Wednesday, August 29, 2012

• 2 rigs with roofing materials en route for Gulf hurricane victims

  by Mickey Noah, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) -- Following a prayer by North American Mission Board evangelism vice president Larry Wynn, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief drivers Larry Kirkland and K. Ray Helms fired up NAMB's two 18-wheelers and departed today (Aug. 29) for Mobile, Ala.

  Each of the 60,000-pound Freightliner rigs is filled to the max with 20 pallets containing 320 rolls of plastic roof sheeting, wooden strips and nails destined for the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast, where dozens of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers will use the materials to protect the homes of Hurricane Isaac victims.

  

  Photo by John Swain

  While the slow-moving hurricane continues to grind across the New Orleans area today with 75 mph winds and drenching rainfall that may top 20 inches, Kirkland and Helms will make camp tonight in Mobile, avoiding the current gusty winds and downpour in New Orleans. On Thursday, they'll proceed to staging sites in the hardest-hit areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.

  Kirkland and Helms are members of the Tennessee Baptist Convention's disaster relief team. Kirkland is from Loudon, Tenn.; Helms from Johnson City.

  "This is our first opportunity to deploy this roofing material, and we're excited to have this resource for the states," said Cathy Miller, disaster relief team member at NAMB's offices in Alpharetta, Ga. "Residents can use it to get their homes covered up so further damage can be prevented until permanent repairs can be made."

  Miller said trained Southern Baptist DR volunteers across the SBC should immediately advise their state directors if they are available for assignment to the Gulf Coast. Volunteers in several states are on standby for feeding, chainsaw work, childcare, mud-out, chaplaincy and laundry/shower units.

  "Southern Baptists need to pray for the hurricane victims, the first responders and for the safety of our disaster relief volunteers who will go in," Miller said. "We also need to pray for patience because we have to let the storm get out of the way so our state disaster relief directors can get folks in to assess the damages and the needs.

  "More than anything, we need to pray for opportunities to use this disaster to share the Gospel," Miller said. Read More

• Isaac, 7 years post-Katrina, mobilizes volunteers

  by Staff, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  

  NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- On the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers are in place to help Louisiana rebound from Hurricane Isaac's damage, heavy in some areas. Read More

• Muslims leaders back Pakistani Christian girl

  by Staff, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  WASHINGTON (BP) -- Muslim clerics and scholars -- including representatives of radical groups -- have voiced support for a Pakistani Christian girl accused of blasphemy. An official medical review, meanwhile, has revealed she has mental difficulties. Read More

• GOP platform: unborn have 'fundamental' rights

  by Michael Foust, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  

  TAMPA, Fla. (BP) -- Republican National Convention delegates have adopted a platform that takes traditional stances on several issues, proclaiming the unborn child has a "fundamental individual right to life" and calling marriage between a man and a woman "the foundation of civil society." Read More

• Homeless Christians give $69.40 to missions

  by Diana Chandler, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  "... [T]here's a whole subculture of homeless Christians ... just trying to live for the Lord."

  -- Terry Dorsett, Baptist leader in Vermont

  BURLINGTON, Vt. (BP) -- A $69.40 offering by a group of homeless Christians in Vermont reminds a local Baptist leader of the widow's two mites that Jesus commended in the Gospels. Read More

• From one family's tragedy, blessings for others

  by Laura Stokes, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  

  GREENVILLE, S.C. (BP) -- Emerson Rose Smith spent only 76 days on earth, but during that brief time she touched countless lives, and her experience will likely save other babies in the future. Read More

• Niger families thrown 'from famine to flood'

  by Mark Kelly, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  NIAMEY, Niger (BP) -- Six weeks of severe, ongoing flooding has claimed 52 lives and displaced almost 400,000 people in Niger, a landlocked country in West Africa that already was in the throes of a major food shortage.

  Torrential rains have swept away crops, tools and homes, according to news services. Southern Baptists have mobilized a disaster assessment team and authorized an initial release of $25,000 in relief funds.

  Many families have lost everything, said a humanitarian relief ... Read More

• FIRST-PERSON: 10 reasons we have not reached the unchurched

  by Thom S. Rainer, posted Wednesday, August 29, 2012 (9 years ago)

  Columnist Thom Rainer lists 10 reason Christians fail to reach the unchurched -- and he says that with God's power, the trend can be reversed. Read More