Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408150020
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: from staff and wire reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The National Council of Churches World Service is forming a medical team to respond to the crisis in Rwanda. Resumes are being collected from health care workers who can serve. Doctors, nurses and public-health specialists who can work in the African country for a minimum of three months and can live under primitive conditions may send resumes to Rwanda Emergency Medical Team in Formation, Church World Service, 475 Riverside Drive #668, New York, N.Y. 10115. Those accepted will have all expenses paid and a stipend.
Donor agency
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - An agency that obtains donor organs for Kentucky hospitals is winning over clergy.
``The fact that medical science has been able to reach a point where donation is possible is something God does not have a problem with,'' said Andreas Price, 29, who got a kidney transplant in 1989. He is now associate minister of Joshua Tabernacle Baptist Church in Louisville.
The number of organ donors of all races in Kentucky and southern Indiana increased from 55 in 1990 to 88 last year, according to the non-profit Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates.
Ministers say progressive black congregations now consider organ donation the highest act of charity.
``Since the body returns to dust from which it came, it's a shame that organs go to decay,'' said the Rev. M. McNeill Dowdy, president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Coalition of the Louisville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
- Associated Press
Raising funds
BALTIMORE - Parishioners at St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church are hoping pennies from heaven will provide the $500,000 needed to make repairs to the 121-year-old church.
After Mass on a recent Sunday, parishioners opened a drive to raise at least $500,000 - much of it in pennies - for desperately needed repairs.
They hope such a sum will convince the Archdiocese of Baltimore that their 300-member church should be taken off the ``endangered list'' of 16 churches targeted for reorganization or closure.
Church celebrates
BEECH ISLAND, S.C. - A black Baptist congregation celebrated its 244th birthday this weekend with a three-hour prayer service.
Silver Bluff Baptist Church was founded in 1750 by a white missionary preacher, the Rev. Jessie Golphin. Slaves, brought onto the church property to clean up and farm the land, were allowed to become members.
By 1773, slaves outnumbered white members. The church was turned over to the slaves.
``There have been a whole lot of ups and downs,'' said the Rev. J.D. Hatney, pastor of Good Hope Baptist Church in nearby Augusta, Ga., a visitng minister.
Church members have worshiped in three locations over the years. The present property was acquired in 1873. Various renovation projects followed, including a complete rebuilding in 1948.
Church officials say the first black preacher in America, the Rev. George Liele, once preached at Silver Bluff.
- Associated Press
Pastor quits
WORCESTER, Mass. - An evangelical pastor who preached about the ills of alcohol has resigned his ministry after being arrested on drunken driving charges while returning from the Foxwoods casino resort in Connecticut.
``The reason that I am submitting (the resignation) is that I want you to practice what I preach. I am so sorry that I have failed you,'' the Rev. John K. Wibley told his congregation at the First Assembly of God Church Sunday.
Wibley was pastor at the church, which has one of the largest Assembly of God congregations in New England, for 16 years.
He was arrested Aug. 2 just outside Worcester on his way home from the Ledyard, Conn., casino and was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and failing to stay within marked lanes.
John Rogers, head of the church's executive board, told the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester that Wibley's resignation was accepted ``with deepest regret.''
Wibley said he was traveling along the highway when, ``standing out in the middle of the woods and the countryside was a mammoth castle called Foxwoods, which, glistening in the sunlight, really was a deceptive and terrible thing to be enticed to.''
``This was not a lifestyle, but it was an indulgence in a foolish and terrible thing to do that I have preached against, that I have tried as a pastor to proclaim its ills and its problems,'' Wibley told the congregation.
- Associated Press
by CNB