Headline News from around the Southeast for April 22

Headline News from around the Southeast for April 22

Arkansas

A total of 611 students from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, completed 76 projects throughout their community during the university’s Tiger Serve Day on April 10. The day’s projects consisted of litter pickup, yardwork outside the homes of senior adults and various tasks for local nonprofit organizations and public schools. Also Tiger Serve Day leaders delivered goodie baskets and “thank you” yard signs to medical professionals.

Florida

As the pastor of Romeo Baptist Church, Dunellon, Florida, Rob Hess is always looking for ways to engage his rural community. The church has hosted community yard sales, back-to-school bashes, a community garden and quarterly family Bible study nights, among others. Since late January, the church has been offering judo lessons to adults and teens. The judo classes, Hess believes, is one way to draw people to the church and possibly engage them with the gospel, the Florida Baptist Witness reported.

Kentucky

Crossroads Baptist Church, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, is taking a whack at COVID-19 while raising funds for the church’s short-term missions trips at the same time. For a donation to the church’s missions fund, participants can take a swing with a sledgehammer on an already beat-up automobile. Past missions trips have sent teams to Croatia, Ireland, Guatemala, and Oakland, California, Kentucky Today reported.

Mississippi

Justin Lohmeier, a medical doctor and member of Hillcrest Baptist Church, New Albany, Mississippi, has been on more than 20 international missions trips. He has traveled to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Central America. Not only does Lohmeier use his professional skills to minister to the medical needs of nationals in the countries he visits, but he also takes care of the medical needs of IMB missionaries on the field.

Tennessee

Since December 2020, Long Hollow Baptist Church, Hendersonville, Tennessee, has experienced a wave of baptisms that exceeded 1,000 on April 11. Senior Pastor Robby Gallaty estimates that 70–75% of those baptisms are from first-time confessions of faith and 83% are adults. While the responses have been overwhelmingly local, 20 of the baptisms were people from 15 other states. “It’s been completely out of our control and an overwhelming move of God,” said Collin Wood, executive pastor.