Blessed To Be A Part Of The Beulah Baptist Family

Pastor Brad Bessent, Pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Hopkins, SC

"Pastor Brad is greeting two Bambara believers in a village in Mali. He teaches local pastors to be better leaders and provide discipleship training among their people".

Dear Readers,

Yesterday at church, I picked up a copy of the Spring 2009 issue of "To The Ends Of The Earth: International Mission Board, SBC". This post is from the article, Strategic Partnerships: at home and abroad, found in this publication.

I am very low tech and was unable to scan the text from the original article but I believe this story is important and needs to be shared so I am entering part of the article manually.

"It's an awe-inspiring argument for the power of partnership. Beulah Baptist is a 200-year-old church in Hopkins, S. C., that averages about 275 people on Sunday morning. In 2007, pastor Brad Bessent led Beulah's congregation to begin praying about partnering with the International Mission Board to adopt an unreached people group.

Bessent says the church soon recognized and answered God's call to take responsibility for spreading the Gospel among the Bambara, a West African people group at least 4 million strong.

Working together with IMB missionaries Steve and Susan Roach, Beulah set its sights on an unreached village of 3,000 Bambara in Mali. There were no evangelical churches in the village and no known Christians.

Short-term missions teams from Beulah began visiting the village every six weeks, openly sharing the Gospel with anyone willing to listen. At an average cost of $4,000 per volunteer, the trips weren't cheap, and the church didn't have money to fund them.

'God started this and He'll sustain it,' Bessent says. 'Our folks raise their own money. ... I haven't had anybody yet that the Lord didn't provide for.'

After nearly two years, Beulah Baptist has made more than 12 visits to the village and has witnessed more than 100 Bambara come to faith in Christ.

'I'm convinced that God called every one of us to fulfill the Great Commission,' Bessent says. 'If we don't get our churches mobilized there are going to be millions of folds that continue to die and spend eternity in hell because nobody told them about Jesus.' "

How awesome is this? Continuing missions dedicated to bring the Gospel to unreached people!!! I feel so blessed to be a part of the Beulah Baptist Church family.

Unfortunate Demise Of Popcorn Sutton

I have not been keeping up with the news lately and today, I read my favorite newspaper on line, The Mountaineer. I was shocked to learn in a story written by Beth Pleming that Popcorn Sutton had decided to take his own life. This horrible decision by Sutton was made just a couple of days before he was supposed to report to a Kentucky prison to begin his 8 month sentence.

See my January 30th post in this blog for a story about Popcorn's trial.

From The Mountaineer (story dated March 18, 2009)

"Just days before 62-year old Marvin 'Popcorn' Sutton was expected to report to a Kentucky penitentiary, Western North Carolina's most notorious moonshiner took his life in the front seat of his "three jar Ford" - a John Deere green 1982 Fairmont, with bright yellow rims and an orange bumper for which he traded 3 gallons of liquor.

Sutton was discovered dead shortly before 4 p.m. by his wife of almost two years, Pam, who told detectives she returned from running errands to find her husband's body in his vehicle a short distance from their Parrotsville home. Cocke County Sheriff's detectives said it appears Sutton died of carbon monoxide poisoning and have ruled out any suspicion of foul play".

http://www.themountaineer.com/

It is so sad that this poor soul did not ask God to help him through his torment. If only he had proclaimed his faith and believed that God was the only answer to his inner peace and survival, he could have served his 8 month sentence and gone home to live out his days in peace and contentment. I will keep his family in my prayers and hope you will too.

This Is So Cool!

As a genealogist, I take notice of articles about ancestry. This is especially true when I hear one about someone confirming something he/she has heard about an ancestor all their life but was just short of proving it. I saw this article on http://www.foxnews.com/ and thought I would share it with you.

This is a story about Jonathan Dillon who was a watchmaker on Pennsylvania Avenue. Dillon was in his shop in 1861 holding the pocket watch of President Abraham Lincoln. It was at that time that Dillon heard that the Civil War had begun in South Carolina. The watchmaker's story doesn't sound too eventful up to this point but his actions after he heard about the war makes all of this interesting.

A story had been passed down from generation to generation that Dillon had inscribed something inside of Lincoln's watch. In fact, Dillon went to the press in 1906 and told them his story. A reporter published the story at that time but still no proof of the inscription had ever been found. Proving it was not really pursued and it just became "family talk".

