”

W.C. Wright, pastor of Bold Springs Baptist Church in West, receives a check from Gerald Davis, Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery and development specialist.A few days later, the congregations gathered for a Saturday night service and collected more than $11,000. The Baptist General Convention of Texas disaster recovery office connected them with Bold Springs Baptist Church in West, which had some members affected by the fertilizer plant explosion there.

The pastors presented all the funds to the West church, and they were overwhelmed by the congregations’ response.

“We saw a people whose lives were transformed instantaneously by something they could do nothing about,” Epps said. “We want to come together as a people and respond.”

The three congregations chose to work through Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery ministry because they knew all the money would go to help in West.

“We believe in Texas Baptists,” he said. “We believe in the work here. We wanted to make sure the money will go where it was meant to go.”

Chris Liebrum, who leads Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery ministry, praised Epps for his leadership and desire to help survivors of the West explosion.

“God touched Pastor Epps and led him to organize this effort to help the members of the Bold Springs Baptist Church,” Liebrum said. “We are honored to work with Pastor Epps in this effort. Because of his leadership, many will be helped who have experienced a great loss.”

To support Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery efforts financially, click here.  Opportunities to serve in West are posted here. 

The Baptist General Convention of Texas disaster recovery ministry hopes to mobilize 400 Texas Baptists for a weeklong “Loving West” rebuilding emphasis in June 15-22 in the Central Texas community devastated by a fertilizer plant explosion.

Volunteers will work on projects in support of First Baptist Church in West and identified by the local West long-term recovery team. Projects likely will include demolition and rebuilding initiatives.

More than 150 West homes were damaged April 17, including 71 houses that were completely destroyed.

The week also will feature nightly worship services, providing an easy avenue for volunteers to invite families to church with them.

Partnering with KCBI

KCBI, an Arlington-based Christian radio station, has partnered with Texas Baptists for “KCBI Day in Loving West” June 22. The station will mobilize volunteers to assist in the recovery efforts that day and sponsor a concert that night billed as a “celebration of new beginnings” for residents in West.

West residents still are hurting in the wake of the disaster, said Gerald Davis, Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery and development specialist. They need practical assistance and helpful hearts, he stressed.

“This is needed,” Davis said. “It’s what the body of Christ should do.”

To sign up as an individual volunteer or team, click here. Advance registration allows the BGCT to arrange free housing for the volunteers, and enables Texas Baptist Men to know how many people its emergency food service units need to serve.

Registration for the project is $15, which provides additional insurance for participants. A suggested donation of $10 a day will help cover food costs.

Mission opportunities

If volunteers or teams cannot serve during the week of Loving West, Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery ministry also offers mission opportunities in West every week in June and every other week July-August.

“We are so grateful for the many phone calls and emails we’ve received from people wanting to help in West,” said Marla Bearden, Texas Baptists’ disaster recovery specialist. “Now is the time to turn that desire into action as we seek to minister in the name of Christ.”

Baylor Stadium giving reaches milepost. Private gifts toward construction of Baylor University’s on-campus football stadium topped $100 million, and construction is on schedule for the $250 million stadium to open in fall 2014 on a 93-acre site at the intersection of I-35 and the Brazos River. Premium seating for Baylor Stadium already has sold out, Director of Athletics Ian McCaw reported.

Tournaments draw 900-plus children and youth. More than 900 students in grades four through 12 from 101 churches and 41 associations participated in regional and state Bible Drill and Speakers’ Tournaments. Champions of the state finals who will represent Texas Baptists at the national competition are Taryn Smith from First Baptist Church in Allen, Youth Bible Drill; Silas Henderson from First Baptist Church in Atlanta, High School Bible Drill; and Emily Martin from First Baptist Church in Frisco, Youth Speakers’ Tournament.

ETBU trustees approve increased budget. East Texas Baptist University trustees approved a $36.5 million operating budget for the 2013-2014 academic year—a 10.9 percent increase over the current budget. The 2013-2014 budget includes more than $8.8 million for student scholarships, a 9 percent increase.

A medical mission trip to Honduras made a lasting impact on the seven Wayland Baptist University students who participated. For some, it confirmed the direction God wants them to proceed with their education and careers. For others, it simply made them more aware of their own blessings.

