GREEN FAMILY GIVES $10 MILLION TO ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY

TULSA, Okla. -- The excitement continues to grow on the campus of Oral Roberts University. On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Dr. Mark Rutland was chosen as ORU's third president by the ORU Board of Trustees. In a closing meeting on Thursday, it was announced that the Green family will donate $10 million for renovations on the ORU campus this summer.
"This gift will help to improve the quality of education for students at the new ORU," said Board Chair Mart Green. "Our family is excited to continue partnering with ORU financially to ensure this great university continues to provide an excellent, whole-person education."
This additional gift will build on the $10.4 million of tremendous renovations that have already been realized on the campus from last summer as a result of the initial gift of the Green family. Some of the renovations from last summer included renovations and remodeling in the library; restoration of the porches of the Learning Resources Center and Graduate Center; a new gazebo; additional walkways and sitting areas; new wiring to the dormitories; new microfridge units in every dorm room; total renovation of Zoppelt Auditorium; new lobby furniture in many of the dormitories; and new carpet, furniture, game tables and flat panel televisions in the lobby of the Towers dormitories. Projects intended for this summer are being determined.
In other Board news, two members have been added to the ORU Board of Reference. The two additions are Stephen Strang, founder of Charisma magazine and founder and president of Strang Communications Company, and Terry Law, founder and president of World Compassion.
Oral Roberts University is an interdenominational Christian liberal arts university located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1963 by evangelist Oral Roberts, ORU serves students from throughout the U.S. and more than 60 countries, representing 40 denominations. Offering 65 undergraduate majors, 14 master's programs and two doctoral degrees, plus NCAA Division I athletics, ORU is preparing its students spiritually, mentally, and physically to go into every person's world. For more information about ORU, visit www.oru.edu.

WYCLIFFE BUILDING AIRSTRIPS TO RESCUE MISSIONARIES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

ORLANDO, FLORIDA -- U.S.-based Bible translation group Wycliffe Associates (WA) is raising funds and providing volunteers to restore and reopen airstrips in Papua New Guinea to evacuate missionaries for medical reasons should the need arise

Most travel in the Pacific nation is done by air as its mountainous terrain and thick jungles make travel difficult and time-consuming, said WA President and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Smith. "Time is of the essence in the case of a life-threatening situation. It’s hard for us in America to fathom the difficulty and the panic one faces when isolated in a jungle with an emergency," he added.

There are up to 1,000 volunteers, Bible translators, support personnel, and children in Papua New Guinea at any given moment. Medical emergencies are inevitable, and air transport is their only "safety net," the WA official explained.In addition to medical emergencies, Smith said the airstrips and planes that often fly in and out of the country are crucial for the work of Bible translation.Last year, 1,693 volunteers served in 35 countries as part of WA’s worldwide Bible translation teams, he said.

In 2009, the organization plans to send over 2,000 volunteers to 41 different countries for several projects, ranging from renovating facilities, constructing roads and airstrips, to teaching at a 'Vacation Bible School'.

DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ADMINISTRATOR ACCUSED OF EMBEZZLING $165,OOO

FORT WORTH - Dallas Theological Seminary claims someone took $165,000 and Channel 8 has learned the school is accusing a former administrator.
There's a complicated money trail to follow in all of this.
At the Tarrant county courthouse, a judge has now frozen money in the former administrator's bank accounts.
It was Rodney Bryant's job to protect Dallas Theological Seminary financially.
He served as the school's Chief Financial Officer for nearly a decade.
But this week, in court papers, the seminary asked a judge for help, claiming it was Bryant, the school needed protection from.
The accused embezzler's wife, Lisa Bryant, denies her husband was involved in any wrongdoing.
"My husband is innocent," she said.
Lisa Bryant is talking about allegations Dallas Theological Seminary is making against her husband, Rodney Bryant.
"Dallas Theological Seminary has found itself in the unpleasant position of needing to take appropriate legal action... to protect the seminary's interests and assets," said Mark Yarborough of the Dallas Theological Seminary.
A seminary spokesman could say little publicly but according to this lawsuit, filed by the seminary, Rodney Bryant signed off on $165,000 in payments to two companies in 2007 and 2008.
The paperwork, on the surface, was in order, complete with bills and letters engineering and legal services.
Once a seminary employee started checking, however, it became obvious the companies were not what they appeared to be. One, for instance, an environmental legal services firm, has an address that traced back to a UPS store.
The seminary is claiming they were just shell companies that were there for him to embezzle the money.
"My husband embezzled no money," said Lisa Bryant.
This week a judge signed orders freezing money in bank accounts in the name of both Rodney Bryant and the companies named in the lawsuit. Bryant's wife maintains her husband's innocence.
"I know him," she said.
Dallas Theological seminary terminated Bryant in October.
In court documents, the seminary says the decision was unrelated to the embezzlement claims.
A hearing in this case will be held in two weeks.

