Judge Bernard Saint-Vil allowed Charisa Coulter to be released, more than five weeks after she and nine others were arrested Jan. 29 for trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-ravaged country to a makeshift orphanage in the Dominican Republic. They allegedly did not have the proper paperwork.

Saint-Vil kept the group's leader, Laura Silsby, in jail, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.

Both Silsby and Coulter are members of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. The other eight members of the group were released Feb. 18 and are back in the United States. Coulter, too, is scheduled to fly back to the U.S.

Asked by Reuters how she felt, Coulter said, "Bittersweet. I am glad to go back home but the experience has been very difficult."

Saint-Vil actually signed the order on Friday to release Coulter but court administrators could not find the proper stamp to make the release official, preventing her release until Monday, Reuters reported.

Saint-Vil now is looking into a new charge against Silsby that she "was trying to organize travel from Haiti for others without proper papers," which is "a lesser crime under Haitian law," Reuters said.

In addition to Coulter, the freed group members are Carla Thompson and Nicole and Corinna Lankford of Central Valley Baptist Church; Paul Thompson, his son Silas and Steve McMullen of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho; Jim Allen of Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas; and Drew Culberth of Bethel Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Bethel Baptist is the only church not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
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The ride will begin on May 27 at 10 a.m. at the Cracker Barrel parking lot in Mt. Vernon.  From there, riders will travel to the Knoxville/ Pigeon Forge, Tenn. area for the night.  The next day they will ride a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Tail of the Dragon into Ridgecrest for a weekend of worship, fellowship, training and preaching featuring keynote speaker Lt. Colonel Oliver North, USMC (Ret.).

Lt. Col. North served in the U.S. Marine Corps for over 40 years, and as a member of the National Security Council Staff and a government counter-terrorism coordinator from 1983-1986.  In recent years he has covered the U.S. military’s War on Terror and hosted the documentary series, War Stories, for the Fox News Channel.  Additional speakers and artists include Lt. General William G. Boykin, David E. Burton, DeGarmo and Key and Dave the Horn Guy.

Riders will begin the two-day trip back to Illinois following the worship service on May 30.

The entire cost of the Weekend Ridgecrest Rally is $175.25, which includes the registration fee, room at the Mountain Laurel Lodge (2 persons per room) and meal tickets. To register call (800) 588-7222 by April 24. Request the IBSA Group rooms.

For more information visit lifeway.com/motorcyclerally.

If you would like to add your name to the database of other motorcyclists from IBSA churches across Illinois, or if you have any questions, call Cliff Woodman at Harmony Baptist Church, Medora (618) 836-7722 or e-mail cliffwoodman@mac.com.

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• Northern Illinois | Streator Baptist Camp, from now until March 22, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Central Illinois | The IBSA Building in Springfield, March 23-24, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Metro East Area | Bethel Baptist Church, Troy, March 25, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Southern Illinois | Williamson County Baptist Association, March 26, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Some local associations are arranging collection sites where buckets can be dropped off and then taken to one of the four regional drop-off locations. For more information, contact your local director of missions.

IBSA’s Disaster Relief semi truck will collect the buckets and transport them to Florida for shipment to Haiti.

Shelby currently is in Haiti as part of an incident command team enlisted by national Disaster Relief leaders. He asked Illinois Baptists to pray for him and the team as they work with Haitian Baptists and government officials to facilitate Southern Baptist volunteer efforts. Shelby will be in Haiti until March 15.

There is still a great need for medical personnel who can volunteer a week of their time to serve. Shelby said a team from Illinois is prepared to go, and can be deployed as soon as at least one doctor is available to serve with them. Interested physicians (even those who aren’t trained in Disaster Relief) should contact Assistant Disaster Relief Coordinator Jim Weickersheimer at (217) 419-1175 or jimkipp@peoplepc.com.

The Haitian government is discouraging mission teams from coming into Port-du-Prince, due to a severe lack of housing, electricity, food and water. Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams are an exception to this ban. Teams of Disaster Relief trained volunteers from Illinois likely will be mobilized beginning in May and will be needed throughout the year.

The next IBSA Disaster Relief training sessions will be held May 7-8 at Carlinville Southern Baptist Church, and May 14-15 at Streator Baptist Camp. To register for training or for more information, contact Linda Darden at (217) 391-3137 or lindadarden@IBSA.org.

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In materials sent to local associations last week, DOMs are encouraged to bring their key leaders to the training event. Jerry Day, IBSA associate executive director, said, “The goal of SALT is to train associational leaders who will in turn train church leaders in their context. SALT is there to encourage and assist them in doing their job of helping church leaders.”

The free training event, which will be held at Tabernacle Baptist Church, Decatur, begins Friday, April 16 at 6 p.m., Saturday at 8 a.m. and concludes at 12:15 p.m.

Day worked with DOMs to plan and offer leadership tracks tailored to their and their association’s needs. One of those tracks is specially designed for DOMs, and is based on Strategic Focused Leadership, one of the four core competencies developed by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) working with DOMs around the country.