Wayland students Jarrett Ross (left) and Trevor Burrow (second from right) work with a Honduran doctor at one of the medical clinics in which the medical team participated.Adam Reinhart, chemistry professor at Wayland, and Andrew Kasner, associate professor of biology, led the trip, working in coordination with missionary Joe Denton.

The students are enrolled in the university’s pre-health program, and the medical mission trip presented them an opportunity to see how God could use them in missions before they begin time-consuming studies in medical school, Reinhart noted.

“The side of the trip that will impact our students the most is just giving people a more global perspective of what God’s doing around the world,” he said. “Everything doesn’t look like it does here, and people around the world face different kinds of challenges that we don’t experience in this part of the world.”

Wayland student Erin Miller hugs a patient at a psychiatric hospital during the university’s medical mission trip to Honduras.Jessica Kenneson, a sophomore from Wiggins, Colo., noted the trip initially made her question her career choice but ultimately reaffirmed her calling to become a medical researcher.

“Through the week, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m supposed to be a missionary to Honduras, because I love it.’ I loved Honduras. I wanted to move there. It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous, and the people are so sweet, and I love their language, … and their food is just fantastic,” she said.

Wayland Baptist University employee Amy Rendon (left) and student Jarrett Ross (right) are joined by other team members as they pray for a Honduran man.But something Denton said at the end of the trip brought her back to her first calling. He told the students they didn’t have to become career missionaries to make an impact for God. They should follow their passions, but with an eye toward using them as a ministry.

“He told us to do what God has called us to. God has called us all to a specific thing, and he said if you don’t follow that, people will suffer,” Kenneson said.

“It was refreshing to know that I can be a scientist and do what I love and still be a missionary for God here and also do what he’s called me to.”

For Trevor Burrow, the trip had the opposite impact. He went in with an eye toward a career in medical research and came out with a realization God is calling him to medical missions.

Members of the Wayland medical missions team are (front left): Dr. Adam Reinhart, Honduran missionary Joe Denton, Jessica Kenneson, Megan Huerta, Erin Miller, Elizabeth Reinhart, Levi Kasner, Amy Rendon, Zoe Benson, Dr. Andrew Kasner, Honduran interpreter Raul Munguia Malgar, Taylor Eaves and Trevor Burrow.“Before the trip, I had planned on doing medical research, but now I think that God just wants me to be a regular M.D. and help the people in Honduras and other Third World countries,” Burrow said.

Events prior to the mission trip confirmed God was closing doors that previously appeared to be open and using Honduras to redirect his life, he noted.

“I had some summer research plans for other universities around the state that fell through. … Now, after visiting Honduras, I think God really wants me to just follow the general medical degree and help other people instead of doing research,” he said.

Erin Miller, a junior biology major from Katy, is interested in working in medicine and went on the trip because she thought it would be a “really neat way to serve.” Plus, it represented an opportunity to travel to a foreign country.

Once she arrived, she faced with two realities. First, as an American, she has far more opportunities than many others around the world. Second, whether or not people understand the same language, individuals know when they are loved.

Wayland student Jessica Kenneson (left) gets information from a patient at one of the medical clinics in which the medical team participated.Miller admitted she didn’t speak much Spanish, but explained she was moved by how easily she and her fellow team members were able to connect with Hondurans, particularly as they interacted with the children of families who received treatment at medical clinics.

“You’d be walking around at the medical clinic, and the little children would just be staring up at everybody because we look different and act different,” she said. Often, students simply would smile at a child and offer a greeting, and the child would smile back.

“It’s like they don’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Spanish, but there is that connection there,” she said.

A visit to a mental hospital drove the point home even more dramatically, Miller added. Patients seldom receive visits from the outside, the students learned. In fact, the group from Wayland found out they were the first visitors the patients had seen in years.

“I came up to this woman who was just kind of standing alone by herself, just kind of standing looking off in the distance,” Miller said. When the student approached her to give a hug, the woman wrapped her arms around her waist and rested her head on the young woman’s shoulder, reluctant to let go.

“I understand a very little bit of Spanish, but she said, ‘Oh, yo quiero,’ like: ‘I like this. This is nice,’” she said. The moving experience left the college student pondering the contrasts of their two worlds.

“I just feel an appreciation for what I’m given. I’m born into this opportunity of education, health care and all those things,” she said.

