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Your
Gifts Reap Benefits!
- Thanks to the giving of Beck's
Baptist Church and other Southern Baptist Churches to the
Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American
Missions:
- There were 1,658 church plants in
2000. Of these, 59 percent are African-American and
ethnic church plants. The total of 1,658 represents the
second highest number in the history of the Home Mission
Board and North American Mission Board.
- Last year, 166 church and community
ministries missionaries reported 11,739 professions of
faith. There were 7,150 volunteers who worked in literacy
missions ministries--with a weekly student enrollment of
25,663. In 2000, there were 1,144 professions of faith
made as a result of literacy missions
ministries.
- In 2000, 396 college students served
as semester missionaries. NAMB also coordinated
assignment of 1,218 student summer missionaries.
- Through student evangelism efforts,
more than 7,000 youth have been commissioned as campus
missionaries, committing to sharing their faith in word
and deed on their school campuses. Student evangelism
missionaries facilitate such work.
- 7,150 literacy mission volunteers
noted 1,144 professions of faith as a result of literacy
missions ministries.
Stories
from the Field
Among the Children -
On the second day of school last
August, Chris Watson, ministry evangelism missionary
serving in Colorado, met seven-year-old Tasha. Instead of
being at school learning her ABCs, she was at home. "The
very simple reason she wasn't in school was because her
family could not afford school supplies for her and her
brother," remembered Chris. "Only shortly before that,
the churches in our area held a back-to-school-supplies
drive. Through that ministry, we were able to get Tasha
and her brother to school."
"If it hadn't been for the generosity
of those churches that supplied school supplies I might
not have had an opportunity to share Christ with Tasha
and her family. Tasha has now been coming to our Kid's
Club and has received Christ," said Chris.
"Many people have problems that Jesus
can fix, but they don't ever think about coming to a
church to find the answers to life's problems. We need
new ways to meet people's physical needs so that we might
be able to introduce them to the One who can fix the
deeper issues," said Chris.
Among Native Americans
-
Tom Anderson, North American
missionary in Oklahoma, who works primarily with Native
American church planting, shares:
There was a young man everyone really
thought was a social outcast. He abused drugs and was
living with a woman. We started a mission in their
community. Someone gave us their names but said "You
don't really want to talk to them."
We were having a revival to get the
mission started. I visited them and they didn't show any
indication of coming to a service. They just didn't seem
interested. But, they surprised me and others when they
came. After the service, the woman came to me and said
they wanted to talk to me. I shared with them the
transforming love of the Lord, and they both accepted
Christ. They were baptized in a swimming pool. No one
really expected they would be won to the Lord-but God
does the unexpected! They are now husband and wife
(married in the mission) and are actively involved in
that church plant.
Prayer
Requests for Missionaries
- Rob and Sandra Stip have
returned to North Carolina from American Samoa. God has
been faithful to sustain Rob through some difficult
health-related moments in the past few months. He credits
his improvement to prayer. The Stips request prayer for
God's direction to their family's next "port of call."
- Ginger Smith in New Orleans,
La., requests prayer for the renovation process of the
Brantley Center and for the homeless families that make
up 40 percent of the homeless population in New Orleans.
- Chris McNairy, national
missionary in mulithousing missions, moved from Michigan
to Georgia in late December. His need for housing became
an answered prayer as someone offered him a house-sitting
opportunity while he searches for a permanent home in the
Atlanta area.
- Georges Boujakly shares that
there are five churches in the process of being planted
in Quebec. Pray that God will provide the resources
needed through partnerships and by unexpected
means.
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