By Jeff Brumley It was a cold winter’s night in 1971 when 6-year-old Monica Phillips developed a terrible earache on a family visit to Abilene, Texas. “I had these earaches fairly often and they were quite painful,” Phillips recalled. But…
Alternative gifts counter Black Friday
By Jeff Brumley When it began nearly a decade ago, the Alternative Christmas Gift Fair at Boulevard Baptist attracted barely 100 church members and generated a few thousand dollars for participating nonprofits and mission groups. But it has since generated…
Experts: prayer a top need in tragedy
By Jeff Brumley A deadly, demoralizing bombing in Beirut on Oct. 19 prompted a Lebanese Baptist leader to issue a worldwide call for prayer – and prayer alone. The blast killed eight people, including a high-ranking government official, and wounded…
Baptist school a hope to young refugees
By Jeff Brumley Annette Ellard and Steve Clark — a husband-and-wife team commissioned by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 2006 to work with refugees from Burma in Louisville, Ky. — expected that population would face daunting language, cultural, employment, housing, medical and…
Houston Baptists transform lives in Peru
By Jeff Brumley There’s what people can imagine, Houston cardiologist Luis Campos says, and then there’s what God can imagine. The 67-year-old South Main Baptist Church member said he has witnessed that repeatedly in almost a decade of ministry with…
Missionaries urge shift in orphan care
By Jeff Brumley After a mission trip to Ethiopia in 2007, a group of Baptist pastors from East Texas launched a multi-church mission effort dedicated to everything from digging wells and latrines to working in schools and churches to train…
Project Ruth celebrates 2 decades
By Jeff Brumley Project Ruth’s Mihai Ciopasiu is all too glad to talk about the success the organization has enjoyed the past two decades serving the poorest and most shunned children in Romania. The nonprofit began as a day center…
Mercer on Mission transforms lives
By Jeff Brumley Teaching in Liberia for three-plus weeks convinced Catrina Stewart she can succeed in any American classroom, under any conditions. The Atlanta native and resident was one of a dozen Mercer University education students who participated in the…
Mission trip bonds offensive line
By Jeff Brumley Growing up the son of CBF missionaries got Dave Harding accustomed to seeing the hardships millions endure in the Third World. But that changed in May when Harding, 21, led nine other Duke University football players and…
BWA sends funds to burned-out refugees
By Bob Allen The Baptist World Alliance has sent $25,000 in emergency financial aid to help rebuild a Baptist-run school at a refugee camp along the Thai-Burmese border destroyed by fire in April. The money sent through Baptist World Aid…
Border violence keeps mission teams home
By Jeff Brumley Steadily declining mission trips to Mexico due to drug violence has left many Mexicans feeling abandoned just when their anxiety levels are peaking, missions experts in Texas say. “It’s unprecedented,” said E. Daniel Rangel, director of River Ministry…
Celebrate our missionaries
By Ricky Creech How blessed Baptists are to be known as a missionary people. I love missionaries. They are my heroes, not because they are superhuman or different from me, but because they sacrifice much every day for the cause…