In this issue
Iraq—Southern Baptists help refugees fleeing Iraq ... Quotable: A heartfelt prayer for her people

New in TConline—Malawi ... where burying the dead is a full-time job

Resources—Video Link: Your guide to video resources
Churches on mission—Praying out 10 missionary families

No chance encounter

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Iraq

Southern Baptists help refugees fleeing Iraq
In the rugged desert on Jordan’s border with Iraq, a tent city has been set up for refugees fleeing hostilities in Iraq. Baptists and other evangelical Christians are there, ministering to the
needs of Sudanese, Somalians, Egyptians and others who left the country with only the clothes on their backs. Baptist worker Charles Browning says they were able to respond so quickly to refugee needs because Southern Baptists in the United States gave so generously.

See Charles Browning talk about the ministry to refugees.

Visit this site for an interactive map and the latest reports on Baptist ministries among refugees in the Iraq area.

Quotable: A heartfelt prayer for her people

“Lord, in dangerous times you are with every father, mother and child.

“Lord, bring peace to their hearts. Not only to them but you bring them real peace inside them, this peace from you, Jesus.

“We pray, Lord, that you will be with all the people there in this difficult time. You are true to yourself.”

Read the prayer of an Iraqi believer for her people as you listen to her prayer in Arabic.

New in TConline
http://www.tconline.org

Malawi ... where burying the dead is a full-time job
We want to tell you about hunger in Malawi. But first let’s get some things straight.

Take a virtual hunger walk to meet some of the Christians affected by hunger in Malawi.

Resources

Video Link: Your guide to video resources
You can go online to preview and download most IMB videos from the last three years. For a sneak preview of the video for the Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization, June 8, go to Video Link and type “Day of prayer” into the search box. Found it? Now type “China” and see what else is available on the Chinese.

To show large groups, you’ll want to order the VHS A Door of Opportunity: Loving the Chinese. Visit our Resource Center to browse through other China resources.

Churches on mission

Praying out 10 missionary families
Pastor Tom James and other staffers at Alpha Baptist Church in Morristown, Tenn., began praying in late 2001 that God would call 10 church families to missions over the next five years. A few months later, E.C. and Pearl Dearing, ages 77 and 75, went as Masters to work among the Roma of Romania, a people group the church had adopted. E.C. and Pearl had married five years earlier after losing their spouses—a godly prayer warrior and the church’s former pastor—to cancer. During a volunteer stint among the Roma, they had seen that the people have a great respect for age and listened intently anytime they shared a witness. Back home, they felt God’s call to return. They were followed into missions by a second retired couple, Don and Marti Talbert, who now work with the International Seaman’s Ministry in Seward, Alaska. And now two young men have expressed a feeling of call to missions.

Learn how your church, too, can join the Global Priority Network and produce missionaries for today and tomorrow.

Adopt an unreached people group.

Read about a woman whose passion for seeing churches adopt people groups has caused her to travel by trailer from church to church.

No chance encounter

In New Orleans, it’s Mardi Gras. In Martinique, it’s Carnival. In both places, it’s a celebration many evangelical Christians avoid. But this year, IMB worker Dan Sheard and French team member Brice Garres went out on the street a few hours before the Carnival parade began and asked people if they could pray for them. They had meaningful conversations with about 10 people, four of whom accepted tracts. The next week, a school holiday, Dan and his wife, Sue, took their children hiking and then to the beach. They had been there only about 10 minutes when a family arrived and the man approached them. He was one of the people who had accepted a tract the previous week. The families spent the rest of the day together. “We had a very nice time together, continuing to talk of the Lord and how we thought it remarkable that He had brought our paths together again,” says Sue. The Sheards hope their new friends will return to their home in France with a new faith in Christ.

God can use even brief encounters to sow gospel seeds. One of the 10 universal elements of church-planting movements is abundant gospel sowing. Volunteers from your church can play an important role in sowing. Check out the possibilities.

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