MILLARD FULLER CO- FOUNDER OF HABITAT FOR HUMANITY DIES

ATLANTA - Millard Fuller, the millionaire entrepreneur who gave it all away to help found the Christian house-building charity Habitat for Humanity, died Tuesday. He was 74.
Fuller died about 3 a.m. after being taken to a hospital emergency room, according to his wife, Linda. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Linda Fuller, in a telephone interview from the couple's home in Americus, said her husband was complaining of chest pains, headache and difficulty swallowing.
The couple was to have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August with a 100-house "blitz build" across the globe, she said.
"We'll probably go ahead with the 'blitz build.' Millard would not want people to mourn his death," she said. "He would be more interested in having people put on a tool belt and build a house for people in need."
One of Habitat's highest-profile volunteers, former President Jimmy Carter, called Fuller "one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.
"He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing," Carter said in a statement. "As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership."
After running Habitat for Humanity with his wife for nearly three decades, Fuller lost control of the charity in a conflict with its board. When ousted in January 2005, he and his wife vowed to continue working on housing the poor and started The Fuller Center for Housing to raise money for Habitat affiliates.
The son of a widower farmer in the cotton-mill town of Lanett, Ala., Fuller earned his first profit at age 6, selling a pig. While studying law at the University of Alabama, he formed a direct-marketing company with Morris Dees — later founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center — focusing on selling cookbooks and candy to high school chapters of the Future Homemakers of America. That business would make them millionaires before they were 30.
When Fuller's capitalist drive threatened to kill his marriage, Fuller and his wife, who wed in college, decided to sell everything and devote themselves to the Christian values they grew up with.
"I gave away about $1 million," Fuller said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. "I wasn't a multimillionaire; I was a poor millionaire."
The couple's search for a mission led them to Koinonia, an interracial agricultural collective outside Americus in south Georgia. It was there with Koinonia founder Clarence Jordan that the Fullers developed the concept of building no-interest housing for the poor — an idea that eventually grew into Habitat for Humanity.
Founded in 1976, Habitat's first headquarters was a tiny gray frame house on Americus' Church Street, which doubled as Fuller's law office. For the first 14 years, Fuller's salary was just $15,000; his wife worked 10 years for free.
Habitat grew from those humble beginnings to a worldwide network that has built more than 300,000 houses, providing shelter to more than 1.5 million people. Preaching the "theology of the hammer," Fuller built an army of volunteers that included former U.S. presidents, other world leaders and Hollywood celebrities.
"The Bible says, 'The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,'" he told the AP in 2004. "That covers just about everything. God's money is just in the pockets of people, and we've got to extract it."
People receiving homes from the charity are required to work on their own houses, investing what the Fullers called "sweat equity" in their own futures.
Fuller's works won him numerous accolades, including a 1996 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. For nearly three decades, he was the public face of Habitat, traveling the world to hammer nails and press bricks from local clay alongside some of the Earth's poorest.
But a scandal that had smoldered for years flared anew in 2004 to sully Fuller's legacy.
Habitat's international board moved to oust Fuller from his position of chief executive officer after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a female staff member in 2003. The move came despite the board's conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the charge.
However, the allegations of inappropriate behavior mirrored complaints in 1990 from female staffers and volunteers that led to Fuller's yearlong exile from the organization's headquarters.
Fuller acknowledged he had kissed and hugged the women who made the 1990 complaints, but argued they had misinterpreted his actions. But he categorically denied the later charge, telling the AP in 2004 that "there's not even the tiniest element of truth in it."
President Carter had to intervene in both of those instances to prevent the board from ousting Fuller.
In 2004, Fuller reached a compromise that allowed him to stay on in the largely ceremonial role of "founder and president." However, the Fullers backed out of an agreement not to discuss the situation publicly, and the board voted in January 2005 to oust Fuller and his wife.
Months later, the Fullers and their supporters formed The Fuller Center for Housing, a fundraising group for charitable home-building efforts. The new group was originally called Building Habitat, but that name was quickly dropped after Habitat for Humanity sued over Fuller's use of the word "Habitat," arguing it was a trademark infringement and could interfere with Habitat's business and fundraising.
Fuller attributed his ouster to disagreements with the board over whether to slow the charity's growth. He argued Habitat was becoming more bureaucracy than mission.
"If we lose the 'movement mentality' we will not go out of existence, but we will stagnate and become just 'another nonprofit' doing good work across the county and around the world," he wrote in a letter to the committee that searched for his successor as CEO.
Throughout the scandal, Fuller insisted that he did not want to do anything that would compromise Habitat's mission.
"I've always felt that this is God's work," he said. "And it's always been bigger than me, from day one."
Fuller is survived by his wife and four children. Funeral arrangements are pending.