Category: Baptist Press

“But the LORD said unto Samuel,

Look not on his countenance,

or on the eight of his stature;

because I have refused him:

for the LORD seeth ot as man seeth;

for man looketh on the outward appearance,

but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

~1 Samuel 16:7~

From Kathy Dyer:

Anna Lee, please include me in your prayers for health concerns. We are waiting for test results on a procedure done at Oschner’s last week.

Also please include Mrs. Mildred Thompson in prayer. Mrs. Mildred was my first Sunday School and Missions teacher. Although she had no biological children, she has mothered each child who ever sat at her knee learning those first Bible stories. She has faithfully served our church and influenced countless lives. Up until this summer she has continued mision work, community outreaches, and conducted daily devotionals at an area nursing home. Now in her late eighties she is faced with leaving her home for nursing care for herself. Please pray that she grows stronger and adapts to her new life.

INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS PRAYERLINE
INTERNATIONAL MISSION BOARD
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

“When I am afraid, I will trust in You” (Psalm 56:3, HCSB).

Dear Intercessors, this is Eleanor Witcher of the International Prayer Strategy Office, asking you to continue praying for those who suffered through the earthquake of May 12th in China.

As many as 90,000 Chinese people perished as the earth reeled beneath them. Tragically, most of those who died did not know Christ. An evidence of God’s grace in the wake of the devastating earthquake was the spontaneous travel of many Chinese Christians to the affected area. Willing to help in whatever way needed, they also arrived aware of the pressing need for the peoples of China to know of Christ’s love. Pray that God will greatly use those who continue to minister in the quake zone.

Many of the 5 million people who were left homeless are still living in temporary shelters, and for some of them, it will be many months before life is back to normal. Officials estimate that reconstruction of earthquake-devastated cities will take at least eight years, and it is feared that some of them will never be rebuilt. Psychological scars might take even longer to heal.

A. said, “We’ve had the worst winter in 50 years, and now the worst earthquake in 30 years. I’m afraid.” The workers shared how Jesus is more powerful than nature. Ask the Father to continue comfort A. and so many others with the reassurance that He is trustworthy.

Please intercede for God’s protection as well over the 5,500 children who were orphaned by the earthquake. Pray that loving families can be found for each of the children, and that many will be placed in Christian homes. Ask God to heal their hearts following their profound loss.

* Please pray that those who saw and experienced unthinkable grief will come to know the Comforter who can bring healing to their hearts.

* Pray that during this time of great need, Christians will faithfully demonstrate God’s love.

* Intercede for more workers to proclaim Christ’s love to the 1.2 billion Chinese people who still do not know Christ.

Eugene L. Ott Jr.
Eugene L. Ott Jr., 84, of Osyka, died July 6, 2008, at Aston Court Retirement Center in McComb.

Visitation is 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Hartman-Sharkey Funeral Home in McComb and 9 a.m. Thursday at Osyka Baptist Church until services there at 10 a.m. The Rev. Percy Frazier and Dr. Milton Kliesch will officiate. Burial will be in Osyka Cemetery.

Elbert A. Kuyrkendall
Elbert Allwyn “Sticks” Kuyrkendall, 70, of Tampa , Fla., and formerly of Kentwood, La., died July 2, 2008, at his home in Tampa.

Visitation is 9:30 a.m. Friday at Hartman-Sharkey Funeral Home in McComb, until services there at 1 p.m. Burial will be in Magnolia Cemetery.

Befriending Iraqi Children is Crucial, Major Says

Baptist Press

Posted on Jul 8, 2008 | by Erin Roach

During his deployment in Iraq, Air Force Maj. Chris Gay learned firsthand that a key component of succeeding in the war is befriending Iraq’s youth and showing them a level of kindness and goodwill they may never encounter otherwise.

Gay now is stationed at Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah and is a member of Mountain View Baptist Church in Layton. A division chief with the 507th Aircraft Sustainment Squadron, he was deployed with an Army unit based in Baghdad from last September through April.

During that time, he visited the largest of eight internally displaced persons camps in Iraq. The camp housed more than 2,500 Iraqis who fled their homes during terrorist and sectarian violence.

When he discovered the children there didn’t have sufficient clothing and blankets to cope with the winter weather, Gay organized a campaign to have his Sunday School class at Mountain View Baptist send boxes of garments that he could pass out to the children.

“I have two kids myself, so I had compassion for the kids,” he told Baptist Press.

In the process of completing what he dubbed Operation Warm Winter, Gay said he gained a better understanding of the Iraqis living in the camp.

