Homelessness in this tropical Southern city has changed in the nearly three years since the area was keelhauled by Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29, 2005, and Southern Baptist ministries have adapted to the changes even as local church and associational leaders strategize ways to better meet changing needs. NEW ORLEANS (BP) – Homelessness in this tropical Southern city has changed in the nearly three years since the area was keelhauled by Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29, 2005, and Southern Baptist ministries have adapted to the changes even as local church and associational leaders strategize ways to better meet changing needs. Groups serving New Orleans’ homeless estimate there are about a thousand chronically homeless, living on the streets of the city. Another 2,400 are in some sort of homeless housing at any given time. More live in abandoned housing, but these numbers are very difficult to estimate. Homeless advocates say the number of homeless people is double what it was before Katrina, yet the general population is perhaps half what it once was. The make-up of the homeless individual also has changed. Only perhaps half the number of “traditional” homeless people – the possibly mentally ill, drug and/or alcohol abusers – are … [Read more...]

Nothing happens randomly in the life of a military chaplain. Ken Williams was out on exercises with other members of the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division stationed at Camp Hovey in South Korea. Reporters from the Armed Forces Network were doing a story on how military chaplains minister to soldiers when they’re in the field. They asked Chaplain Williams to recruit a couple of soldiers so they could get some video footage of him with the troops. He picked out two young men and asked them to sit down and make small talk while the cameraman got what he needed. During the conversation, one of the soldiers said, “Hey, I really do need to talk to you about something. Can we get together later?” Williams recalls the meeting: “When we met that evening, he told me he wasn’t sure if he had eternal life. I led him in a prayer to receive Christ.” Maj. Williams, a 17-year veteran of chaplaincy ministry in the National Guard and U.S. Army, knows he has to stay alert and take advantage of the ministry opportunities God gives him. “Satan is the ultimate insurgent. The Bible says he’s always looking for victims,” Williams says. “I have to always be on a heightened state of alert, recognizing that everyone in my path is someone … [Read more...]

Secularists have exploded over the passage of the “Louisiana Science and Education Act.” Secularists have exploded over the passage of the “Louisiana Science and Education Act.” The bill recently was signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal after having been passed by an overwhelming majority of the Louisiana legislature.  According to its text it protects the freedom of “teachers, principals, and other school administrators” in elementary and secondary schools to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of a variety of scientific theories including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” In other words, the act provides for the freedom and support of teachers and school boards to present varied analyses on these and other scientific issues. So why are the denizens of blogs like the Huffington Post in such a huff? Because “science” is their “truth,” and it is blasphemous to question their beliefs. Secularists are unwilling to have their orthodoxy challenged. Just as Galileo had to fight against the church and government of his day, those who dare to question today’s “settled” theories are banished by scientific and political … [Read more...]

The President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been mired in the Senate for months. Late June finally brought signs that a vote, and passage, could be near. The program would cost $50 billion – that’s $165 from each American to fight AIDS, or $1.3 billion from New York City alone. The President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been mired in the Senate for months. Late June finally brought signs that a vote, and passage, could be near. The program would cost $50 billion – that’s $165 from each American to fight AIDS, or $1.3 billion from New York City alone. But will the money allocated for AIDS stop the spread of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, where 76 percent of the world’s HIV-AIDS deaths occurred last year? Not if the dark dealings I’ve witnessed in Africa continue unchecked. In the fight against AIDS, profiteering has trumped prevention. AIDS is no longer simply a disease; it has become a multibillion-dollar industry. In the late 1980s, before international experts arrived to tell us we had it all “wrong,” we in Uganda devised a practical campaign to prevent the spread of HIV. We recognized that population-wide AIDS epidemics in Africa were driven by people having sex with more … [Read more...]

A privately-owned prayer garden less than three miles west of town pays homage by its designer to the One for whom it was designed. KENTWOOD – A privately-owned prayer garden less than three miles west of town pays homage by its designer to the One for whom it was designed. During missionary service over a seven-year period with his artist wife Anne, John “Shady” Hurst walked through many prayer gardens across the globe and decided he would build one on his land once they were back home. “The first thought of such a park was given to me when my wife and I were in Indiana as church planters with the [Southern] Baptist Home Mission Board,” Hurst wrote in a history of the park, which continues to be reprinted and handed out to visitors to the no-cost park. “Upon returning home to retire, I was reading Ecclesiastes in my Bible and God convinced me that He was leading me to do this work for Him,” Hurst continued, a few paragraphs later. “I am not a Solomon, but the little that I do have, I want it to be used of God. This makes me a very happy man.” Inspiration Park emerged over a 10-year period across 34 acres of what previously had been dairy cattle pasture. It grew in stages, as the Hursts envisioned biblical and … [Read more...]

