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Benevolence is often a way for the church to engage with the local community, however, churches often struggle with how to do so most effectively. This paper provides a description of five church models from Baptist congregations in Central Texas. This paper will summarize each church’s approach and synthesize the approaches to form recommendations for congregational social work, including roles of the social worker in the congregation and suggestions for how churches might work with social workers to enhance and better articulate policies and practices around benevolence ministries. A highlight of the literature surrounding congregational community ministries will also be included. This article aims to advance the role of social workers in congregations and giving tangible tools for both social work and congregational engagement with benevolence funds.

A half-space x 2 > 0 is occupied by a two-component statistically uniform random composite with specified volume fractions and two-point correlation. It is bonded to a uniform half-space x 2 < 0 from which a plane wave is incident. The problem requires the specification of the properties of three media: those of the two constituents of the composite and those of the homogeneous half-space. The complexity of the problem is minimized by considering a model acoustic-wave problem in which the two media comprising the composite have the same modulus but different densities. The homogeneous half-space can have any chosen modulus and density. An approximate formulation based on a stochastic variational principle is formulated and solved explicitly in the particular case of an exponentially decaying correlation function, generalizing a previous solution in which the homogeneous medium had the same modulus as the composite. The main novelty of the present work is that the mean energy fluxes in the composite and reflected from the boundary are calculated, demonstrating explicitly the large backscatter associated with the mean-zero component of the reflected signal and the systematic transfer of energy from the decaying mean transmitted waves into the mean-zero disturbance as distance from the boundary increases.

Black, Groce, and Harmon seek to shed light on a group of people often forgotten in the literature surrounding care of older adults. Informal caregivers have often been the backbone of the elder ca...

Summary This Delaware Basin case history describes a bradenhead cementing method that improves zonal isolation and top of cement (TOC). Common solutions for cementing depleted formations include stage tools, low-density slurries, and reverse circulation. For this bradenhead method, cement is pumped through the wellhead valves and down the annulus to a target loss zone. Field data, laboratory data, and the engineering model support the improvement bradenhead cementing provided across depleted formations. The depleted Brushy Canyon Formation serves as an injection interval for a two-stage bradenhead cement job. This approach isolates formations below the Brushy Canyon with a conventional first stage, while achieving TOC with the second stage pumped down the annulus. Fracture gradients of the injection interval and casing shoe constrain the cement design. To achieve adequate cement placement, the design phase includes the pressure calculations required to start flow and injection for the bradenhead stage. Reactive spacers are utilized to prevent annulus fluid level drop in extreme cases. A benchmarked cement bond log (CBL) quantifies the results and validates this unconventional cementing method. More than 50 two-stage bradenhead cement jobs were executed with a TOC success rate of 100% in intermediate and production hole applications. CBL data obtained after cementing the intermediate casing confirm the two-stage bradenhead as a placement method. In areas constrained by casing shoe pressures, CBL data identified potential areas of shallow injection. These data resulted in a modification of the fluids pumped. Use of these re-engineered fluids reduced injection initiation pressures and improved cement bonding across salt and anhydrite formations. Cementing costs were reduced by eliminating stage tools, annular casing packers, and low-density cement slurries. Pumping the bradenhead job offline (off the rig’s critical path) reduces cost further. These features support bradenhead cementing as an effective solution for wellbore sections with a potential injection zone. The regulatory requirement to place cement above depleted formations resulted in many innovative cementing methods. Stage tools, low-density slurries, and reverse circulation are attempts to avoid formation breakdown, but these methods increase cost and have limited reliability and integrity. Bradenhead cementing takes advantage of the depleted interval to aid in cement placement. Although counterintuitive, bradenhead cementing has proved to be a cost-effective solution that improves zonal isolation and eliminates integrity risks associated with stage tool failures.

Longleaf pine forests are economically and culturally valued ecosystems in the southeastern United States. Efforts to restore the longleaf pine ecosystem have risen dramatically over the past three decades. Longleaf pine restoration generally involves varying degrees of forest harvesting and frequent applications of prescribed fire. Thus, it is important to understand their interactions with the atmosphere on a large scale. In this study, we analyzed 14 parameters of aerosols, gasses, and energy from three areas with longleaf pine restoration (named Bladen in eastern NC, Escambia in southern AL and northern FL, and Kisatchie in central LA, USA) from 2000 to 2021 using multiple satellites. Averaged across the areas, the monthly aerosol optical depth at 483.5 nm was about 0.022, and the monthly aerosol single scattering albedo was 0.97. Black carbon column mass density averaged 7.46 × 10−7 kg cm−2 across these areas, but Kisatchie had a higher monthly dust column mass density (2.35 × 10−4 kg cm−2) than Bladen or Escambia. The monthly total column ozone and CO concentration averaged about 285 DU and 135 ppbv across the three areas. Monthly SO2 column mass density was significantly higher in Bladen (4.42 × 10−6 kg cm−2) than in Escambia and Kisatchie. The monthly surface albedo in Escambia (0.116) was significantly lower than in the other areas. The monthly total cloud area fraction averaged about 0.456 across the three areas. Sensible and latent heat net flux and Bowen ratios significantly differed among the three areas. Bowen ratio and total cloud area fraction were not significantly correlated. Net shortwave of the forest surface averaged about 182.62 W m−2 across the three areas. The monthly net longwave was much lower in Bladen (−90.46 W m−2) than in Escambia and Kisatchie. These results provide the baseline information on the spatial and temporal patterns of interactions between longleaf pine forests under restoration and the atmosphere and can be incorporated into models of climate change.