“Soccer is a really integral part of life there in Iraq. I haven’t met an Iraqi kid that didn’t love to play soccer or didn’t want a soccer ball,” he said. “What a lot of people don’t realize is we have troops out there every day that interact with the local populous, and if you can win over one kid — I’ve heard stories of this — if you get the children to like you and to appreciate you, they in a lot of ways protect you.

“There have been several instances where our guys were out on patrol and they had been in the area a lot and they befriended kids and gave them soccer balls and other things,” Gay said. “The kids would tell them, ‘Don’t go there. Don’t go down that way,’ and they were protecting our guys from getting into an ambush or getting into an area where there were [improvised explosive devices]. There are numerous instances of kids protecting the troops because they had befriended them.”

If churches want to know what’s useful for soldiers in Iraq, Gay suggested sending soccer balls.

“It’s just one way of interacting with the kids and getting them to understand who Americans are, that we’re there to be friends and not to hurt them,” he said. “We’re there to help, and soccer balls are the way to do it because all the kids love soccer balls. We only had maybe 50 soccer balls to give out, and there were more than 500 kids. The kids would have rather had soccer balls than clothes. That’s just how important it is to them.”

Despite ongoing criticism of the war in Iraq, Gay said he knows the United States is there for good reasons that may not be immediately obvious.

“In my opinion, the war in Iraq is really more of a spiritual war, but we’re not really fighting it that way,” he said. “The only way that Iraqi society is really going to learn a difference than what they’ve been taught all their life is for us to be there and to be an influence by showing them love and kindness. They don’t get a lot of that in their culture, and this is just one means of opening a door to be able to do that.

“There are so many things about the war that I don’t like, but at the same time, having been there, I realize the need for being there. It’s really more of a need for influencing the next generation because it’s a generational process. It’s not something that’s going to change overnight,” Gay said. “It’s going to take a generation of kids growing up around Americans and understanding what we believe and how we interact before there’s really any change in that area of the world.”

The major said it’s unfortunate when he encounters people in the United States who have made up their minds about the war without asking him about his experience on the ground there.

“We are making a tremendous difference,” he said. “A lot of it is just our presence alone and our interaction, showing kids there are other ways of doing things. Being there, you’re an ambassador of the U.S., and you don’t go out and overtly profess your Christianity, but there are so many other ways just by showing them love that are so different than the way their normal culture is, that they see a difference.”

Gay said Americans may not realize the opportunities they have to help protect the soldiers all the way from the homeland. For instance, Special Forces groups may consist of 12 or 15 men living and working on their own in an Iraqi community to weed out terrorists and bring peace. A lot of their safety, Gay said, comes from how well the community accepts them and approves of their presence.

If churches or individuals could send soccer balls and other items that soldiers could distribute to the children in those communities as goodwill offerings, Gay said it would serve two purposes.

“It provides something to the Iraqi kids and to the community, but it also provides protection for our service members. A lot of people don’t realize that simple act of giving somebody a soccer ball could have a big impact on somebody’s son or brother or dad being able to come home.”

Gay said he’s not yet sure whether he’ll repeat Operation Warm Winter when the weather turns cold again, but he has given some thought to the fact that in addition to soccer balls the children in Iraq need school supplies.

“What would really be helpful in the long run would be if you could get a project together where you could get backpacks full of school supplies and send them over. That would be very useful for the kids because they have very limited resources when it comes to those sorts of things,” he said. “If I were to do a follow-up project, it would probably be the backpacks.”

And my God will meet all your needs

according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

~ Philippians 4:19 (NIV) ~

The arrangements for the wake and funeral services for Mr. Jason “Bully” Schwartz are still not available. I’ll post them when they become available.

Flood Relief Focus Shifting Toward ‘Mud-Out’
By Staff

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (BP)–The focus of Southern Baptist relief operations in America’s flooded Midwest may be shifting toward “mud-out” recovery teams — a ministry that weary residents will be deeply grateful to receive, according to Southern Baptists in the region.

“The feeding operation seems to be decreasing in most of the areas in which we are currently operating,” said Mike Morgan, manager of the North American Mission Board’s Disaster Operations Center. “We have had no additional requests for feeding teams at this time. Requests for the mud-out recovery teams — that go in and clean the homes so people can get back in them and rebuild — are increasing extensively, especially in Iowa and Indiana.”

President George Bush scheduled a June 19 to visit the region, where volunteers still are piling sandbags atop river levees in a frantic effort to forestall the disaster that has engulfed so many communities to their north. At least 20 levees have been overcome by floodwaters this past week and emergency management officials expect another 30 may be overflowed in the next few days, according to the Associated Press.

