2nd VIEW: Sharing, salvations mark students’ World Cup witness
RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) -- Jordan O'Donnell is in a hurry. The 21-year-old Virginia Tech senior weaves his way through the sea of raucous futebol (soccer) fans jamming Rio's streets. But O'Donnell isn't headed to the match of the day, Ecuador vs. France. Instead, he's hustling against the crowd, bound for a nearby church to get Bibles for a group of teenage boys with whom he's just shared the Gospel.
Sharing, salvations mark students’ World Cup witness
RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) -- Jordan O'Donnell is in a hurry. The 21-year-old Virginia Tech senior weaves his way through the sea of raucous futebol (soccer) fans jamming Rio's streets. But O'Donnell isn't headed to the match of the day, Ecuador vs. France. Instead, he's hustling against the crowd, bound for a nearby church to get Bibles for a group of teenage boys with whom he's just shared the Gospel.
For O'Donnell and a team of 10 Southern Baptist college students, this is the last day of street evangelism near Rio's Maracanã soccer stadium. It's been a focal point for outreach as the students partnered with Brazilian Baptists and IMB missionaries to spread the Gospel during the FIFA World Cup, June 12-July 13. But after two weeks of sharing their faith nearly non-stop, it's time for the students to head home. That's why O'Donnell doesn't want to miss this last opportunity. He figures he's got about five minutes before the teens get bored with waiting and leave, and with two of them expressing genuine interest in Christ, he's practically sprinting to the church. O'Donnell runs ahead of his two ministry partners, Bekah Gordon and Gloria Reese, who struggle to keep up with his rushed pace. Gordon is co-leading the student mission team and recently served as a North American Mission Board semester missionary at Auburn University at Montgomery (Alabama); Reese, 17, lives in Rio and is the daughter of IMB missionaries Eric and Ramona Reese. Just minutes earlier, the three of them met the teens in front of their school a few blocks from the stadium. O'Donnell shared his testimony and asked the boys if they wanted to live for God. They looked uncertain. One admitted he wants to live for himself; another said he doesn't know who God is. As Reese translated between English and Portuguese, Gordon told the boys the easiest way to know God was by reading His Word. "If you're looking for God, look in the Bible," she explained, asking each of the four teens if they had access to a Bible. Two did not but said they'd like one. That sent O'Donnell running. By the time Gordon and Reese reach the street where the church is located, O'Donnell is already making his way back with the Bibles. It's been more than five minutes, and the trio hurries to where they left the teens. They're relieved to see the boys are still waiting. O'Donnell puts the Portuguese Bibles into the teens' hands. "Read this and ask questions," he tells them. "It changed my life." The American students have had dozens of these kinds of conversations during their time in Rio. Overall, they estimate they've led more than 100 people to faith in Jesus Christ, simultaneously connecting new believers with local churches where they can be discipled. Many more have heard the Gospel, some for the first time. It hasn't been easy. Since the games began, police barricades have moved the students (and anyone else without World Cup tickets) farther and farther from the gates of Maracanã Stadium ...Students take Jesus to Rio’s ‘Crack-land’
RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) -- Locals know it as "Crack-land," a run-down, crime-ridden neighborhood in the heart of Rio where addicts come to get their fix. Many never leave. Crack cocaine is the star attraction, and its victims line Crack-land's streets. They've lost everything to the drug -- jobs, homes, families, hope.
Former addict escapes from Rio’s ‘Crack-land’
RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) -- After seven years on the streets, Marcelo Gomes* had seen enough. He'd witnessed too many fellow crack addicts brutally murdered at the hands of the drug lords who ruled Rio's favelas (slums). If he didn't do something soon, he might be next.
Associational leaders’ involvement grows
BALTIMORE (BP) -- After a year of breaking in a new name and structure, the future looks bright for the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders, reports Johnny Rumbough, conference "team leader" and executive director of South Carolina's Lexington Baptist Association.
