Barbara Denman

PHOENIX (BP)--Atlanta-area pastor Bryant Wright was elected to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, defeating California pastor Wiley Drake by a vote of 2,274-102 June 14 at the SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.

PENSACOLA, Fla. (BP)–When the Southern Baptist Convention’s Day of Prayer is observed Sunday, Jan. 30, members of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., will have spent the past 40 days seeking the face of God in anticipation. Beginning Dec. 22, pastor Ted Traylor called the church family to prayer and fasting leading up to the […]

CROIX-DES-BOUQUETS, Haiti (BP)–Antonine Toussaint lived with her young children in a makeshift tent of tarp and scrap metal for 10 months after the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti. With a new baby on the way, the young mother tried desperately to care for her children in an unsafe area of Croix-des-Bouquet, located east of […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Baptist Press is carrying a 12-part series re-publishing some of the most significant stories of 2010. Three stories will appear each day through Friday, Jan. 7. Baptist Press initially published the story below on Nov. 4, 2010. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)–Walking up to a one-room cement block house on the outskirts of Croix des […]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--After facing three days of escalating civil unrest in Haiti along with the continuing outbreak of cholera, Florida and Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers suspended their work and returned to the United States Dec. 10.       Eddie Blackmon, rebuild coordinator for Florida and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, and other volunteers were holed up at the Florida Mission House for three days after rioting began Dec. 7. Florida Baptists have had personnel stationed in Haiti since the Jan. 12 earthquake.       In addition to a four-member Baptist Haiti rebuild team, a team of volunteers from First Baptist Church in Covington, La., were holed up at the mission house during the unrest.       The unrest in Port–au-Prince began with the announced results of the presidential election, requiring a runoff between two candidates.       By Sunday, all teams had safely arrived back in Miami. The rebuild team plans to return in January.       The teams were forced to leave Haiti by way of the Dominican Republic because the international Port-au-Prince airport was closed. Blackmon's flight had been cancelled two days in a row.       The handful of volunteers from Covington, La, left Port au-Prince via automobile through the Dominican Republic on Dec. 10. The team included a news crew from New Orleans NBC television station WDSU, who spent some of their time in Haiti documenting the demonstration and rioting.       The remaining rebuild team of volunteers including Blackmon originally was scheduled to leave Haiti during the week of Dec. 13 for the Christmas holidays. But the ongoing violence forced them to hasten their plans.       After the Covington group left Dec. 10, the four remaining volunteers made plans to fly out of Port-au-Prince on a domestic airplane to Santa Domingo and then on to the U.S. on Sunday.       Stephanie Shermeta, a volunteer from Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Fla., who is serving for a year as a case worker with the Haiti rebuild, recounted the tensions.       "After the results were released, mass rioting began with a high concentration in Petionville where the election results were released. Throughout the night shots were fired," she said.       Venturing out of the Florida Mission House compound on Wednesday, Shermeta estimated that 15,000 people could be seen rioting and demonstrating. Tires were burning on every street while gunfire continued throughout the night.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (FBC)--In the wake of massive rainfall and extensive flooding caused by Hurricane Tomas as it skirted western Haiti, disaster-weary Haitians are now coping with an increased spread of cholera worsened by bacteria-filled standing water.       The heightened cholera outbreak has led Florida Baptist officials to focus on the potential epidemic, said Dennis Wilbanks of the state convention's partnership missions department, who traveled to the country Nov. 10-17, just days after Tomas' onslaught.       "It is a potential catastrophic event worthy of keeping an eye on," Wilbanks said, even as the government and NGOs efforts in water, health and sanitation have slowed the outbreak.       Haiti's Ministry of Health (MSPP) reports 1,186 deaths and 19,646 cases as of Nov. 16, the last day that analyzed figures are available. Overall, the MSPP reports that 49,418 people have sought medical attention since the epidemic was declared.       Included in the cholera deaths are two pastors of the Confraternite Missionaire Baptiste d'Haiti (CMBH), Florida Baptists' partner convention in Haiti: Marc Edrouard Theodore of Eglise Baptiste Par la Foi K-Soleil in Gonaives, located in the Artibonite Association; and Alphonse Joseph of Eglise Baptiste Coupe-a-David in the North Association.       "It seems that the cholera actually started in the Artibonite Valley where the water flow decreases and becomes stagnant in the rice fields," Wilbanks said.       The Florida convention is working in partnership with CMBH churches to help prevent and curb the spread of the disease in the churches and their communities.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--Walking up to a one-room cement block house on the outskirts of Croix des Bouquet, Tommy Green "oohed" and "aahed" over a snuggly wrapped newborn of a young Haitian.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--An embattled Haiti is bracing for Tropical Storm Tomas, which is expected to strengthen into a hurricane before its projected hit Friday, Nov. 5.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--Tattered red, yellow and green umbrellas edge Port-au-Prince's broken and battered roads, providing shade for street vendors who struggle to eke out a day's wages by selling everything from groceries and clothes to tires.       Gleaming buildings bearing such names as CitiBank and Hertz and a myriad of automobile dealerships stand in stark contrast to the rubble and garbage still strewn throughout Haiti's capital city.       Even as signs of commerce have reappeared in the six months since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake of Jan. 12, Port-au-Prince residents are forced to scrounge for life's basic necessities.       Seas of tents and blue tarps form makeshift cities covering open fields, barren lots and river beds as the nation grapples with providing housing for the estimated 1.5 million homeless.       A former police headquarters stands vacant, its parking lot now home to relief agency tents. Across the street, a collapsed multi-storied building is tackled by workers with sledgehammers and hauled away in buckets. For their efforts, they receive only $5 a day in wages.       By some estimates, 3,000 NGOs -- non-government organizations -- are operating in Haiti. Yet despite their massive efforts, there is much work to be done to help the crippled nation inch toward recovery.       "Life has improved" since the earthquake, concedes Phito François, the Confraternite Missionaire Baptise d'Haiti (CMBH) director of missions for the Port-au-Prince area.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)--At garbage dump on the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, gaunt and weary-looking Haitians formed two lines to wait in the searing sun June 20 for Buckets of Hope to be unloaded from a truck near Eglise Baptiste Canaan.