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Stories tagged with: 2013 annie armstrong easter offering

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  • WEEK OF PRAYER: Reaching 'poverty I've called you to'
    by Adam Miller, posted Friday, March 08, 2013 (11 years ago)

    BURNABY, British Columbia (BP) -- Victor and Candice Thomas landed in Vancouver, British Columbia, promising they'd never stay. Five years later, they're still in town.

    The South African entrepreneurs arrived in 2007, allowing Victor Thomas to start a four-month stint as a researcher at Simon Fraser University, an adventure he called an extended honeymoon for the newlyweds. His study focused on environmental science and poverty, but the couple found a new calling in Burnaby, a quick train-ride from downtown Vancouver.

    Photo by Susan Whitley
    Three weeks before they were to return to Cape Town, Thomas walked the Burnaby campus of Simon Fraser, his eyes seeming to open for the first time.

    "I saw these students with blank looks on their faces, and I started to tear up. For a South African male that's not cool," Thomas said. "It was as if God was saying, 'Isn't this the poverty I've called you to?'"

    From a family with seven generations of pastors, Thomas told his friends he'd never follow suit. And indeed he'd stayed true to his proclamation for more than two decades, though he always served the poor alongside his dad. He also started a company consulting on construction projects in environmentally sensitive areas.

    "Life was good back in Africa," Thomas said. "I'd just hired a friend and we had several big contracts. We'd never intended to stay in Canada."

    As God began to draw the Thomases to the work of The Point Church, a long drive with then-planter of The Point, Kelly Manire, sealed the decision.

    "He told us he was moving on," Thomas said, "and that he wanted me and Candice to take over."

    The Point, a Canadian National Baptist Convention church, had started years earlier, but had dwindled to a small Bible study. Taking over The Point would amount to relaunching the church. As Thomas saw it, this also meant launching additional campuses in suburban Coquitlam and

    downtown Vancouver.

    Victor Thomas is just one of several church planters serving in the greater Vancouver area, and is helping to achieve the vision of Send North America: Vancouver. ... Read More

  • Church revitalization 'has to be intentional'
    by Joe Conway, posted Friday, March 08, 2013 (11 years ago)

    Photo by John Swain
    FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) -- Randal Lyle knew almost nothing about church revitalization when he joined the staff of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth. His education would be by immersion when a nearby church -- Meadowridge Community Baptist -- came seeking help. Read More

  • Human trafficking issue captured her heart
    by Shawn Hendricks/Biblical Recorder, posted Thursday, March 07, 2013 (11 years ago)

    HIGH POINT, N.C. (BP) -- Sandra Johnson refuses to turn her back on the problem. And she believes other Baptists shouldn't either.

          For Johnson, a North American Mission Board (NAMB) missionary based in North Carolina, the issue of human trafficking is personal, and it's a problem that is right in our "own backyard." Read More

  • WEEK OF PRAYER: Vulnerable women in New Orleans find hope
    by Sara Shelton, posted Wednesday, March 06, 2013 (11 years ago)

    Photo by Susan Whitley
    NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- Homeless, pregnant and struggling with substance abuse, Melanie's life seemed hopeless as she slept under a bridge in Oklahoma City several years ago.

          Then a newspaper article caught Melanie's eye about the city of New Orleans' struggle to rebuild after

    Hurricane Katrina. Desperate to rebuild her life as well, she set out for New Orleans and on the path to a divine appointment with LoveLoud missionary Kay Bennett. Read More

  • Greater Mercy lifts Miami neighborhood
    by Barbara Denman/Florida Baptist Convention, posted Wednesday, March 06, 2013 (11 years ago)

    Photo by Ken Touchton/Florida Baptist Convention
    MIAMI (BP) -- A lonely soul slips into the back row during worship at Miami's Greater Mercy Missionary Baptist Church as pastor Willie Williams proclaims how to manage when "life turns bitter instead of better." Read More

  • WEEK OF PRAYER: He knows the impact of church planting
    by Sara Shelton, posted Tuesday, March 05, 2013 (11 years ago)

    HAVERTOWN, Pa. (BP) -- If anyone understands the life-changing impact that church planting and evangelism can have on someone, it's Peter Yanes.

    Photo by Ted Wilcox
    Born and raised in the islands of the Philippines, Yanes grew up in a predominantly Roman Catholic nation with a family deeply devoted to the church. Yanes himself spent much of his youth serving as an altar boy with aspirations of one day becoming a priest.

    All that changed with an invitation.

    "I was in high school and a friend invited me to a Bible study," Yanes recalls. "That's where I came to know Jesus Christ in a personal way. Since then, there's been no turning back."

    The church that hosted this Bible study was a church plant started by a Filipino planter.

    "Church planting is very special and important to me because without it, I wouldn't be where I am," Yanes explains.

    This heart for church planting makes Yanes the perfect fit for his role as a mobilization missionary for the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania/South Jersey. Based in Philadelphia, Yanes' work as a mobilizer for the area allows him to identify and support planters and partners as they start and grow new churches.

    With only 400 SBC congregations serving a population of more than 15 million in the convention, the area needs new churches. For his part, Yanes is working specifically to catalyze ethnic church planters to reach the growing number of people groups in the area.

    "My ministry allows me to build great relationships with our ethnic pastors," Yanes says. "Having relationships and support can be such an asset because their position can be very lonely and very tough at times."

    This is a feeling Yanes knows firsthand. After pastoring a church in the Philippines, he and his wife Irene made the move to the United States in 1998 and began the work of church planting in Philadelphia.

    He has spent the better part of the last 14 years serving the growing ethnic population in Philadelphia. He supported the now-thriving Philadelphia Bible Church International in its early years in an effort to provide a place of worship for Filipino transplants living in the city. By taking on his current role, Yanes can share his experiences in ethnic church planting with others like him looking to reach their own diverse communities. Read More

  • Evangelism-themed Bibles en route to churches
    by Tobin Perry, posted Tuesday, March 05, 2013 (11 years ago)

    ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) -- Every Southern Baptist and Canadian National Baptist church in North America will receive a case of New Testaments from the North American Mission Board by early April. Read More

  • WEEK OF PRAYER: Childhood memory awakens
    by Joe Conway, posted Monday, March 04, 2013 (11 years ago)

    Photo by Greg Schneider
    DENVER (BP) -- A new home, new position, new ministry and new outlook came to Lorna Bius in the summer of 2012. But a childhood memory --forgotten for years -- helped her realize something oddly familiar about it all.

          "I'm discovering that sometimes people need to experience LoveLoud ministry for a while before they recognize it," said Bius, one of this year's North American Mission Board Week of Prayer missionaries. "It was true in my life." Read More

  • Chaplain helps veterans look toward eternity
    by Tobin Perry, posted Monday, March 04, 2013 (11 years ago)

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (BP) -- Bill Andrews* has spent his entire life serving others -- his family, friends and his country. Now the Korean War veteran lies in a hospital bed waiting on death, often feeling like a burden to friends, family and the hospital staff surrounding him. Read More