The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 68, No. 1, Ed. 1 Saturday, January 1, 2011 Page: 3 of 35
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THE CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE 3
JANUARY 2011
I
*
Bobby Ross Jr.
Samoan sinner saved
CHURCH ELDER IN AMERICAN SAMOA shares story of his conversion and vision.
BY ERIKTRYGGESTAD |THECHRISTIAN CHRONICLE
QUOTES OF THE YEAR, Page 20
F
I
True disciples
don't bully
God's children
Relief efforts after the Haiti earthquake
ranked as The Christian Chronicle’s top news
story of 2010.
A panel of ministers, church leaders and
Chronicle editors picked the top 10 stories:
1. Church members and Christian
university students rallied to help after a
7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the poor
Caribbean nation of Haiti and killed more
than 230,000 people, including hundreds of
Christians. February-March.
2. At the North Atlanta Church of Christ, a
donor who asked to remain anonymous gave
$1.5 million. The money was divided among
everyone present one Sunday and spent on
good works in the Lord’s name. May.
3. An increasing number of colleges and
universities associated with Churches of
Christ draw more freshmen from outside the
fellowship than within, a study found. April.
4. Facing their worst natural disaster in
recent memory, Tennessee church members
found signs of hope and embraced opportuni-
ties to meet flooding victims’ physical and
spiritual needs. July.
5. Church of Christ members in Africa
shared the sentiments of a Pew Research
Center study that found common ground
among some African Christians and Muslims.
But church members also identified with ten-
sions between the continent’s predominant
faiths revealed by the study. June.
6. More than 2,000 years after Jesus’
death and resurrection, a small congrega-
tion in Nazareth became the first Church of
Christ in the Middle East to appoint elders.
December.
7. Some K-12 schools associated with
Churches of Christ felt the pain of tough eco-
nomic times and were forced to close. June.
8. Churches of Christ in Chile delivered
aid to victims after an earthquake left more
than 800,000 people homeless. May.
9. In a changing world, missions and
money intertwined in a debate over whether
Christians in the United States should sup-
port African preachers. November.
10. Enrollment hit record and near-record
levels at some colleges and universities asso-
ciated with Churches of Christ November.
Haiti earthquake,
Atlanta blessings
top 2010 news
BY BOBBY ROSS JR. | THE CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE
_
ERIKTRYGGESTAD
Tia Misa points to his homeland, American
Samoa, on the westernmost edge of a world map.
your father wet?” The kids told their grand-
father what happened.
“And I heard him say, ‘Well, how could
he be baptized? He’s a drunkard. He’s a
sinner,”’ Misa said. “And I thought, ‘Those
are challenging words.’ But I kept silent.”
See ELDER, Page 22
J
ia Misa was wet from head to toe.
That wasn’t his plan. In fact, the only
reason he left his home on the island
of American Samoa on that Sunday in June
1986 was to give his wife and children a
ride to church in the pouring rain.
His wife, Seipua, had invited him to
worship many times. Repeatedly, he
declined. But as they pulled up to the
Leone Church of Christ, missionary Robert
Martin asked Misa to join them.
“I said, ‘I can’t come in because I don’t
have a proper shirt’” Misa said. But the
missionary insisted. So Misa sat on the back
row and listened. Soon, he was “cut to the
heart” and felt as if Jesus was calling him to
repent of his wrongdoings. He responded to
the invitation and was baptized.
When the family returned home, Misa’s
father-in-law asked the children, “Why is
ullying has exploded into
the news lately.
Headlines range from
a CNN report that half of
high school students admit
to bullying someone in the
past year to a National Public
Radio story
Inside Story linking anti-
gay bullying
to recent
youth
suicides.
The NPR
headline in
particular
caught my
attention:
“Religious
Undercurrent
Ripples In Anti-Gay
Bullying.”
NPR quoted a recent
Minnesota high school gradu-
ate who said his teenage years
were a living hell. From sixth
grade on, the student said he
heard the same taunts.
“People say things like,
‘Fags should just disappear
so we don’t have to deal with
them anymore’ and ‘Fags are
disgusting and sinful,”’ the
student said. “And still, there
was no one intervening. I
began to feel so worthless
and ashamed and unloved
that I began to think about
taking my own life.”
From a reporting standpoint
the NPR story impressed me
as long on conjecture and
short on actual facts to back
up the notion that Bible-toting
bullies are to blame.
When I was little, I knew
a scrawny, geeky kid with
a squeaky voice who faced
constant bullying — at the
bus stop, in school hallways
and in die lunchroom. That
kid hated leaving his home in
the morning.
One time, that kid — a
See BULLIES, Page 4
tut 1
JEFF MONTGOMERY, HARDING UNIVERSITY
Farrar Center for Health Sciences dedicated at Harding University
Grace Farrar speaks at the recent dedication of the Henry and Grace Farrar Center for Health Sciences at
Harding University in Searcy, Ark. She and her late husband, Henry, attended Harding in the 1940s and
traveled the globe reaching out to others through their mission efforts.They began medical missions in
Aba, Nigeria, in 1964 and helped establish Nigerian Christian Hospital. Henry Farrar died in February 2010.
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McMillon, Lynn. The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 68, No. 1, Ed. 1 Saturday, January 1, 2011, newspaper, January 1, 2011; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1509300/m1/3/?q=%22songs%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.