The Tennessean in Nashville reports:
Lipscomb University is helping families defray the cost of adoption while filling seats at men’s basketball games.
The university recently launched Adoption Rally, a program that gives 100 percent of single-game ticket revenues to families in the process of adopting, either locally or internationally. Nine families have been helped by the program, and $17,000 has been distributed.
The theory is simple. Families get their relatives, friends, church members and neighbors to attend the game. As attendance rises, so does the size of the check the adopting couple receives.
There …

When Ben Murphy lost a schoolyard fight at age 14 — after three punches — it marked a turning point in his life. Today, Murphy, 19, from Toronto, Canada, is a student at Ohio Valley University in Vienna, W.Va., and is one of seven students there forming a boxing team, despite the challenges.

Matthew Phillips’ church family in Abilene, Texas, is mourning the 16-year-old’s death.

We shared a news story last week on the theft of air-conditioning units at a Church of Christ in Florida. There has been a happy ending to that story, as WZVN-HD in Fort Myers, Fla., reports.

Faulkner University officials announced a significant new technology initiative Wednesday that will put iPads into the hands of 1,000 traditional students this fall, among other items. The Eagle iAdvantage program will upgrade the university’s website and wireless Internet infrastructure and add more opportunities for interactive digital learning. Through the use of iPads, the university also hopes to make use of e-texts, with the ultimate goal of saving money through digital textbooks.

The same day a cash-strapped Church of Christ in Florida discovered $15,000 worth of vandalism to its property, it turned around and donated $200 to charity, a newspaper reports.

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.

Marie Gage, an 82-year-old member of the Westbury Church of Christ in Houston, was robbed and killed in her home Thursday night. Her husband, Bill, 84, a fellow Westbury member, survived the attack. The couple’s daughter Loa Glenn tells Houston-area media that the family relies on its faith and knows God has a plan. Loa’s husband, Greg Glenn, is head of school at Westbury Christian School, next to the church.

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.