News Archives

Minorities and immigrants are among the growing segment in the Southern Baptist organization. Within the last 50 years they’ve begun including the black population of the deep south. Currently, over 2,000 congregations are made up of African-American groups and 43-hundred are non-English speaking. The Philadelphia area alone has 25 foreign-language congregations that continue to expand. The denomination is targeting two large cities a year as part of their “Strategic Focus Cities Initiative”.

Meanwhile, street children of northern Brazil will be the focus of a new ministry outreach for UFM International. Missionary Frank Dearmore is preparing to go to the city of Belem (behl-ehm’). He says the need to reach street children with the Gospel is great. “Brazil only has about 2.5-percent of the world’s population. But, at the same time they have in the neighborhood of 10-percent of the world’s street child population in North Brazil. In particular, it is a very different world than south Brazil and most of the ministry that has been done with street children have been concentrated in the south.” Dearmore, who’s staying at D & D Missionary Homes in Florida, says it’s a “one-child at a time” type of evangelistic approach. “They need love. They need touch. And, so, when you can establish that kind of relationship with them, then I think they’re widen open to come to know the one who will give them unconditional love in any circumstance and that of course is Jesus Christ.”