By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer MONROE, La. (LBM) – U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District seat in March, only three-and-a-half months after her husband, Luke, died from COVID-19 complications, Dec. 29, 2020. He was just five days from taking office after he had won the election the month before to succeed Ralph Abraham, who retired from Congress. She told the Baptist Message that the prayers of others helped her during that difficult time. “It’s hard for me to put into words how overwhelmingly beautiful and impactful and precious those prayers were to me,” Letlow said. “Even while we were in the hospital and Luke was in bad shape, we treasured those intercessory prayers that people were saying on his behalf and on ours. I know that they enveloped him, and he wasn’t alone, and he was at peace, and he had hope. To feel that on a visceral level -- thou-sands if not many thousands of prayers going up -- I will never be able to put into words what that means to me and my family.” Her husband’s death was not the first loss of a close loved one, she said. When she was a junior at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, her brother, Jeremy, 17, died from injuries sustained in a … [Read more...]

By Baptist Message staff NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Louisiana Baptists gathered in Nashville, Tenn., for the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. While 633 registered as messengers, many more came as guests for a time of fellowship, business meetings and even a Youth On Mission experience. Their time in Nashville was captured in photographs submitted to the Baptist Message. … [Read more...]