Elliff calls SBC to ‘one sacred effort’
BALTIMORE, Maryland (BP) -- Touting the explosive growth of evangelical Christianity in Cuba as inspiration for Southern Baptists' global missions effort, IMB's president challenged messengers to the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention to unite in "one sacred effort" to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. 
Speaking to more than 5,000 Southern Baptist pastors, leaders and church members gathered at Baltimore's convention center June 10, Tom Elliff said God used a trip to Cuba in late 2013 to radically touch his heart.
Cuban Baptists overcome challenging ‘Roads to Victory’
HAVANA, Cuba (BP) -- It's 5 a.m. Saturday and while most of the town of Vueltas is still asleep, pastor José Enrique Pérez is prepping for what promises to be a long day. Fourteen hours to be exact. Just like every Saturday. That's the reality of church planting in Cuba. Pérez is joined by a dedicated team of self-described missionaries from his congregation, Bethel Baptist Church. More than 50 Christians pour their lives into the dozens of small towns and villages surrounding Vueltas where there is little or no Gospel witness. The missionaries' goal is straightforward: make disciples and gather them into house churches. 
Daylight is breaking as the engine rumbles to life on the "Roads to Victory," Bethel Baptist's ramshackle bus fused together from makes and models dating back to 1932. It will make more than a dozen stops during its nearly five-hour drive through the Cuban countryside, dropping off Bethel members at their target communities. After an eight-hour day of ministry, the bus returns to Vueltas, picking up Bethel's missionaries along the way. "During the first stage of the project, the trips were shorter," Pérez says. "But we've been filling the places that are closer with [new] churches," driving Bethel's teams farther out to reach unchurched areas. "[If we want] to rest and be comfortable, there's heaven," Pérez says with a laugh. "The time that God gives us here is to be involved in the work of His Kingdom." Pérez admits the bus may not be the most efficient method for starting churches, but it's working. Today, Bethel's missionaries are nurturing nine new traditional churches and multiple house churches. That's in addition to the 32 traditional churches born since 1999. Some are direct offspring of Bethel Baptist. Others are second- and third-generation churches started by Bethel's church plants. Pérez says his dream is that by 2020, Bethel's network will top 100 traditional churches and hundreds of house churches. "We want every town in our country to have a living, healthy church," Pérez says. "A church where God's Word is alive, where the brothers [and sisters] love and support each other … a church that is the salt and light of the community where it is planted. This is our cry to God." Pérez remembers when starting even a single new church seemed impossible. He was a boy when revolution swept the country in 1959. By 1963, Bethel Baptist was shuttered and gutted by the government. Bethel's pastor was eventually arrested -- along with dozens of other pastors -- and sent to prison. "They began to teach that God didn't exist, that everything I had been taught by my parents was a lie," Pérez says. When Pérez was in middle school, a teacher mocked him and three other boys from Bethel in front of his classmates. "These fools you see here, they still believe in God," the teacher sneered. "They are dazed by that opium that puts people to sleep -- by religion." But what man meant for evil, God used for good. Though churches were closed, many Christians worshipped anyway -- in their homes. Otherwise, Cuba's house church movement may never have been born. "It is a time of harvest like never before," Pérez says. "We don't want to waste a second."
Cuban pastor sees divine appointment twice
HAVANA, Cuba (BP) -- "You look green," Daniel González' friend teased as their train rumbled through the Cuban countryside. But the seminary student wasn't going to let the stomach flu keep him from his ministry assignment. González was headed for the port city of Batabano to catch a ferry to Cuba's Isle of Youth, 90 miles south of Havana.
New paths for missionary sending considered
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (BP) -- Sparked by the disconnect between burgeoning spiritual lostness and flatlined missions giving, IMB's president is urging Southern Baptists to break from tradition and embrace new opportunities to send and support their global missionary force.
Missionaries celebrate 863 years of service
RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Mary Doyle gasped when she saw the photo showing the dismembered body of a little boy, no more than 5 years old. He was the son of a church leader who had gone missing during a pastors' retreat in Jalingo, Nigeria, where Mary and her husband, Alvin, served as Southern Baptist missionaries. ...
