BANGLADESH - CHURCH GROWTH IN BANGLADESH
The Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship (BBCF), established in 1919 by missionaries from Australia and New Zealand, held its
Mission Conference and Biennial General Meeting from April 7-11, 2010. The meetings were held at the 30-acre BBCF Conference
Center and Prayer Garden, 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
Approximately 500 delegates from many of the 472 local churches affiliated with the BBCF, including pastors, evangelists, women and
youth leaders, as well as other lay persons, attended the five-day event.
A highlight of the meetings was the ordination of 10 pastors to the Christian ministry, including one female, Aroti Chowdhury. Chowdhury
is the second woman to be ordained by the BBCF. The first was Judith Milita Das, who is secretary of the Asian Baptist Women’s Union.
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PHOTOS: Aroti Chowdhury, one of 10 pastors ordained to the Christian ministry by the Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship;
Worshippers at the Mission Conference and Biennial General Meeting of the Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship in April
UNITED STATES - BAPTISTS ASSIST LOUISIANA COMMUNITIES IN OIL SPILL DISASTER
Baptists in the state of Louisiana in the United States have plans to offer assistance to help in mitigating the effects of a massive oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill, which began on April 20, is threatening several states, including Louisiana and Mississippi following a catastrophic explosion
on a drilling plat-form in the Gulf of Mexico. An oil well approximately one mile or 1.6 kilometers below the surface, operated by the
drilling platform, is leaking large amounts of oil out into the sea.
Eleven people died in the explosion. The millions of gallons of oil being pumped into the sea are threatening marshes, wetlands,
breeding grounds and wildlife. Many communities face permanent contamination of the natural environment. Industries such as fishing,
shrimping and tourism are being affected.
Baptists conducted a “pre-landfall,” cleanup, that is, before the oil reaches land, on June 5 in Cameron Parish to remove natural and
man-made debris and trash on the shorelines. Such debris and trash can potentially get covered in oil and make the cleanup of the
affected areas more difficult.
One congregation, Live Oak Baptist Church in Terrebonne Parish, offered its physical facilities as a staging area for workers hired by
BP, which operates the deep water oil well, to install booms, which are placed in the sea to help prevent damage to the shoreline.
Baptists in communities affected or that are expected to be affected are fearful. “If they shut down the shrimping and then also shut
down the oil industry here, we are going to be really hurting,” said Tommy Bellon, pastor of Live Oak. “If we get hit by a tropical storm or
hurricane, we will probably be dealing with a massive cleanup for quite some time.”
“This desperate situation is threatening their way of life, culture and livelihood,” wrote G. Reid Doster, coordinator of the Cooperative
Baptist Fellowship (CBF) of Louisiana. “It is all they have ever known and the prospect of losing it is obviously traumatic.”
CBF of Louisiana is planning to provide training in the handling of critical incident stress and in crisis counseling. Such training, Doster
said, “might also prove to be an effective way of heightening disaster awareness among our constituents and getting folks more
invested in disaster response ministry.”
Bellon indicated that the people in the affected areas need “caring Christians who possess crisis counseling skills,” and who are
available “simply to express the love of God through compassionate listening.”
Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Neville Callam urged quick action by those responsible to mitigate the damage and to prevent
similar disasters in the future. “Creation care is part of our responsibility as human beings made to share creation. This oil spill is a sign
of our failure to live up to this responsibility,” Callam said. “It is incumbent on us to call upon all those concerned to work speedily to
reduce the damage being done and to develop and implement policies that will lessen the possibility of similar devastation to the natural
environment in the future.”