Churches Vital after Deadly Storms

LAFAYETTE, Tenn. - On the way to this storm-ravaged community, a billboard bubbling with fresh paste rises over a rural road with a message from the Gospel of Matthew: "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

In Macon County and other predominantly Christian areas where tornadoes laid a deadly path, churches — and individuals' faith — are playing a vital role in the aftermath.

Church members walk up to the altar to pray at the First Baptist Church on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008 in Lafayette, Tenn. Residents took a break from cleaning up after a deadly tornado to give thanks for what they have left and to remember what they lost.

Faith is a way of life here. Many have volunteered services, opened disaster centers with food and shelter, clothing and medicine, while those who escaped death when so many did not say they are finding hope in stories of survival.

"I was in a tornado — and I lived," said James Krueger, a 49-year-old electrician, as tears streamed from his eyes blackened in the storm. When the winds hit, his 100-year-old home flew from the foundation until he lay on barren ground.

It was an unlikely survival he cannot help but attribute to a higher power.

"The bottom line is something kept me there," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Stories like Krueger's are bringing hope for many residents struggling to figure how they will reassemble their lives, said Terry Gillim, a minister at the Church of Christ in Lafayette, (pronounced luh-FAY-et).

On Friday, Gillim directed a disaster center flush with supplies, including clothing and medicine. Members of his church brushed elbows over boxes with those he had never seen in church before.

"They say there are no atheists in foxholes," Gillim said. "There is a deep desire to know God. And when tragedy strikes or adversity comes our way, those desires are brought to the forefront — whether we want them or not."

Among the volunteers was Karen Long, 43, herself a survivor whose family huddled in the living room of their home when the winds stripped the roof away and showered them in debris.

Long said her faith — now more than ever — allowed her to help others. She laughed when she described the damage and her nephew finding a hymnal shredded of all but one song — "Victory Behind The Clouds."

"It's a thousand wonders we're still here," she said.

In many of the cities and small towns across the South struck by storms that killed 59 people in all, churches are the meeting places, social centers and shelters for residents — whether they are regular members or not.

It was a theme President Bush addressed during a visit Friday to Lafayette to tour the devastation, offering hugs to those caught in the storm's deadly path.

A pastor spent an entire week living on the roof of a local business in New Mexico to raise funds for African orphans for Sunday’s National Day of Care.

Dr. Mike Hattabaugh, founding pastor of Gathering Community Church in Farmington, N.M., lived outdoors this past week on the roof of Treadworks, a tire company, in New Mexico.

“It is hard to wrap your arms around 15 million orphans [in Africa],” said Hattabaugh, who is also director of the National Day of Care, to The Christian Post in an earlier interview. “That’s bigger than a lot of states in the United States. That’s like eight New Mexico’s just full of orphans. It is just hard to grasp that.”

“So I thought if I lived on a roof that is how people will get their arms wrapped around the idea,” he explained. “It is a good connection. People ask why are you doing this and I use it to draw people’s attention.”

The third annual “Get Mike Down” fundraising campaign seeks to raise awareness of the millions of children who “need a roof over their heads,” as well as to raise $60,000 in donations for three orphanages in three “severely challenged countries.” A roof costs about $20,000, the campaign noted.

Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life

A megachurch pastor and his wife are asking the tough question of how people would live differently if they knew they had only one month left to live.

In their new book, One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, Pastor Kerry Shook and his wife, Chris, challenged readers to accept the reality of their mortality and to learn to live a more intentional and meaningful life without regrets.

“This is not a self-help book, but we feel it is a self-helpless book because we have to depend on the Lord everyday to live this lifestyle,” Kerry Shook explained to The Christian Post on Tuesday.

“We say that there is no way to live these principles out that Christ lived without Christ’s power living through you,” Kerry said. “Really that comes down to surrendering daily to Him, to allow Him to fill you with strength.”

The Shooks – founders of the 15,000-member Fellowship of The Woodlands Church in the Woodlands, Texas – said too often they hear people regretting how they lived their lives when they minister to people who find out that they don’t have much time left on earth. The number one regret that people nearing the end of their lives have is how they handled relationships, according to the co-authors.

Many people regret not spending more time with their family, not forgiving someone earlier, or not living out their dreams when they were healthy. These repeated regrets inspired the Shooks to write the book and ask people why they can’t start living a “no-regrets” lifestyle today instead of “someday.”

The book is divided into four sections that help readers examine the core areas of a Christian life and learn to live each day without regrets. The four areas are: live passionately, love completely, learn humbly, and leave boldly.

“If I had to boil it all down I would say that it really comes down to intentionality,” Kerry said, answering what one thing is needed to fulfill all four areas. “To live this lifestyle and these four principles you have to have God’s power to live it through you.

He noted, “Chris and I had always had good intentions, but we never lived intentionally...we just sort of went through the motions.”

But now the co-authors and life coaches have become “very intentional” about life and are “really living for God, living out His plan and purpose” each day.

The challenge can easily be applied to a church with a supplemental study guide and curriculum that can be incorporated into small group studies.

The Shooks’ own church, Fellowship of The Woodlands Church, has gone through about half the challenge and Kerry said there has been “amazing” changes, such as changed lives and the church becoming more intentional about making a difference in the community and leaving behind a legacy.

“Everyone can relate to this question, ‘What would I do if I had one month left to live,’” Kerry said. “Then when you take them to a new depth and they study Christ’s life and really how Christ lived those last 30 days when he knew he had 30 days left, then I think it goes to a whole new level.”

