WEEK OF PRAYER: Reaching ‘poverty I’ve called you to’
BURNABY, British Columbia (BP) -- Victor and Candice Thomas landed in Vancouver, British Columbia, promising they'd never stay. Five years later, they're still in town.
The South African entrepreneurs arrived in 2007, allowing Victor Thomas to start a four-month stint as a researcher at Simon Fraser University, an adventure he called an extended honeymoon for the newlyweds. His study focused on environmental science and poverty, but the couple found a new calling in Burnaby, a quick train-ride from downtown Vancouver.
Three weeks before they were to return to Cape Town, Thomas walked the Burnaby campus of Simon Fraser, his eyes seeming to open for the first time. "I saw these students with blank looks on their faces, and I started to tear up. For a South African male that's not cool," Thomas said. "It was as if God was saying, 'Isn't this the poverty I've called you to?'" From a family with seven generations of pastors, Thomas told his friends he'd never follow suit. And indeed he'd stayed true to his proclamation for more than two decades, though he always served the poor alongside his dad. He also started a company consulting on construction projects in environmentally sensitive areas. "Life was good back in Africa," Thomas said. "I'd just hired a friend and we had several big contracts. We'd never intended to stay in Canada." As God began to draw the Thomases to the work of The Point Church, a long drive with then-planter of The Point, Kelly Manire, sealed the decision. "He told us he was moving on," Thomas said, "and that he wanted me and Candice to take over." The Point, a Canadian National Baptist Convention church, had started years earlier, but had dwindled to a small Bible study. Taking over The Point would amount to relaunching the church. As Thomas saw it, this also meant launching additional campuses in suburban Coquitlam and
downtown Vancouver. Victor Thomas is just one of several church planters serving in the greater Vancouver area, and is helping to achieve the vision of Send North America: Vancouver. ...Church revitalization ‘has to be intentional’
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) -- Randal Lyle knew almost nothing about church revitalization when he joined the staff of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth. His education would be by immersion when a nearby church -- Meadowridge Community Baptist -- came seeking help.
Human trafficking issue captured her heart
HIGH POINT, N.C. (BP) -- Sandra Johnson refuses to turn her back on the problem. And she believes other Baptists shouldn't either. For Johnson, a North American Mission Board (NAMB) missionary based in North Carolina, the issue of human trafficking is personal, and it's a problem that is right in our "own backyard."
WEEK OF PRAYER; ‘Life-changing’ mission trip to Africa motivates S.F. church plant
WEEK OF PRAYER: Vulnerable women in New Orleans find hope
NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- Homeless, pregnant and struggling with substance abuse, Melanie's life seemed hopeless as she slept under a bridge in Oklahoma City several years ago. Then a newspaper article caught Melanie's eye about the city of New Orleans' struggle to rebuild after
Hurricane Katrina. Desperate to rebuild her life as well, she set out for New Orleans and on the path to a divine appointment with LoveLoud missionary Kay Bennett.Greater Mercy lifts Miami neighborhood
MIAMI (BP) -- A lonely soul slips into the back row during worship at Miami's Greater Mercy Missionary Baptist Church as pastor Willie Williams proclaims how to manage when "life turns bitter instead of better."
WEEK OF PRAYER: He knows the impact of church planting
HAVERTOWN, Pa. (BP) -- If anyone understands the life-changing impact that church planting and evangelism can have on someone, it's Peter Yanes. 
Born and raised in the islands of the Philippines, Yanes grew up in a predominantly Roman Catholic nation with a family deeply devoted to the church. Yanes himself spent much of his youth serving as an altar boy with aspirations of one day becoming a priest. All that changed with an invitation. "I was in high school and a friend invited me to a Bible study," Yanes recalls. "That's where I came to know Jesus Christ in a personal way. Since then, there's been no turning back."
Evangelism-themed Bibles en route to churches
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) -- Every Southern Baptist and Canadian National Baptist church in North America will receive a case of New Testaments from the North American Mission Board by early April.
WEEK OF PRAYER: Childhood memory awakens
DENVER (BP) -- A new home, new position, new ministry and new outlook came to Lorna Bius in the summer of 2012. But a childhood memory --forgotten for years -- helped her realize something oddly familiar about it all.
"I'm discovering that sometimes people need to experience LoveLoud ministry for a while before they recognize it," said Bius, one of this year's North American Mission Board Week of Prayer missionaries. "It was true in my life."Chaplain helps veterans look toward eternity
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (BP) -- Bill Andrews* has spent his entire life serving others -- his family, friends and his country. Now the Korean War veteran lies in a hospital bed waiting on death, often feeling like a burden to friends, family and the hospital staff surrounding him.
