Maxine Timmerman, a pioneering missionary to the French-speaking world, died Feb. 6 at a nursing home in Searcy, Ark. A memorial service is planned for Feb. 11. Timmerman and her husband, Samuel “S.F.” Timmerman, moved to Belgium in 1948 to serve as the first missionaries there for Churches of Christ. The couple spent 16 years in the European nation.

In the midst of responding to one natural disaster, church members in the Philippines face a new one. I received an e-mail from Salvador Cariaga, a longtime Filipino missionary, about a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck his home country Feb. 6. Cariaga oversees a ministry that provides goats, farming techniques and micro-loans to Filipinos in need. The quake’s epicenter was in the central Negros Oriental province, where there is a large concentration of Churches of Christ

The Somoa News reports on Fetuao Fa’asavalu, a high school volleyball standout who earned a scholarship to play at Western Texas College in Snyder, Texas (between Lubbock and Abilene). Fa’asavalu is a member of the Nu’uuli Church of Christ in Pago Pago, American Samoa, where her father, Luaao Soli, serves as minister. American Samoa is a U.S. territory in the South Pacific, about 2,500 miles south of Hawaii. The athlete’s brother, Junior Luaao, also is her coach.

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake. I would love to get your thoughts on ministry in Haiti. What should be the goal of churches working in this Caribbean nation? What does a good outcome look like? Do you suffer from “compassion fatigue” when you think about Haiti? In short, is there hope for this country’s future?

New on The Christian Chronicle’s website, read my report on a Church of Christ in Nairobi, Kenya, seeking to serve in an increasingly Muslim neighborhood — and see our online-exclusive photo gallery. The report is from a Sunday visit to Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighborhood during my recent Kenya reporting trip. The Nairobi Church of Christ Eastleigh and the Kenya Christian Industrial Training Institute share a compound in Eastleigh, where immigrants from Somalia are buying up much of the real estate.

TV station WFMZ in Philadelphia reports: A police sting operation has led to the arrest of a man accused of stealing from a church during Sunday services.

Online now is a web-exclusive story about Tawee Donchai, a Christian in Thailand. Donchai, a member of Cheung Doi Church of Christ in Chiang Mai and a scientist researching HIV, grew up in the village of Chiang Rai, an impoverished community that has one of the highest rates of child prostitution in the country.

It grieves me to report the deaths of David C. Bell and his mother, Sue E. Bell, in a Jan. 7 car crash near Hornbeak in west Tennessee. David Bell, who lived in Forsythe, Ga., was a longtime member and song leader for my home congregation — the Thomaston Road Church of Christ in Macon, Ga. His mother was a church member in Union City, Tenn., near the site of the wreck.

Florida College, a 500-student college associated with Churches of Christ, is mourning the death of one of its sophomores — 19-year-old Jolee Tarrant. The college plans a memorial service for Tarrant at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, on its campus in Temple Terrace, Fla., a suburb of Tampa. Tarrant died in a Jan. 4 wreck in Zephyrhills, about 21 miles northeast of Temple Terrace.

The parents of Karen Ferguson have established a scholarship fund at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., in honor of their daughter and grandson, killed in a brutal act of violence. We reported on the Ferguson family after the Oct. 10, 2011, attack at their home in Gulfport, Miss. Karen Ferguson, 44, and son Cole, 21, were shot to death by an intruder. The suspect in the double-homicide — Paul Ellis Buckman — died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his apartment about two miles away, Gulfport police Capt. Craig Petersen said.