TBM’s seven member strike team left Texas early Sunday morning May 11 for Bangkok, Thailand .  The team will stage in Bangkok with two other US disaster relief ministry teams, hoping to enter Myanmar before the end of the week. Pray for entry, divine appointments, safety and favor. Once the teams have entered Myanmar, they will assess the needs of the people. These assessments will help make a difference for the people of Burma to receive aid and the good news of Christ. The cyclone, which packed 200-kilometer-per-hour winds, hit the central coastal region of Myanmar, “inundating the Irrawaddy Delta with tidal waves and floodwaters and smashing much of the fragile infrastructure of Rangoon, the country's largest city and commercial hub,” a report out of Thailand stated. It is estimated that more than 100,000 persons may have died from the disaster. The agricultural sector, the mainstay of the Myanmar economy, was largely wiped out, with rice paddies, the main crop, mostly destroyed. The rich alluvial plains of the Irrawaddy, which bore the brunt of the cyclone, account for at least 60 per cent of the country’s rice crop, Myanmar’s staple food. Pray for the people affected by this devastating cyclone and the oppression they suffer from the brutal military junta government of Myanmar.

Texas Baptist Men have been asked to respond to the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar. The invitation came from Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA through the Woodlands Fellowship of Texas.

The strike team will assess needs so when international aid is allowed in Myanmar, everything will be in place for an immediate response.

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NAMB (North American Mission Board) reported assessments are ongoing at this time in multiple states (MD-DE, NJ, MO, OK, GA, ME) after the recent tornados and flooding. Maine has requested an ICS team, which is scheduled to arrive onsite today.

TBM will be notified if and when a multi-state response is requested by any of these states and we will be kept updated as the situation develops.

Assessments are also ongoing in China due to the major earthquake this weekend.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Cameron Byler, a pioneer in national disaster relief and men’s missions within the Southern Baptist Convention, died Apr. 28 in San Antonio after a brief illness. He would have turned 80 May 11.

A memorial service will be conducted at 1 p.m. May 3 at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, where he had lived since moving from Tennessee last July. James Porch, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, will officiate.