Category: Christian Chronicle

A new day for Puerto Rico

August 7, 2018

As hurricane-battered U.S. territory rebuilds, a Kentucky church sends help and encouragement.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

ARECIBO, Puerto Rico — Punishing, back-to-back hurricanes that wrecked this U.S. territory nearly a year ago swept away homes, decimated crops, knocked out electrical systems and ravaged families.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria failed, however, to kill the spirits of those in this poor, coastal community who lived through the mayhem and work to rebuild.

Sandra Rosa Vargas is one.

On a recent weekday, the 62-year-old great-grandmother walked arm in arm along a pitted neighborhood sidewalk with a teenager who came with her Kentucky church to offer help and encouragement.

The two connected instantly, 13-year-old Ashton Brophy said, as Vargas shared stories of her life and offered to teach her new friend how to cook.

“I just really love Mrs. Sandra,” Brophy said of the widow whose oceanside home of rocks, seashells and cinder blocks had its roof peeled away by winds that registered roughly 150 mph.

“She is just very sweet. … She made lunch for us, rice and salad and chicken. She was telling me all about her grandbabies,” the teen added. “I just want to do everything I can to help her.”

Twenty-six other mission team members from the Reidland Church of Christ in Paducah, Ky, shared Brophy’s sentiment. They traveled nearly 2,000 miles to demonstrate their love and concern for their Puerto Rican brothers and sisters.

“I just heard about the destruction here and how bad things have been for them,” said Alethia “Ali” Williams, 14, who came with the Reidland group. “I felt really bad, and I knew I had the ability to help. … I knew God was calling me to go.”

Read the full story.

This story appears in the August 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Running away from religion

July 21, 2018

In Montreal’s secular culture, many native Canadians see no need for faith. Immigrants ‘are readier to hear about God,’ minister Roger Saumur says.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

MONTREAL — Montreal’s heart has grown cold to the Gospel.

The largest French-speaking city in North America can be a lonely place to be a Christian.

“Our society, it’s secular,” said Horald Shabanaj, an Albanian immigrant and member of the Ville-Émard Church of Christ in the Quebec city. “People don’t care about God. There is a strong temptation to do things other than coming to church.”

A 2016 article in The Economist characterized Quebec this way: “The Catholic heritage is everywhere, in street names, monuments and church buildings which often have been converted to secular use. But Catholic practice has plummeted. The province’s main metropolis, Montreal, is as non-religious a place as any in secular Europe.”

While 75 percent of the province’s people still identify as Catholic, only 11 percent say they are regular worshipers, the article noted.

It’s against this backdrop that the Ville-Émard Church of Christ ministers. That’s “Église du Christ” in French, as the sign out front proclaims above spray-painted graffiti.

The church meets in a one-time funeral home a few doors down from a Hindu temple and across the street from a Vietnamese restaurant. There’s a Tim Hortons, the quintessential Canadian coffee and doughnut shop, at the corner.

The close-knit congregation, five minutes from downtown and close to a subway station, brings together Christians of about 15 nationalities, from Chinese to Haitian to Ukrainian.

Read the full story.

This story appears in the August 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Related: ‘The way to the heart’ (reporting from Winnipeg, Manitoba): Canada’s largest Church of Christ brings together Christians of various nationalities.

Campbellites, meet the Campbells: Utah conference mixes sights, food, dialogue

July 21, 2018

At Brigham Young University, diverse panel discusses media coverage of religion — and what to do if a reporter calls.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

PROVO, Utah — This is definitely not Church of Christ country.

Utah boasts fewer than 1,100 adherents of Churches of Christ — to go along with, oh, 2 million or so Mormons.

Suffice it to say that my wife, Tamie, and I were outnumbered during a recent visit to Brigham Young University, the flagship university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Nonetheless, we had a terrific time and got to know kind people with different beliefs from our own.

“I understand Campbell is a pretty important name in Churches of Christ,” Joel Campbell said, smiling, as handshakes and introductions were made. “No relation that I know of, though.” His comment was a reference to Alexander Campbell’s role in the Restoration Movement.

Joel and Jolene Campbell hosted us for a night and showed us sights such as the Bridal Veil Falls waterfall in the scenic Provo Canyon. In the quaint tourist town of Park City, the Campbells and Rosses browsed bookstore shelves and souvenir shops and discussed politics and religion over pizza.

As we talked about our respective faiths and current events, we discovered shared convictions. Our time together became more than a meal — it evolved into a forum to ask, answer and better understand.

Read the full column.

This column appears in the August 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Fifty years after historic meeting, race still divides Churches of Christ

July 1, 2018

‘We still have two brotherhoods,’ says longtime minister who helped organize 1968 conference.

By Bobby Ross Jr. and Hamil R. Harris| The Christian Chronicle

In the summer of tumultuous 1968, more than 40 prominent black and white ministers gathered to discuss ways to improve race relations in Churches of Christ.

The two-day national meeting — held 50 years ago at a hotel near the Atlanta airport — came less than three months after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and at the height of the unpopular Vietnam War.