More than 25 churches across this part of the state are to play a part this month in Camp USA for 28 youngsters from South Korea and their seven chaperones. CENTRAL LOUISIANA – More than 25 churches across this part of the state are to play a part this month in Camp USA for 28 youngsters from South Korea and their seven chaperones. It’s the fifth annual Camp USA, a joint project sponsored by the Cenla/Korea Missions Partnership – now known as Reach Missions – and the Korea Baptist Church Development Board, equivalent to the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Christian Resources. “The commitment of Louisianians to Korea extends back for 41 years,” said David Cranford, pastor of Tioga First Baptist near Alexandria, and coordinator of Reach Missions. “We’ve been going there every year for evangelistic crusades in cooperation with the Korea Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. Five years ago we added a west-bound component to the partnership. “It’s the completion of – the cross-cultural component of – the fellowship that assures us that achieving the Great Commission mandate is possible,” Cranford continued. “As we see Christianity extending across the globe, our faith is affirmed.” The 35 Koreans are to be in … [Read more...]

About 150 people mostly from Louisiana left last Friday, July 11, for a major evangelistic/ministry thrust in Brazil. LAFAYETTE – About 150 people mostly from Louisiana left last Friday, July 11, for a major evangelistic/ministry thrust in Brazil. For the second year in a row, they went to Belo Horizonte, about a four-hour bus ride northeast of Rio de Janeiro. “We go at the invitation of the Brazilian Baptist Convention and Brazilian national pastors,” said Wayne Jenkins, evangelism/church growth strategist for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. “We help them in reaching out to the people in their communities.” This is the 24th annual trip Louisianians have made to Brazil; the number of volunteer missionaries going has about doubled – from about 80 the first year to nearly 150 this year. The mission trip is a year-round project, said Syd Smith, Jenkins’ administrative assistant who does much of the detail work, such as keeping old and new volunteers informed, making sure they have passports and visas, arranging in-country transportation and housing. “There’s so much going on that just about anyone can find a place of ministry on the Brazil mission trip,” Smith said. “If you can put a Band-aid on a kid’s skinned … [Read more...]

Journeyman Trevor Yoakum lay face down in mud on the side of a narrow highway in Nigeria. Gunfire exploded in his ears. Squealing tires followed and then the crunch of cars crashing.  RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – Journeyman Trevor Yoakum lay face down in mud on the side of a narrow highway in Nigeria. Gunfire exploded in his ears. Squealing tires followed and then the crunch of cars crashing. As Yoakum lay undetected, the shouts of highway robbers reverberated around him. He was afraid, but his love for the Nigerian people did not waver. “Why go back? Why subject your wife and children to the same risks?” people have asked Yoakum about his family’s return to the region where he served in the late ‘90s. “Because we bear in the body the death of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies,” Yoakum said. The Yoakums were among 72 new International Mission Board missionaries appointed at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., June 25 and Southern Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, June 27. Hailing from 28 states – including five from Louisiana – and four countries, the newly appointed missionaries join more than 5,300 others serving around the world to complete the Great Commission task. Kelli … [Read more...]

Gregory Gomez IV, 22, a student missionary serving in Peru for the summer through the International Mission Board, was killed in a bus accident July 5.  RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – Gregory Gomez IV, 22, a student missionary serving in Peru for the summer through the International Mission Board, was killed in a bus accident July 5. Gomez was traveling with Lydia Shivar, another IMB student missionary, and a woman named Claudia, a national translator, when the accident occurred near the town of Abancay. Shivar of Crawford, Ga., and Claudia received only minor injuries. Gomez arrived in Lima, Peru, in late May with 60 other student missionaries to serve on the REAP (Rapid Entry Advance Plan) South Team. He had been traveling around southern Peru researching unreached people groups. “Our researchers do all the footwork to provide us with the information we need to know what areas to enter, how long it takes to get there and what we’re going to find when we get there,” said missionary Kathy Weaver. “It’s been the crowning glory of our ministry to have these students here every summer – they’re such an asset. It overwhelms me to see the spiritual depth that they have.” Originally from Natchez, Miss., Gomez was living just outside … [Read more...]

Like so many of the 1,200 attendees, Jean and Lee Barham were hoping to hear inspirational music and messages at the inaugural Senior Adult Southern Gospel Celebration at the LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina.  RIDGECREST, N.C. (BP) – Like so many of the 1,200 attendees, Jean and Lee Barham were hoping to hear inspirational music and messages at the inaugural Senior Adult Southern Gospel Celebration at the LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina. “Seniors tend to go to things like this,” said Jean Barham, who’s been married to Lee for 46 years. “We were looking to get away and spend time together. This was outstanding.” The Barhams, of Youngsville, N.C., had attended several senior events throughout the Southeast. Their appreciation for the Ridgecrest gathering included the messages by former New York Yankees’ second baseman Bobby Richardson and Evangelist Junior Hill; the comedy of Dennis Swanberg; the music of Southern Gospel groups Greater Vision, the Greenes, The Hoppers and Triumphant Quartet; and pianist Dino Kartsonakis. The conference, put together by LifeWay Christian Resources and Williams Evangelistic Ministries, drew people from as far away as Texas and Colorado. Tim … [Read more...]