Religion

By PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

The Rev. John Hunter and his wife, Suzanne, founders of Community Hope School, will attend a benefit dinner at Traditions Restaurant at 6205 S. Broadway Ave. from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight. The couple are members of Tyler's Bethel Bible Church and recently returned from Africa where they minister to AIDS orphans near the Kalahari Desert.

Hunter is also a master potter and supports much of the school's outreach to about 70 impoverished African children through the sale of his fine art pottery. Mrs. Hunter oversees the school's curriculum and an additional feeding program that provides food "to hundreds of additional people daily."

The situation in Windhoek, Namibia, where the school is located, couldn't be worse without a shooting war, the couple said.

"The matrix of the physical trauma of punishing poverty, failure and hopelessness, compounded by the deaths of caregivers due to AIDS in the home, is creating a generation of lost children," said Mrs. Hunter in a 2007 interview with the Tyler Paper. "We reach for the children and tell them they don't have to live in poverty. We show them how to read and write, bathe them, give them medicines and feed them. We tell them Jesus loves them and give hope to take back into their community. That's why we call our school Community Hope School."

Mike Johnson, a Tyler CPA, said the "Teachers For Africa" program run from the school is "far reaching." Johnson serves on the program's board.

The impact the Hunters are having on a single child is far reaching because all the relationships a child has are also affected, he said. "Soon, families come with the children and the growth is exponential because entire families are affected."

An all-church potluck free meal for Community Hope School and the Hunters will be held by Bethel Bible Church, 17121 Highway 69 South at noon on Sunday. The "Empty Bowls" event is free, but bowls can be kept for a suggested donation of $30.

Call Ellie Jensen at 903-581-1688 to RSVP for the Traditions Benefit Dinner on Thursday. Please bring a covered dish -- meat, vegetable or desert for the potluck on Sunday, according to information from the church.

For more information about Community Hope School and Teachers For Africa, visit www.teachersforafrica.com

Master potter the Rev. John Hunter of Namibia's Community Hope School, show students pottery technique during a pottery class at the school in 2008. He and his wife Suzanne, from Tyler's Bethel Bible Church, are in Tyler speaking and fundraising through Sunday.
(Courtesy photo)