One of the organizers, a black preacher named Eugene Lawton, got right to the point in describing his view of racial discrimination.

“It’s paved streets on one side of town and unpaved streets on the other side,” Lawton told the group, according to a July 5, 1968, article in The Christian Chronicle. “It’s wall-to-wall carpet on one side of town and wall-to-wall rats on the other. It’s having to sleep in the car beside the road because there’s no place in the inn.

“It’s being a member of the Church of Christ and being unable to attend a Christian college without going to Southwestern Christian College or 1,500 miles to Pepperdine,” the longtime minister of the Newark Church of Christ in New Jersey added. “It’s attending worship service and being sent to the basement. It’s a preacher being dismissed on Monday because he prayed, ‘Lord, bless the King family.’”

In interviews with the Chronicle, the 80-year-old Lawton and three other surviving attendees recalled the circumstances leading to the historic meeting, the personal bonds that were formed that June and the racial divide that still lingers a half-century later.

“The white brotherhood wasn’t even aware that racism was declared to be illegal in America,” Lawton said of 1968. “So we had tokenism at the time, but most of the Christian colleges didn’t open their doors to black students because of love and Christianity. It was based on the federal government saying you wouldn’t receive another dime (of student aid) from us unless you integrate your schools.”

Read the full story.

This story appears in the July 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Related: “50 Years: Racial Reconciliation and the Church” is a series highlighting significant events of 1967 and 1968. Read all the stories.

1,000 wells around the world

June 3, 2018

A Tennessee-based ministry that drills for clean drinking water in Haiti and other nations hits a major milestone.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

AKDESÉ, Haiti — In this remote mountain village, water gushes from a well drilled by Healing Hands International.

As one woman pumps the handle, another gleefully splashes the clear, flowing liquid on her face.

Little boys and girls giggle as they cup their hands under the spout, taking giant gulps before filling plastic buckets to carry home.

In an area where donkeys ferry supplies and entire families squeeze onto small motorbikes, the $7,500 well’s dedication brings celebration and dancing — and the opportunity for healthier lives.

“The people wanted it so badly,” said Art Woods, president of the Nashville, Tenn.-based humanitarian aid organization, which is associated with Churches of Christ.

It’s a scene repeated hundreds of times in this impoverished Caribbean island nation: Since the Jan. 10, 2010, earthquake that claimed 230,000 lives and left 1.5 million people homeless, Healing Hands has focused on providing access to clean water.

Read the full story.

This story appears in the June 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Related: In Haiti, a calling — and a baby (reporting from Tintanyen, Haiti)

 

Amid political violence in Nicaragua, dozens of church groups cancel mission trips

June 1, 2018

More than 90 people have died since clashes began six weeks ago between government forces and civilian protesters, according to observers.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

Normally, a team from the Highway Church of Christ in Judsonia, Ark., would be sweating for God in the mountains of Jinotega, Nicaragua.

For 15 straight summers, the congregation has sent teens and adults to help with Misión Para Cristo — Spanish for “Mission for Christ.” The humanitarian aid organization shares Christ’s love with thousands in Central America’s poorest nation.

But amid ongoing deadly clashes between Nicaraguan government forces and civilian protesters, the Arkansas congregation reluctantly canceled this week’s planned trip to Nicaragua.

“It’s just heartbreaking not to be able to see our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters,” said Danny Deramus, a Highway church elder.

Dozens of U.S. church groups have made the same difficult choice to stay home.

Read the full story.

This story appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Related: For thousands of Nicaragua’s poor, mission ‘a gift from God’ (reporting from Jinotega, Nicaragua)

Related: For a Nicaraguan church, a revival (reporting from Masaya, Nicaragua)

 

In Haiti, a calling — and a baby

May 31, 2018

When an infant’s mother died, missionaries from Kentucky suddenly found themselves with a new member of the family.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

TITANYEN, Haiti — Ten days after Jason and Jennifer Carroll began Christian missionary work in this Caribbean island nation in 2014, they got an unexpected gift: a newborn boy.

The mother of an infant named Edyson — “Edy” for short — had died during childbirth.

In this poor, developing nation, a can of baby formula can cost more than a day’s wage. The family asked the Carrolls to take Edy. They’re now trying to adopt the boy, who will turn 4 in September, along with his 16-year-old sister, Rogeline, who helps care for her brother.

Since November 2016, Jason Carroll has served as water project coordinator for Healing Hands International, which is associated with Churches of Christ.

Carroll and his wife, Jennifer, manage Healing Hands’ gated complex in this rural community north of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Just a few miles from the leased Titanyen facility, scores of victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake are buried in a mass grave.

The Carrolls, both in their 40s, previously owned a family tire business in Murray, Ky. Their son Chantry, 23, works for a nonprofit in Nashville, Tenn. Son Cole, 15, and daughter Callie, 14, are a part of the work in Haiti.

While shuttling American mission team members to various sites, the couple — who will celebrate their 25th anniversary this month — discussed their Haiti experience with The Christian Chronicle.

Read the full interview.

This interview appears in the June 2018 edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Related: 1,000 wells around the world (reporting from Akdesé, Haiti)