Kathie Chute

BEIJING (BP)–Li Hua* is a firm believer in miracles. In fact, she is a miracle. On a December day in 1981, an icy wind howled as a young couple huddled in their ox cart to keep warm. Wooden wheels creaked and the oxen huffed as they dodged holes and debris on the rural road, slowing […]

BEIJING (BP)--In the past 20 years, central China has been growing cities at a record pace: 223 villages and towns in central China have reached a population of more than 1 million each, with an additional 250 topping 400,000.       For rural people, who are moving to urban areas in record numbers, the growth presents new opportunities.       "Salaries are much higher in the cities, so these cities are experiencing an influx of people," says Naomi*, a Christian worker. "One city may have a population of about 1 million people, but it might grow to 6 million in just a few years."       Still, in this central China's constellation of lost cities, Christians comprise less than 0.01 percent of the population.       "In addition to the cities, we try to work with the villages because many of [these people] will go to the cities," Naomi explains. "If we can reach the family, then they will send a believer's influence to the city."       The progress happening today is built on the past. When China closed its borders in the 1940s, prayers for believers there did not stop. Neither did God's Spirit. When workers returned to survey the areas decades later, they found more believers than when the borders closed.

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--Alpha Goombi was 27 years old when she became a Christian. It would not have happened, she said, if a missionary had not been sent to her region with Annie Armstrong and Cooperative Program funds to lead her to Christ.

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--Woman's Missionary Union's new "Project HELP: Poverty" will connect churches to people's needs, said Randy Pool, coordinator of the Mississippi River Ministry of West Tennessee, who provided an overview of the project during the June 13-14 Missions Celebration and Annual Meeting in Indianapolis.

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)--As a child, Gene Fant’s family shared their home with a mission church in Fredonia, N.Y. His Sunday School class met in his bedroom, professions of faith were made in the living room and baptisms took place in the garage. Why was there a baptistery in the garage?

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)--Are Southern Baptists Calvinists? Yes and no, said David S. Dockery, president of Union University. Yes, because some Southern Baptists subscribe to Calvinist beliefs in some form; no, because all do not.

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (BP)--Myron Noonkester and Bennie Crockett admit they've always been fascinated by William Carey. Called the father of modern missions, Carey is something of an enigma, according to Noonkester, because information about him is difficult to come by. However, the two men got on the Internet last July and began acquiring materials related to him. That effort has resulted in the Center for Study of the Life and Work of William Carey, accessible through the Internet.

GULFPORT, Miss. (BP)--When Olive McKenna received her master's degree at William Carey College, television cameras captured the moment. For reporters, her graduation was news: she is 82 years old. For McKenna, it was the realization of a lifelong dream.