ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994                   TAG: 9405260129
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: N-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RELIGION BRIEFS

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS in the Roanoke Valley Association are seeking $35,000 for their annual drive for ministries to people in the valley. Money given by the estimated 40,000 Baptists in the association will be used to help support two inner city Roanoke mission centers, to support a Vietnamese pastor when one can be found for the Roanoke Valley, for disaster relief and for a new Hope for Hurting Humanity program in which congregations develop a specific ministry to their neighborhood.

\ SEEDS OF HOPE FOR LIBERIA is a new program of Virginia United Methodists, who are seeking to help 800,000 displaced people in the African country where a civil war has recently ended. Congregations, such as Cave Spring United Methodist, are working with the Liberian Annual Conference of the Methodist Church to distribute the seeds. Greens, corn, onions, squash and tomato seeds will produce crops popular in the hot climate.

The United Methodists are the second major religious group to send seeds to a war-torn country. Virginia Southern Baptists are in their second season of shipping seeds to Croatia and to two other areas in Africa.

\ MARK DUVALL, organist at St. Andrew's Catholic Church, has been elected dean of the American Guild of Organists Roanoke Chapter.

Other officers include: Jim McConnell, sub-dean; Jeff Hummell, secretary; and Becky Kennedy, treasurer.

\ FIRST WESLEYAN CHURCH, 3706 Peters Creek Road N.W., will celebrate its 80th anniversary on June 5. Two former pastors, the Rev. Edwin Wallace, now retired in Brookville, Fla., and the Rev. Stephen Wingfield, an evangelist living near Harrisonburg, will participate in the 11 a.m. service. Special music will be provided by former members of the congregation and the current staff.

A potluck lunch in the Childrens' Center will be held after service. A nursery will be staffed.

\ THE NEW DIRECTION GOSPEL CHORUS of Roanoke will perform Sunday at 3 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Buchanan.

Deadline for religion briefs for Neighbors is Thursday. Material must be delivered to Neighbors Religion Briefs, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010, by noon in order to run in the following Thursday edition. 


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