By Philip Timothy, Managing Editor ALEXANDRIA - The Louisiana Baptist Convention wants churches and pastors to know help is on the way. Disaster relief teams are in place or on their way, incident command centers are up and operating, taking calls and coordinating assistance (more than 1,000 calls a day just at the state command center in Alexandria), and financial aid is being disbursed to pastors. So far, 57 pastors have received $1,000 each to help with expenses, “distributed through the director of missions in each of the affected areas,” according to Bill Robertson, pastoral leadership team leader. “We expect to help even more,” he added. Louisiana Baptists Executive Director David Hankins, who has been touring the regional incident command centers, said he wants pastors to know they are not alone. “Many of the area pastors are working in their communities in addition to tending to their own needs. We want them to know we stand with them during this difficult and demanding time and will do everything we can to assist them in every way possible,” said Hankins. “Louisiana Baptists are again showing their commitment to the Lord and their communities by their quick and sacrificial response to this historical … [Read more...]

By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer DENHAM SPRINGS - Patti Higginbotham was at home when her husband Tom walked in with a special delivery from the heavily flood-damaged worship center at Don Avenue Baptist Church. The pews had been destroyed by the current of the Amite River, which ran 6 feet high through the facility, and the pulpit was flipped on its side, she said. But the waters had lifted the Lord’s Supper table and moved it out a side door of the worship center, around a corner in the hallway and turned it 90 degrees against the flow to keep it in place in the back corridor – with the church Bible and offering plates intact. Some might dismiss such a blessing as a coincidence, Higginbotham offered. But she believes it was a symbolic gesture from God. “I just thought of Jesus’ declaration in Matthew, that ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away,” she said. “I immediately sent a text to everyone in the church to encourage them with the news. “I believe it was a way God was telling us He sees us and knows about our situation in this disaster. “He preserves His Word in our hearts,” she said, “but He also saw fit to preserve the tangible Word, the church Bible.” When the … [Read more...]

By Norm Miller, Louisiana College communications ALEXANDRIA --More than 250 freshmen from Louisiana College completed their Wildcats Welcome Week by assisting the Food Bank of Central Louisiana, Aug. 20. Students packed boxes for the Adopt-a-Senior Program that provides 50 pounds of food a month for senior citizens. Others put food in backpacks for public school students who need food for weekends throughout the school year. Some students packed emergency food boxes for those struggling with hunger in central Louisiana. “Hopefully, their experience here will encourage them to serve and support hunger relief causes wherever their lives take them,” said Jayne Wright-Velez, executive director at the Food Bank. Several students also worked in the Food Bank’s Good Food Project demonstration garden. “This group has been exceptionally cooperative, very polite, and very willing to take direction. The work they’ve done to the beds and putting mulch down has been a phenomenal gift, and we appreciate them very much,” said Frances Boudreaux, director of the garden. “I think it’s important to help people because Jesus helped people when he was on this Earth. That’s just part of being a Christian,” said physical education … [Read more...]

ALEXANDRIA – Horseshoe Drive Baptist Church celebrated its last service Aug. 21 in the recently renewed and updated facilities -- in anticipation of re-launching as a revitalized congregation Sept. 18. “This was our final service as ‘Horseshoe Drive Baptist Church’ and we treated it as a homecoming,” said Robert Daniel, interim pastor and director of missions for Central Louisiana Baptist Association. “We celebrated our legacy, but also rejoiced over the future God is unfolding for us as a re-born family of faith.” “We worshiped God and took time to recognize His work through so many who have contributed to this ministry since Nov. 16, 1958,” Daniel added. The service provided a point of closure, he explained, but also set the stage for the reboot of the congregation in the community. Sept. 18, the campus will be re-launched as Philadelphia Baptist Church, Horseshoe Drive. … [Read more...]

My Marilyn Stewart, NOBTS public relations BATON ROUGE, La. -- For Southern Baptist chaplains serving with the Louisiana National Guard, the historic August flooding that widely impacted the state was different from anything they had seen before and at the same time, all too familiar. Brigade Chaplain Page Brooks, of the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary faculty member, said that even though the water did not come from a named storm, the devastation was much the same. “This reminds me of other natural disasters, the sense of loss, of panic, and hurt that Louisianans have experienced before,” Brooks said. “There’s just such surprise.” Upwards of 31 inches fell in a day’s time in the hardest hit areas of Livingston Parish, according to an Aug. 16 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report. Brooks said some evacuees reported having less than three hours to prepare or had been out of town as the water came in. Some lived in places that had never before flooded, he added. National Guard chaplains care for the caregivers and first responders who plucked people out of raging water and rescued people off rooftops. Of the chaplains led by Major Brooks from Jackson … [Read more...]