Storms and flooding in six states have claimed 24 lives and caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage. The Associated Press reports a 280-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Fulton, Ill., and Winfield, Mo., is expected to remain closed for at least 10 more days because of flooding. Almost 2,000 members of the National Guard have been deployed in riverfront communities of Missouri and Illinois.

More assessment teams are moving into the area to identify additional needs in towns that don’t have recovery operations in them, Morgan said. “We are still finding areas that even though the recovery need is there, the water hasn’t receded enough for us to do any work yet,” he added.

Richard Nations, editor of the Iowa Baptist newspaper, has been on the road in eastern Iowa, interviewing both flood victims and Southern Baptist relief workers who have come to their aid. He said residents whose homes and businesses have been flooded out are grateful others are coming to help and relief workers are just glad to lend a hand.

“I spoke to Brad Oberreuter, who had chest-high water in his house in Cedar Rapids,” Nations said. “They were pretty much emptying the house of everything. There is mold and the smell is horrible. I could smell the mold. I could smell the rotting food. It just singed your nose as you walked into his house.

“I also met the son of Marcene Pollet, who is a 75-year-old member of Immanuel Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids. She lost her house, which was about 100 years old, to the flood,” Nations added. “Her son-in-law stopped by the church when he saw the Texas Baptist disaster relief unit. He said, ‘She doesn’t want to accept any help, but I know this is her church and I wanted to thank you for what you are doing.”

Much of Pollet’s furniture had been moved to a nearby town, where the owner of a storage facility gave her two months’ free rent on a unit, Nations reported.

Nations also had an opportunity to meet Tommie Brown, a Southern Baptist retiree from Plains, Texas, who was serving as a volunteer in a feeding unit that had been deployed to Cedar Rapids for 10 days.

“Tommie was washing dishes and stopped for a minute to talk with me,” Nations said. “She told me this is her seventh or eighth deployment in four years of working in disaster relief. She said she was just glad to be able to help.”

Nations said Brown told him: “I don’t want to just sit down and wait for death to come. I want to feel needed and used. If I get tired, that’s a good thing. I enjoy this work and it’s a good tired. I am ready to be tired. I’m here to roll up my sleeves and work.’

Individuals and churches interested in donating or helping with relief efforts in Iowa may contact the Iowa Baptist Convention office at (515) 278-1566 or Baptist Convention of Iowa, 2400 86th St., Suite 27, Des Moines IA 50322; or, visit http://www.bcisbc.com and click on “Disaster Relief Give Now.” Donations for disaster relief also may be directed to the North American Mission Board by visiting http://www.namb.net and clicking on “Give Now.”

Compiled by Mark Kelly, an assistant editor with Baptist Press.

KOMpray

June 20, 2008

“Let the little children come to Me, and don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” Luke 18:16b

THEY SPEAK A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE

We are Kids on Mission in Togo, West Africa. We live at a school in Togo where Africans from a lot of different countries come to learn about Jesus and the Bible. They move here with their families, so my sister and I have a lot of other kids to play with. We love to play soccer and throw rocks at the mango trees so that we can knock down the mango fruit and eat it. My sister likes to play dolls and climb trees. The hard part is that none of our friends speak English. They all speak French in this part of Africa. We are learning to speak French too so that we can talk to them. Will you pray that God helps us to learn this language? My sister and I really want to be able to tell our friends about Jesus. LOGAN and ELIZABETH, age 6 and 4 (West Africa)

MORE PRAYER REQUESTS FROM MISSIONARY KIDS
Please pray that all my friends would come to Christ. Pray that the Central Asian government will let us keep living in our country. ERIC, age 12 (Central Asia)

My brother goes to a boarding school and doesn’t live at home. I have a hard time with him gone. I know that this is God’s plan but I still have trouble. God has taught me not to take my family for granted all the time.
My last prayer request is for the villages that we go to. Pray that I can be a living testimony to the children and adults. MIRANDA (West Africa)

Please pray for the people of South Africa who are dying of HIV Aids. 40% of South Africans are dying of HIV Aids. Praise the Lord that many Zulu people are bringing Jesus into their hearts. COREY, age 11 (Central, Eastern and Southern Africa)

Please pray for me to be able to make friends where I live. Please pray for me to become a Christian. Please pray for me to be able to learn Thai so I can speak with the Thai kids where I live. RACHEL, age 9 (Pacific Rim)

There are many needs, spiritual, physical, financial, etc., in our community. Please pray for God’s solution and God’s timing for each need.

Anna Lee