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Sharing the News:
A weekly publication of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida
September 26, 2019 
In This Issue:
CBF Family Responds to The Bahamas:
Hospitality, Healing, Help

 

Clearing the rubble of New Emmanuel Church in McLean's Town, Grand Bahama begins.
Last weekend my wife and I drove down to Miami to visit with three of our Bahamian pastors and their wives who had come to south Florida for some rest, medical care, and re-fitting. When we arrived, we saw how wide the CBF family truly is. Thank you, Evan and Cheryl Rees, for opening your home to John and Enid McIntosh, and Edwin and Alma Pinder. Thank you, Baptist Hospital, particularly Renato Santos and Calvin Babcock, for your help in getting Judith Baillou, the wife of pastor Pedyson Baillou, admitted for dialysis.

As we continue to respond to the breadth of the disaster, here are some of the things that we have been able to accomplish thus far because of your financial support and prayers. We provided financial gifts to the pastors and their wives who fled their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The good people of Christ Journey Church in Coral Gables to them shopping for new clothes. (Thank you, John Churchill, Chris Lane, pastor Bill White and the entire Dorian Response Team!)

Rick and Ellen Burnette (CBF Global missionaries), Evan Rees, CBF Florida's Administrative Assistant Melissa Rodriguez, and I have been hard at work to prepare a large shipment of rebuilding supplies for transit to The Bahamas next week. The shipment will include chainsaws, power saws, roofing materials, nails, hammers, clean-up tools, water filtration systems, generators, solar chargers, and more.Your gifts and the generosity of CBF Global made this possible. Thank you, CBF family!

Rachel Shapard and Gerry Hutchinson (CBF Global's Chaplaincy and Pastoral Counseling Manager) have been coordinating the pastoral counseling response in order to provide spiritual care to those who have been traumatized and have experienced extraordinary loss in the storm. Your generosity will help us send caregivers to Nassau and Freeport to help bring hope and encouragement to the families who are coping with the impact of Hurricane Dorian.

So many of you replied to this column to open your houses to Bahamian refugees. Right now, all of our friends who have sought respite in our state have been accommodated. If you volunteered to house a family, I have kept your information and I will contact you should we need to provide housing for anyone. Thank you, though, for stepping up and offering Christian hospitality for our friends.

As Bahamians are beginning to return to their communities to dig out from under the destruction and to figure out how to rebuild, CBF Florida and the entire CBF family will be serving alongside of them. You can continue to give a gift to the ongoing, long-term response  online here. Just make sure that you click on the disaster response button. You can sign up to volunteer for short term mission work in the Bahamas. Just  click on this link to the CBF volunteer page.

Finally, thank you once again for your prayers and, more than that, for putting your prayers into practice. You are being and bringing the presence of Christ.

Blessings,
Ray Johnson

Invitation to Pray
As you take time to pray this week, you are invited to remember the following concerns in the CBF family:  
  • Continue to pray for the people of The Bahamas, particularly Grand Bahama, Abaco, and other northern family islands.
  • Pray for these pastors and their families who lost their homes in Hurricane Dorian: Pedyson and Judith Baillou, Edwin and Alma Pinder, Freddie Laing, Terrance and Shoine Strachan.
  • Pray for these churches that were totally destroyed by Hurricane Dorian: New Emmanuel (McLean's Town), Ebenezer Baptist Church (Sweeting's Cay), and St. Matthews Baptist Church (Pelican Point).
  • Pray for  South Venice Baptist Church ,  Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, Riverside Baptist Church, and Living Stones Baptist Church  as they search for senior pastors.
  • Sharon Jewett , the wife of Doug Jewett, who has been in treatment for recurrent cancer. We celebrate that Sharon received good results on her most recent tests and scans.
  • P ray for Joe Boronat , a former youth pastor for Ray Johnson. Joe has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
Florida Fellowship Newsletter Spring 2019
The newest edition of CBF Florida's Fellowship News is now online and coming soon to your mailbox (if you're a subscriber). Check out the latest issue to read about the celebration banquets in Tampa and Deltona. Find out who this year's two recipients of the Edge Award for Leadership in Christian Education are. Learn about Tiffany Burch, one of this year's CBF Florida scholarship recipients. Discover the two persons who were presented the "Celebrate CBF Florida" award. To read about these items and more, all you need to do is to click here. Learn what your Fellowship Baptist family is doing around Florida and throughout the Caribbean Islands.
Birthday Celebrations
Happy birthday to all of the following CBF field personnel, chaplains, counselors and church planters!

Wednesday, September 25
  • Angel Pittman, Miami, FL (Field Personnel)
Thursday, September 26
  • Randy Brookshire, Greenville, SC (Chaplain)
  • Sunny Mitchell, San Diego, CA (Chaplain)
  • Keith Parker, Brevard, NC (Pastoral Counselor)
  • Beth Sexton, Lincolnton, NC (Chaplain)
  • Lynwood Walters, Gainesville, FL (Chaplain)
  • Jeffery Walton, Richmond, VA (Chaplain)
  • Gloria White, Pearland, TX (Pastoral Counselor)
Friday, September 27
  • Cathy Anderson, Kennesaw, GA (Chaplain) 
  • Peggy Johnson, Hurst, TX (Chaplain)
Saturday, September 28
  • Renate Kruklis, Braselton, GA (Chaplain) 
Sunday, September 29
  • Asdrubal Forte, Miami, FL (Chaplain)
  • John Harris, Pelham, AL (Pastoral Counselor)
Tuesday, October 1
  • Tina Bailey, Southeast Asia (Field Personnel/Chaplain) 
  • Ron Craddock, FL (Chaplain)
Prayers of the People

Sasha and Mira Zivanov
St. Louis, Missouri
Mira and Sasha Zivanov serve among the immigrant community in St. Louis, Missouri, predominantly working with refugees from the former Yugoslavia, which includes the countries of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. Partnering with local churches, the Zivanovs provide outreach ministries that meet the needs of refugee families that have lost much to years of violence, conflict and hardship. Through fellowship, pastoral care, a food pantry, tutoring and other classes, they seek to provide opportunities for community and to share the gospel.

Pray for: 
  • immigrants with limited language skills adapting to an unfamiliar culture.
  • success in school for children in the tutoring ministry.
  • local churches to find ways to connect with the immigrant community.
  • immigrant families separated from their home communities and extended families.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10