Working on a New Church Plant in Union Beach, NJ

Recently, David Persson and Pastor Pastor Ken Bledsoe of Calvary Baptist Church, met along with Dennis & Elaine O'Neill to have more dialogue and planning on the Union Beach Church start.  In the video below you will see us out in yet another snow and rain storm on site in Union Beach.  While the video is uneditedI hope you will see the great potential that lies before us. 

Please pray for this new church start in Union Beach, New Jersey. 

If you or your church is interested in helping with this new church plant please contact me (David Persson) atNJNetDavid@aol.com, 973.738.6938 or Pastor Ken Bledsoe at 732-583-9759.  Also, if you are interested in being on the NJNet Church Planting Team, once again please contact me at the above information.  We believe that out of the devastation of Hurricane Sandy that God is going to grow a new church!

Airport Chaplains

The Rev. Frank Colladay Jr. stood at the end of the gate waiting. On the arriving plane was a passenger whose husband had just died of a heart attack on another flight. Her name was Linda Gilbert. The two had never met before.

Colladay's parish happens to be the world's busiest airport. His flock consists of people passing through who might need comfort, spiritual advice, or someone to pray with.

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The Sale That Stole Thanksgiving

My feelings go beyond mere nostalgia for Thanksgivings past. Our nationally observed holidays erode, gradually but certainly, with every wave of unending commerce. It's a regrettable and embarrassing move that suggests what we value most is not in fact family, religion, history, or even the cherished notion that God has blessed America. Instead, for us there is no day so sacred that it would keep us from standing in long lines under the glow of fluorescent lights to get a flat-screen TV…while others must stock the shelves and man the registers.

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Syria's Refugee Crisis Worst since Rwanda Genocide, Christians Respond with Help and Hope

On a desert hillside, 225 miles from their bombed-out homes in Syria, a half-dozen refugee fathers and sons have a modest winterization project going on.

Using lumber scrounged from pallets, plus a few rugs and canvas scraps, they tack together a vestibule for an 18-by-32-foot tent that 16 family members will share. The vestibule will help keep freezing winds out of the main living area, which is warmed by one small propane heater. Everyone will sleep on thick foam mattresses with a thin rug between those and the rocky ground.

"Winter is close," says Anas Mustafa Halif, 30, through an interpreter. "We have no clothing, no shelter, no fuel for heating, or even firewood. We can manage such hardships. We move around. But the children? It's very difficult for the children."

About 50 tents comprise this makeshift camp. Most of the Syrians here fled from the outskirts of Hama, a northern city that's been hit hard by Syria's two-and-a-half-year civil war. In fact, 45 are relatives or friends from the same neighborhood. They've landed on the east edge of Amman, opting for this grim arrangement over official refugee camps: Za'atari, to the north, is overrun with more than 130,000 people.

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Relief Team Seeks Remote Filipino Villages in Need

Social media and news programs around the world have reported on relief teams entering Filipino communities devastated by Typhoon Haiyan. But hundreds of other villages in extremely isolated areas have yet to see any relief. 

Many of these villages are tucked away in northern Cebu's rolling hills. They can be found down winding, bumping roads barely wide enough for vehicles to traverse. They are the villages that Southern Baptist relief teams hope to find.

While millions of dollars in relief aid is flowing into some hard-hit areas, many smaller communities must fend for themselves.

People in remote areas far from the main roads often are neglected for one to two weeks in the aftermath of a major disaster, said Larry Shine, a member of the four-man Baptist Global Response team sent to Cebu Island. The team's goal is to go into areas not highlighted in the media and partner with local pastors to bring relief to neglected communities.

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