Finally, Doug Stiles, the great-great grandson of Jonathan Dillon decided to tackle the task of proving what he had heard in "family talk". He went on the Internet and found the story published by the New York Times in 1906. He passed the information along to the curators at the Smithsonian. Evidently, the curators thought it might be worth a look.

So, on March 10th, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch was opened at the National Museum of American History by George Thomas, a watchmaker who volunteers at the museum. Mr. Stiles was invited to come up and read what his great-great grandfather had inscribed inside the watch. Part of the inscription reported in the article I read states:

" ' Jonathan Dillon April 13-1861,

Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels

on the above date' ". Another part reads,

" ' Thank God we have a government' ".

I can only imagine the joy and pride Mr. Stiles must have felt. He had finally proven that the inscription "legend" was not a legend; instead, his diligence was rewarded with a proven fact.

The watch went back on display but now it is accompanied by the story of Jonathan Dillon and a photo of the inscription.

Great Series At Beulah Baptist Church

Good Afternoon Readers - I just listened to a great lesson at Beulah Baptist Church. Today's lesson was "Worry Free Zone (Anxiety, Worry, Fear)". It is about a topic that most of us experience every day. Pastor Brad did a great job relating this message to our lives. In fact, how do you tell if your Church experience is awesome? How do you tell if the pastor's message has hit close to home? The way I can tell is if tears come to my eyes. Not from sadness but from relief. I know that God's love and lots of praying is the only way to get relief from personal pain but we often get so wrapped up into ourselves that we forget to go to God in prayer. It takes a good message from your pastor to jog your memory, sometimes. The message today reminded me of one of my favorite Third Day songs ~ "Cry Out To Jesus".

What A Deal!?

Readers - I know you've been to the grocery store lately and noticed the shrinking packaging of your usual staples. I first noticed it about six months ago while buying cereal - the boxes were so skinny. Now all the groceries are looking smaller. The problem is that quantities are smaller but the prices remain the same. Effective marketing or just a rip-off?

I feel sure that companies do a lot of psychological studying before they decide the best way to market their products. They probably felt that people wouldn't notice smaller packaging as fast as higher prices. They are correct in their conclusions but after a while, the smaller package begins to make many consumers feel ripped-off. I would be one of those consumers.

I love these deals - Buy One Get One Free. But if you think about it, we are not getting anything free. The total size of both packages/containers are equal to the size of one so we're actually just getting one. Where's my free one???!!!

Great News!

Chemist Georg Steinhauser has now completed his research in belly button lint. He spent 3 years studying his belly button and those of his friends. His hypothesis is that abdominal hair is the culprit that causes the lint to collect in your belly button. He has also hypothesized that men are more prone to have belly button lint than women. Amazing?! Please keep in mind that we now have more knowledge about this phenomenon because of his work. Of course, there are many more findings in his study and I feel sure you could probably buy a copy of his complete study somewhere, if you wanted. I don't but you might.

Also, this blog would be remiss if I didn't mention Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki who won an lg Nobel Prize in 2002 for his Interdisciplinary Research into belly button lint. His research was conducted through a systematic survey. The conclusion of his research was about the same as the conclusions of the above research but I believe that Dr. Kruszelnicki is a pioneer in this field.

Also This Week - "National Crown Roast of Pork Day" - Yikes!

After the "Pig Day Holiday" post which is celebrated on March 1st, I realized that following closely on March 7th is "National Crown Roast of Pork Day". It is with a heavy heart that I must report that "National Crown Roast of Pork Day" is a special day to cook and eat pork. I'm sorry for all the people who just celebrated Pig Day. But truthfully, if I had to choose between the two special days, I would prefer to celebrate "Pork Day".

This Week's Special Holiday

National Pig Day

While surfing the web, I found a website with unique and weird holidays. Of course, they are not national holidays; nevertheless, someone thought a specific cause needed to be celebrated. The holiday discussed below is one of them and it will be this bloggers holiday of the week.

Each year on March 1st, some people-somewhere celebrate National Pig Day. The observers of this holiday are aware of the pig's high level of intelligence and cleverness so National Pig Day was established to give pigs the respect they deserve.

One may celebrate with activities, such as a "snort off", a "pig out", or just online pig chats. I think pigs are cute but a celebration for them is not high on my list of priorities. I must add for those who wish to celebrate "Pig Day":

HAPPY PIG DAY!!!