South Main Baptist Church in Houston collected more than 7,000 shoes for Buckner International and its Shoes for Orphan Souls initiative. (Photo courtesy of Buckner)
South Main Baptist Church in Houston collected more than 7,000 shoes for Buckner International and its Shoes for Orphan Souls initiative. The Houston church has sponsored an annual shoe drive to benefit Buckner International for 22 years. Volunteer Damon Ankenman, who currently coordinates the church’s shoe drive, began in July purchasing shoes with funds South Main Baptist Church donated. Over the course of five weeks, about 30 volunteers helped prepare the shoes for a packing event on Aug. 21 that involved about 70 children and youth and close to 50 adults. Texas Baptist Men volunteer Kenneth Landers transported the shoes in a TBM 18-wheel tractor-trailer rig and helped unload them at the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid in Mesquite. Steve Wells is senior pastor at South Main Baptist Church.
Texas Baptist Men disaster relief volunteers responded quickly to flooding in North Texas after record rainfall Aug. 21-23. By Aug. 24, TBM had established an incident command unit, began assessing needs, initially mobilized two flood-recovery teams and activated a unit to distribute boxes to help families affected by high water to pack and store items they reclaimed from their flooded homes, TBM Disaster Relief Director David Wells reported.
The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor women’s basketball team organized a three-day school supply drive for elementary school students in Uvalde. Women’s Basketball Coach Mark Morefield and his team collected school supplies, sorted the donated items into individual bags for students and then journeyed to Uvalde on Aug. 20 to deliver the supplies and pray for all those affected by the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School. The UMHB men’s and women’s soccer teams also hosted a special needs soccer event on Aug. 20. The teams invited local athletes with special needs to join them on the UMHB soccer field to run drills and score goals.
Dallas Baptist University sent out more than 600 new students—along with about 100 upperclassman leaders and DBU faculty and staff—to serve in 19 different locations across the Dallas-Fort Worth area at the conclusion of SWAT (Student Welcome and Transition Week). The students participated in clean-up projects, apartment outreach, hunger relief and a wide variety of service projects with many of DBU’s community partners. “We always look forward to our service project day during SWAT,” said Jay Harley, DBU vice president for student affairs. “It allows our incoming students to experience first-hand our mission to produce servant leaders—individuals who care for others by serving their communities. And what better place to start that than here in the Metroplex?” Students served with Beautiful Feet homeless ministry, Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid, Dallas Life recovery center for the homeless, Mission Arlington and many other ministries and organizations in the area.
Move-in day and Tiger Camp marked the start of the fall 2022 semester at East Texas Baptist University. Faculty, staff and students lined up outside campus residence halls to help incoming freshmen and new transfer students with the heavy lifting that move-in days typically require. Tiger Camp offered new students a weekend filled with activities designed to connect them with campus life and their new college community through outdoor games, fellowship and information sessions.
Wayland Baptist University President Bobby Hall welcomed new students at the university’s convocation chapel by focusing on the “I Am” statements of Jesus as recorded in John’s Gospel. “He is our daily sustenance, our direction, our protector, our sacrificial savior, our victory over death, our access to Father God and eternal life, and our vitality and strength,” Hall said. “I can stand before you today to declare that Jesus is all you need or will ever need. He checks all the boxes.”
Houston Baptist University will host the Ground Zero 360 Remembrance Exhibition to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. The collaborative exhibit featuring work by 72 artists from 12 countries will open to the general public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 10 in the contemporary gallery of the HBU University Academic Center. The exhibition will run from Sept. 12 until Jan. 31, 2023, Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. HBU President Robert Sloan will offer words of comfort at a 9/11 worship service at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 11 in Belin Chapel in HBU’s Morris Cultural Arts Center. A 9/11 memorial ceremony is scheduled at 10 a.m. outside the Morris Family Center for Law and Liberty. Family members of victims will dedicate a tree on the HBU campus in commemoration of all 9/11 victims. The Ground Zero 360 Remembrance Exhibition will open for viewing at 11 a.m. after the ceremony. “It is an honor for HBU to host this significant event. By remembering the events of that catastrophic day and honoring all those whose lives were taken, including brave first responders, we offer comfort to their survivors and also recommit ourselves to the work of ensuring that such acts of terror never happen again,” Sloan said.
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