Jane Rodgers /Southern Baptist TEXAN

Many of us have experienced it: the unexpected blessing when someone ahead of you in the drive-thru pays for your coffee or an unknown benefactor covers the cost of your restaurant meal. Unexpected blessings. Random acts of kindness.

SPRUCE PINE, N.C. – Exactly where Southern Baptists of Texas Disaster Relief teams would deploy in the wake of Hurricane Helene was a mystery on Oct. 3, until a call for assistance in mass feeding came from Send Relief.

LEVELLAND, Texas (BP) – The small Levelland church of about 75 had been praying for a way to serve its Hockley County community, 30 miles west of Lubbock. When a microburst with vicious straight-line winds swept through the city in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 28, they got more of an opportunity than they anticipated.

HOUSTON (BP) -- As spring storms pummeled Southeast Texas, including the greater Houston area, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief volunteers, with help from Baptist DR teams from other states, launched and maintained a steady monthlong response to the emergency.

DALLAS (BP) – Nine-year-old Destiny, wide-eyed and smiling broadly, surveyed the freshly repainted sanctuary of Lake June Baptist Church as she and her mother, Yvonne, arrived at the church to see what the Lord had done.

LITTLE ELM, Texas (BP) – Eric Patrick’s journey from dispensing medicines to saving souls as a church planter transported his family 40 miles north of downtown Dallas to the burgeoning town of Little Elm.

PAMPA, Texas (BP) – Late February wildfires ravaging the Texas Panhandle continued to burn from northernmost Hutchinson County across the region, prompting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a disaster declaration for 60 counties on Tuesday (Feb. 27) as the fires doubled in a single day.

MESQUITE, Texas (BP) – Terry Turner stepped down from the pulpit of the church he founded, Mesquite Friendship Baptist, in the fall of 2023. His formal retirement, however, simply signaled a change of vocation, not a cessation of labor.

AUSTIN, Texas (BP) – Many Central Texas natives know the story of the infamous “Santa Claus Robbery” that took place two days before Christmas 1927 in the Eastland County town of Cisco.

TROUP, Texas (BP) – Preston Lindsey has worn a lot of hats in his lifetime. He’s been a logger, pipe-fitter, oil field roughneck, telephone lineman, and a shipping manager and transportation director for a grocery chain. He spent 15 years as an agriculture teacher with the Troup Independent School District before becoming its director of support services, a position he holds today.