News Articles by Curt Iles

SWEETWATERS, South Africa (BP)--When Caroline came to the door, she rejoiced as she saw the bags of food brought by volunteers from a nearby South African church's Itemba Ministry.       "We slept hungry last night. I prayed to Jesus to send food and here you are."       Team leader Syvion Myeni and International Mission Board missionary Charles Taylor loaded her arms with a month of provisions, as Caroline said repeatedly, "Thank you, Jesus." Joyfully she returned to the house and began boiling water to cook a bag of beans.       A widow raising five children and grandchildren with no government support, Caroline is dependent on Itemba's "Bread of Life" outreach. Itemba, meaning "Hope" in the Zulu language, employs eight employees and operates as a ministry arm of Hilton Baptist Church.       Itemba aids families in the Sweetwaters area of South Africa's KwaZuluNatal province with $20,000 in funding from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund. The two-year project currently is providing about 420 people from 75 families with monthly food parcels.       Much of the ministry is to the orphans and child-led households in this unincorporated township of over 100,000 people. Sweetwaters is replete with obvious poverty, hopelessness and unemployment. And the specter of rampant AIDS is evident in the hundreds of fresh graves in the yards of homes. During one recent week, 88 residents of Sweetwaters died of AIDS-related complications.

DRY CREEK, La. (BP)--Since our recent presidential election, I've often thought of my deceased grandfather and an important lesson he modeled.