Amy Rendon was the one non-science-oriented adult on the trip. She is the assistant director of annual giving in Wayland’s advancement office and a 2008 graduate. Her bachelor’s degree is in Spanish, and she also earned a master’s degree in education from Wayland.

Rendon spent hours interpreting for the students.

“I am so incredibly proud of our students,” she said. “I saw selfless servant-hearted students. It just blew my mind. God told Jeremiah: ‘Don’t let anybody look down on you because you’re young. You will say what I say, and you will go where I tell you to go.’

“These students’ hearts are so responsive to the call and mission God has on their lives, and not just on this mission trip. I saw them work together. I saw them be challenged. Just to hear them, the excitement of these experiences with people and using medicine and their education—it’s just neat to look at that and see God work in their lives and open their hearts to the possibility of missions in the future.”

For Reinhart, that was a big part of what the trip was about.

“If you want to take the surest, shortest way to take somebody from a pew-sitter to really being involved in ministry, send them on a short-term mission trip,” she said.

AUSTIN—With time running out in the Texas Legislature, a bill to reform and regulate payday and auto-title lending in Texas appears stuck in committee, said Stephen Reeves, director of public policy for the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.

The Texas Senate voted 24-6 to approve a bill filed by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chair of the Business and Commerce Committee, after amending it to include a series of tough provisions, including one that allows cities to establish local ordinances to regulate payday and auto-title lenders.

Compromise version

Mike VillarealRep. Mike Villareal, D-San Antonio, crafted a compromise version of the bill for the House, where observers had predicted some aspects of the Senate version made it unlikely to pass.

Although the bill was weaker than the final version that passed the Senate, Reeves noted it contained several of the friendly amendments Carona had agreed to accept, and he felt the House bill “represented real compromise by all sides, incremental progress and should move forward in the process.”

However, Villareal found himself the only strong advocate for the bill in the Committee on Investments and Financial Services, which he chairs, and the legislation is stalled there.

Lobbyists were busy

Hearings before the committee drew out-of-state executives in the payday and auto-title lending industry, as well as industry lobbyists and attorneys, Reeves noted. The industry hired 82 lobbyists with contracts totaling $4.4 million to squelch any attempts at regulation, according to a report by Texans for Public Justice.

Consumer advocates point to studies that show payday and auto-title lending traps significant numbers of Texans in a cycle of debt they cannot escape, with interest and fees that amount to more than 700 percent annual interest.

Texas remains the only state with short-term lending that does not place restrictions on interest rates, rollovers, fees and term limits. However, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio and Austin have local ordinances in place, and Houston has an ordinance pending.

“I’m not interested in putting my name on a paper tiger,” Villarreal said at a press conference. “If we cannot pass a meaningful bill at the state level, then the cities need to be empowered and encouraged to pass ordinances.”

ARLINGTON—First Baptist Church in Arlington recently played host to about 4,000 years of cumulative marital experience when the church honored couples who have been married more than 50 years.

More than 70 couples participated in a renewal of vows ceremony at First Baptist Church in Arlington.Of the 70-plus couples who participated, 22 have been married more than 60 years, eight reached more than 65 years, and the couple with the longest marriage reached the 70-year milestone.

The Sunday night event highlighted those whose wedding day was long ago, but it inspired the entire church, said Larry Link, minister to senior adults. In addition to providing important recognition of a milestone reached by the couples, it also encouraged many younger people in attendance.

“I’ve heard from so many of our younger couples that they just bawled their eyes out during this ceremony,” Link added.

A reception followed the renewal of vows ceremony.Pastor Dennis Wiles agreed. “Our church is a diverse place with growing numbers of members ranging from newborns to those approaching 100 years old. This wonderful event gives us the opportunity to celebrate some very precious church members and not only honor their relationships, but also the lessons they continue to teach all of our families,” he said.

The evening began with a video montage that featured a wedding photo and a current photo of each couple. Wiles followed with a sermon extolling perseverance, faithfulness and commitment, as well as the solidarity of a marriage founded on Christ.

After the sermon, the couples joined hands and repeated their marriage vows. A reception followed.

“We value all age groups and what they have to offer, and especially this group for what they already have given,” Link said. “They have paved the way for what we have the opportunity to enjoy here.”