More than 500 churches across the United States have expressed interest in taking their congregations through the 30-day challenge, according to the Shooks. Among those that will go through the challenge is Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., which will begin the 30-day challenge the week after Easter.

Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Church, wrote the forward to One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, which released last week.

TEEN WEBSITE SHARES INSPIRING REAL - LIFE STORY

Los Gatos , Ca. - Staci's Story (www.stacistory.com), a new website created in memory of a 16-year-old Florida student who passed away in March 2005, launched today with the purpose of sharing her inspiring story and life testimony. The site was created by Global Media Outreach, a coalition of Internet ministries of Campus Crusade for Christ International.

Staci Stephens was a bright and beautiful 16 year old high school student, who impacted the lives of so many of her friends and peers. Around her school campus she was known for her love of God and people.

Staci passed away on March 13, 2005 from Viral Myocarditis. Staci attended a public high school in Orlando , Florida. She came home from school on Friday morning not feeling well. By Sunday morning her heart had stopped. Fourteen months earlier at a Student Venture conference, she had decided to become a follower of Jesus. During her last year, she helped others learn how to have a relationship with God and described what it meant in her own life. Staci's dream was for everyone to have the chance to find Christ and to live with God forever. Because so many people were impacted by her death and testimony, a young Global Media Outreach staffer named Michael decided to design the website so that others could experience the change in her life.

"Staci's public demonstration of her decision to follow Jesus Christ has made a huge impact since her death in Florida and at her high school," said Chuck Klein, Director of Student Venture. "Our desire is to share her story with the rest of the world so others can experience the legacy of hope and truth that Staci gave to so many teens at her school." The site provides a video production of Staci's life and legacy, and her friends' reaction to her life.

Visitors to the site are also able to open up a dialogue with Student Venture volunteers through GMO's Ministry Response Center. Students can get more information on having a relationship with Jesus Christ, as well as learn how to connect with a Christian community or student ministry in their own school.

"The mission of Global Media Outreach is to provide every man, woman and child with the chance to experience the gospel," said Walt Wilson, founder and chairman of Global Media Outreach. "Staci's story is a great example of how these websites can present the message to people that God loves them and has a plan for their life using multiple mediums including video, pictures and text."

About Student Venture

Student Venture is the high school and junior high ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International. Since 1966, the ministry has been reaching out to teenagers with more than 1300 full-time staff, Student Venture affiliates, and local community volunteers. Student Venture is a contributing member of the Campus Alliance and National Network of Youth Ministries©. Through the Campus Alliance, Student Venture and 40 other national organizations are working hand in hand to help develop campus movements so that every student at every campus has the opportunity to grow in character and know Christ.

What's That Smell?
LONDON, United Kingdom (AP)

Workers responding to neighbors' complaints of a bad smell coming from an apartment in western England discovered a body that lay decomposing on a couch for years while another resident lived there, officials said Friday.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that neighbors of the Bristol, England apartment had been complaining for years about the stench and cleaning workers found the body. Neighbor Michael Stone told the BBC he assumed the tenant suffered from poor hygiene and even offered him air fresheners.

A spokesman for Bristol City Council said the body was thought to have been in the apartment for at least eight years.

The identity of the man, who was thought to be in his 70s when he died, has not been released.

Police arrested the apartment's tenant after the body was found Jan. 30, but concluded the death was not suspicious. The occupant, also in his 70s, apparently failed to report the death because he suffers from mental health problems.

Bristol Coroner's Court launched an urgent inquiry on Friday to determine how the corpse had gone unnoticed for so long.

A local lawmaker expressed disbelief at the find.

"How can any of us possibly understand how there could be a dead body in somebody's flat for five years, or maybe even as long as eight years, and nobody know and nobody notices, and life appears to go on as usual," Labour parliamentarian Dawn Primarolo told BBC television.

Twin's Tickets Nag Pa. Man for 17 Years

A traffic judge apologized to a man who was hounded for 17 years by officials trying to get his similarly named twin brother to resolve $1,800 in unpaid tickets and fines.

The problems all started for 40-year-old Edward Stanley Harris between October 1990 and May 1991. During that period, his twin brother, Edwin Shelby Harris, received eight tickets for moving violations.

Edwin Harris pleaded guilty in traffic court in September 1991 and was ordered to pay $1,501. But Edwin Harris never paid. He hit hard times, drifted south and lost touch with his brother.

In the fall of 1992, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation gave Edward Harris a painful reminder of his twin: The agency, confusing him with his brother, told him his license would be suspended for nonpayment of tickets.

Eventually, PennDOT got things cleared up and withdrew the suspension threat. But Edward Harris' fight against bureaucracy was only just beginning.

Every year or so, between November 1992 and June 2007, PennDOT would rediscover Edwin Harris' unpaid tickets and threaten to suspend his twin's license. Each time, Edward Harris would return to traffic court, and the suspension threat would get lifted.

The cycle dragged on until November, when Judge Willie Adams refused to look at the paperwork that showed Edward Harris was innocent, then told him to start paying the tickets or go to jail. That led him to take his story to the Philadelphia Daily News.

After a column Monday, a different traffic judge, Bernice DeAngelis, caught wind of the story. She apologized and said the court would give Edward Harris a refund.

"I'd like the chance to look him in the eye and apologize, from the bottom of my heart," DeAngelis told the newspaper for a story Thursday. "I see what we do in this court as a sacred trust. That might sound corny, but I truly believe it. I'm sorry for everything he had to go through."