Baptist Press Archive

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

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  • Baptist workers struggle with tough conditions to deliver aid to quake survivors
    by Erich Bridges, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (BP)--Southern Baptist aid workers are contending with bone-chilling rains, roads jammed with homeless survivors and mobs desperate for help as they take relief supplies into the heart of Pakistan’s earthquake-devastated Kashmir.

          With 11 workers on the ground, more on the way -- and $150,000 in Southern Baptist disaster relief funds -- the relief team is transporting truckloads of medical supplies, tents and food into mountain areas near the epicenter of the worst earthquake in modern Pakistani history.

    “Our people are getting into areas that other organizations aren’t getting into because we know the local language,” the team’s coordinator said Oct. 11 from their temporary base in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. “The U.N. and all the big guys are taking care of easy-to-get-to places. We’re trying to get to places nobody will go. Read More

  • Some Supreme Court candidates asked not to be considered
    by Michael Foust, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--During the days leading up to President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, "a couple" of the other candidates being considered withdrew their names from consideration, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Oct. 12.

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  • Luter among N.O. leaders who met with Bush to discuss future
    by Erin Curry, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

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    Dinner with the president


    Fred Luter (right), pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, dined with President Bush, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen Oct. 10 in the French Quarter as a 17-member commission discussed plans for rebuilding the city. Luter said he was “thoroughly impressed” with the president’s sincerity. Photo courtesy of the White House


    NEW ORLEANS (BP)--Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, was one of 17 business and civic leaders chosen by Mayor Ray Nagin for the Bring New Orleans Back Commission charged with the assignment of developing a master plan for rebuilding the flood-ravaged city.

          The group dined with President Bush and his wife, Laura, at the Italian-Creole restaurant Bacco in the French Quarter Oct. 10 and had the opportunity to express their concerns and ideas with the nation’s leader.

    Luter told Baptist Press he has known Nagin for years and the mayor has visited his 7,000-member Southern Baptist church several times. Luter believes he was chosen for the commission because of the number of people he represents and because he is a lifelong New Orleans resident.

    “Everybody knows I love New Orleans,” he said Oct. 12. Read More

  • Disaster relief rejuvenating 50-year-old Louisiana church
    by Sherri Brown, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

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    Friendly welcome


    Jim Caldwell, pastor of the New Orleans-area Riverside Baptist Church in River Ridge, visits with a woman who came to the church for a meal. Church members and other volunteers feed about 1,500 people a day. Photo by Sherri Brown


    RIVER RIDGE, La. (BP)--Churches at the forefront of disaster relief are easy to spot. They’re the ones with eight-foot-high stacks of bottled water dotting the parking lot and half-gallon jugs of waterless hand sanitizer on every table.

          That’s exactly what Riverside Baptist Church looks like. The River Ridge church, just outside of New Orleans, has been feeding 1,500 to 2000 people every day for the past three weeks. Volunteers plan to continue feeding until November.

    “We’ve got a crazy, eclectic group of people working here,” said Jim Caldwell, pastor of the church.

    When Caldwell returned to the city and found the church’s facilities in fairly good shape, he envisioned the location as a food and water distribution center. He called the Louisiana Baptist Convention but help wasn’t immediately available in the post-hurricane days.

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  • Moratorium urged for off-reservation casinos
    by Tom Strode, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

    WASHINGTON (BP)--Opponents of gambling expansion are calling for the federal government to institute a two-year moratorium on permitting the development of off-reservation casinos. Read More

  • FIRST-PERSON: Despite the flooding, ‘Blessed be His glorious name’
    by Marilyn Stewart, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

    NEW ORLEANS (BP)--After salvaging what we could from our flooded faculty home on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, my husband, son and I headed to our church. We had heard reports and knew that we couldn’t leave town without seeing for ourselves what had happened to Edgewater Baptist Church. Read More

  • FIRST-PERSON: What about cremation?
    by Mark Coppenger, posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 (18 years ago)

    EVANSTON, Ill. (BP)--In a week when I read about author Hunter Thompson’s ashes being shot out of a cannon in Colorado, when my classical philosophy class at Southern Seminary read through Plato’s Phaedo (where Socrates shows the greatest disrespect for the body), and when, preaching through Genesis, I came to chapter 50, which concerns the remains of Jacob and Joseph, I couldn’t help but think of cremation. Read More