“We wanted to offer something new for DOMs and felt the need to address the core competencies. To do this, we invited NAMB to partner with us to provide the training,” Day shared.  NAMB leaders will include Tom Billings, executive director, Union Baptist Association, Houston, Texas; Steve Bass, executive director, Arizona Baptist Convention and former director of missions, Tulsa, Okla.; Mark Elliot, director of missions, Eastern Nebraska Baptist Association, Omaha, Neb.; and David Smith, director of missions, Austin Baptist Association, Austin, Texas.

The track will help DOMs think and act strategically, as well as provide the tools to help them develop the skills and discipline of being a strategic leader.

Featured tracks for association leaders include: Women’s Missions, Men’s Missions, Church Planting, Renewal/Stewardship, Evangelism, Worship, Sunday School/Discipleship and Family/Student Ministries.  Association leaders will also have the opportunity to take cross-functional electives during the event’s final two sessions.

“Local associations are our strategic partners in helping churches and part of our mission is to help them so we all can work together to do our work more effectively for Christ,” stated Day.

For more information about SALT, contact Linda Darden at (217) 391-3137 or
lindadarden@IBSA.org.

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Fortunately, Don lives in my neighborhood. On snowy mornings I usually wake to the sound of Don revving up his snow blower.  By the time I can roll out of bed, peer through the darkness to see how much snow has fallen, and pull my clothes on backwards, Don often has cleared his entire driveway and sidewalk and is halfway finished with mine.

But Don’s grace doesn’t stop in my driveway.  He moves on to the next neighbor, and the next. He does the walkways as well as the driveways.  His work is precise and thorough; I think you’d have to say perfect.  He never accepts payment, and quickly waves off expressions of gratitude with a smile and an assurance that he loves helping.

After our last overnight snowstorm I awakened to see a snowfall of several inches. As my head cleared, I wondered why I hadn’t yet heard Don’s snow blower alarm clock.  Then I remembered that it was a holiday.  Most people were sleeping in, and I guessed that even Don was getting a later start.

I quickly bundled up and scurried outside with my shovel.  We don’t own a snow blower, partly because we’ve invested instead in three sons who serve the same purpose.  But two of those boys are now away at college and the third was elsewhere that weekend.  So it was left to my shovel and me to get started alone.

Just as I dug in, I heard Don’s blower rev into action.  I shoveled faster, thinking I could save him the trouble of at least one driveway this time.  But there was a lot of snow, and I was only about half finished when he plowed his way over and finished my driveway in a fraction of the time and effort I had invested.  

About that time, however, Don’s wife called to him from the doorway of their house.  He returned home, shut down the blower, and went inside.  That’s when I noticed that he had only plowed one small path from his driveway to mine.  Seizing the opportunity, I started shoveling the rest of my walk, and then the rest of his.

As I did so, Don started backing his car out.  He had an urgent errand to run for his wife, he said, but I didn’t need to shovel the walk – he’d be back later that morning to do it. My response was automatic.  “Come on, Don, you do so much for us, let me do this little bit for you!”  He smiled and waved, accepting my small gesture the same gracious way he accepts my thanks when he’s helping me.  

I finished Don’s walk and then turned to see the other neighbors’ driveways, still buried in snow.  Don would normally do that, I thought, and much quicker and better than I could.  But I think it was in some small way to honor him, that I turned and started shoveling my way down the sidewalk toward their houses.  

More than an hour later, when Don returned home, I had worked up quite a sweat, and barely finished two neighbors’ sidewalks.  But as Don started up his powerful blower again and finished the job, I felt a great satisfaction in having joined him.  It was then that I recognized the glimpse of God that I was seeing through this storm. Let me describe Don, and you drop in God’s name and see if you agree.  

Don always gets up before I can, and he’s already at work when I join him.  He has equipment, expertise and power that I don’t have and never will.  He even has desire and motivation to help others that far exceeds mine.  Don’s work on my behalf is undeserved.   It’s greater than I could ever do for myself, and he does it for me time and time again.  He doesn’t look up for gratitude, or credit.  He just keeps working for my good.

Don’s goodness, his grace invested my life, made me want to shovel back in his direction, to make my own walk look better, and eventually to shovel my neighbors’ walks as well.  What I did to clear the path to my neighbors’ driveways made it a little easier for Don to get there, but once he got there, he worked far more powerfully than I ever could.  Yet, somehow it pleased him that I joined him in that work to serve them.  

The second neighbor whose walk I shoveled came outside just as I was starting. He told me it wasn’t necessary, that he could do it himself.  I know how he felt.  It’s not always easy to receive grace from someone else.  But I told him I’d enjoy doing it, if he didn’t mind.  He didn’t yet know what I knew, that I was mainly doing it to say thank you to Don.  But I had only recently learned that the best way I could honor Don was by joining him in the work that he loves doing, the work of bringing grace into others’ lives.

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