By Grayson Hester North Macedonia (commonly referred to as simply “Macedonia”) doesn’t loom large on the radars of many Americans. In the shadow of much larger and more influential European countries, this small nation near Albania tends to get overlooked. Whereas France and Germany, for example, contain internationally renowned metropolises, Macedonia by and large, features … Continue reading
By Grayson Hester Preston Clegg, pastor of Second Baptist Church in downtown Little Rock, Ark., doesn’t like the idea of missing out on joy. In January 2019, Clegg joined scores of Little Rock residents in celebrating the inauguration of the city’s first democratically-elected Black mayor, Frank Scott. Having been friends with Scott long before the … Continue reading
By Jennifer Colosimo Back in the 1960s, Hampton Baptist Church started a soup kitchen to serve the local Hampton, Va., community in need. As more than 50 years have passed and mindsets have evolved, organizers wanted to show that the program had done the same. Volunteers were doing much more than serving a meal. They … Continue reading
By Chris Hughes By the time twin brothers Jacob and Esau made it to Kampala, Uganda, the young men had already endured a lifetime’s worth of struggle. As teenagers, they fled from their native South Sudan after the country gained its independence in 2011, and internal factions began fighting over control of the government. In … Continue reading
by Grayson Hester To tell this story about a ministry in the Knoxville, Tenn., area in 2021, we have to travel back in time to rural Indiana in 2015. Scott County, Indiana, a majority-white, rural, working-class area, only notable, as many such counties are, for not being very notable, suddenly found itself the epicenter of … Continue reading
By Caleb Mynatt For citizens of most of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has been the crisis that has encompassed our lives over the past year. But for citizens of Venezuela, the pandemic is just one crisis of many that Venezuelans have had to navigate and survive. One group hit particularly hard in Venezuela are … Continue reading
By Grayson Hester Before the summer of 2020, Wallace Montgomery, III, had never even heard of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Now, only a few months later, he’s transferring to one of CBF’s partner seminaries—Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology. The difference between then and now? CBF’s Young Baptist Ecosystem and its Student.Church program, which placed … Continue reading
By Melody Harrell It was supposed to be your average staff Christmas party. The Secret Santa gifts had all been doled out with much hilarity. Lucy patted the stalk of matoke beside her, smiling. Her Secret Santa had sent her on a treasure hunt. The clues led to the banana tree outside where the Secret … Continue reading
By Andrew Nash War is hell and, for a teenage Mary, living through the Syrian Civil War, hell was every day. “Every day while going to school, we believed this is the day we are going to die,” she said. “Death was the main incident in our lives. There was no security or peace in … Continue reading
By Andrew Nash There are no convenience stores in Bridger, South Dakota. No thrift stores, gas stations or retail of any kind, either. The nearest “town” is 90 minutes away, and the nearest “big town” is closer to two hours away. But this land is sacred to the Hwohwoju band of Lakota who reside on … Continue reading