Have you ever heard of the country of Bhutan? When you say it, it sounds like boo-TAHN. Look it up on a world map, and you will find it close to India, Bangladesh and Nepal – way over in the eastern part (the right side of the map). Most of the people are Buddhist, not Christian.

Many people from Bhutan have moved to the United States. About 300 live near Richmond, Va., and a lot live in Texas. Maybe there are Bhutanese (boo-TAH-nees) people living in your city, too.

Christians in the United States are going to invite some of these Bhutanese people to their houses to have Thanksgiving dinner with their families. They will eat turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. The people from Bhutan like chilies in their food, so maybe they will slip some hot chilies in the dressing!

Pray for the families that invite these Bhutanese people into their homes. Pray that they will explain that Thanksgiving is a holiday when we give thanks to God for His blessings. Pray that the people from Bhutan will want to learn more about God.

Guess what? I’m praying for you too – praying you will have a great Thanksgiving and that you will say “Thank You” to God lots of times for all the wonderful things He is doing for you.

–30–

Editor’s note: Go to http://kompray.imb.org to see photos with this story and find prayer requests from missionary kids (MKs) around the world! KOMpray: Kids on Mission Pray offers prayer requests about children around the world who are just learning about Jesus and MKs who share His love along with their parents. The goal is to encourage children of all ages to pray and trust God to answer!KOMpray@imb.org.

By Staff

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Nearly one in four people worldwide is Muslim, according to a comprehensive demographic study by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The estimate is in line with previous data from other sources like the United Nations and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The statistic should remind Southern Baptists that the world is full of people who need to hear the Gospel, a spokesman for the International Mission board said.

According to the study, 1.57 billion, or 23 percent, of the world’s estimated 6.8 billion people are Muslim. This number fits almost in the middle of the high estimate of about 26 percent and the lower end of 21 percent popularly used as ranges to describe the global Muslim population.

By comparison, the worldwide Christian population is estimated to be about 2.2 billion, or 1 in 3 people on the planet, according to the CIA Factbook.

In 2010, Pew plans to launch a comprehensive study of the Christian population and to release a more comprehensive report on Muslims. Pew plans to investigate growth rates for both religions.

More than 60 percent of the global Muslim population lives in Asia while about 20 percent is in the Middle East and North Africa. More than 300 million Muslims live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion, Pew said.

Of the total Muslim population, Pew estimated that about 90 percent are Sunni Muslims and roughly 10 percent are Shia Muslims living mainly in four countries — Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.

In the largest project of its kind to date, Pew analyzed about 1,500 sources of data from 232 countries and territories as part of a more extensive report due out next year aimed at helping people understand religion around the world.

Clyde Meador, the IMB’s executive vice president, said the report should motivate believers to reach a world that is lost without Christ.

“The thing we need to realize — for instance, the fact that there are 300 million Muslims living in countries that are not majority Muslim — is that here are these 300 million people living in places where likely they are more accessible to hearing the Gospel, and quite possibly they are more open to the Gospel in those settings,” Meador said.

“Where is there a greater accessibility to them than right here in the United States? Our responsibility is to love these people and to share with them truth as we have opportunity.”

Overseas, Southern Baptists seek to make the truth of the Gospel available among Muslims wherever they find openness. In some countries where Islam is the majority religion, such as Indonesia, believers actually have the freedom to share the Gospel wisely, Meador said.

In India, with the third largest Muslim population in the world, there is tremendous freedom to share among the Muslim population, he said, adding that the task grows more difficult in places like Pakistan and the Middle East.

“There are a lot of places where we share the love of Christ through human needs ministries of various kinds, responding to disasters or development-type projects,” Meador said. “One response that people have is, ‘Why do you do this?’ And then we respond about the love of Christ, explaining it as they respond and have increased interest.

“I think if at any point we say that there’s no use, that they’re beyond the Gospel or we shouldn’t be trying to reach them, I think we absolutely contradict Scripture if we say something like that,” Meador said.

As believers share the Gospel with Muslims worldwide, one of the most significant challenges adherents to Islam face is cultural resistance to leaving their religion.

“When a person from a strong Muslim background — by strong I don’t mean necessarily theologically strong or religiously strong, but I mean ethnically strong. When a person from that type of background comes to faith in Christ, he or she loses a lot,” Meador said.

“Of course in a few places they may lose their lives. Most often what they lose are family ties, respect of the community and in some cases their jobs. That’s the kind of thing that our folks deal with more than anything else,” he said.

“A lot of people our folks work with will come to the point of saying, ‘I really believe this is true, but I can’t commit to it. I can’t become a believer because of what it would cost me.’ But of course many people are willing to pay the cost, but that is the challenge that’s there. That’s the greatest challenge.”

Meador cited areas of South Asia, North Africa and some regions of Central Asia as places where significant numbers of Muslims are coming to faith in Christ.

One point Meador wanted to make clear to Southern Baptists is that radical, militant Islam is a small minority of the billions of Muslims worldwide. He urged sensitivity toward Muslims they may encounter in their daily lives in the United States.

“When you see that man and woman walking through the aisle at Wal-Mart and she’s covered to a large extent, and he’s got an unusually long beard or whatever, just know that behind that beard … behind that covering is a person just like you,” Meador said.

“It’s a person who has the same joys and hurts. It’s a person who has the same needs. It’s a person who has the same cares. But it’s a person who doesn’t know Jesus.”

“And that’s the difference between you and them. The difference to focus on is not the difference in the way they dress and not the difference in their accent and in their English,” he said. “The thing to focus on is here’s somebody who needs to know Jesus. And they’re not going to be open to knowing Jesus unless they sense you care about them as a person and that you treat them like a person.”

“And you treat them like a person because you know they are a person. The fact that they dress differently does not mean they’re out to get you.”

–30–

Compiled by Baptist Press staff writer Erin Roach, with reporting by Shawn Hendricks of the International Mission Board.

Baptist Press, Sept. 29, 2009: http://bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31354

By Mike Ebert

DENVER (BP)–Joe Beckler and wife Cheri are on a mission field where people are skeptical, even suspicious, of Christianity.

“Many of them have alternate lifestyles. How do you present the Gospel to people who have great disdain for the Gospel? Many people here view Christianity with great suspicion,” said Beckler, a missionary who is working to start churches in Denver.

“Their worldview is complicated.”

Sharing Christ with such people often is contingent upon building relationships. “Life is our best tool. Calling yourself a Christ-follower gets attention,” Beckler said. “It’s not uncommon here to have someone literally following you. You have to show them the way to Christ through daily life.”

The Becklers were two of the 119 missionaries and chaplains commissioned by the North American Mission Board Oct. 5 at Applewood Baptist Church in Denver. The mission field they face reflects the growing diversity of ministry by NAMB missionaries as North America’s population grows increasingly diverse and complex.

“We are a diverse culture. The world has come to our front door,” NAMB’s interim president, Richard Harris, told the missionaries. “And that’s the reason we need missionaries and chaplains going out to the front lines and representing us.”

The group who were commissioned in Denver reflect the diversity of the mission field — and those who are going to that field, including:

– Prasad and Vandana Aghamkar, who minister in the south Asian Indian and Nepali communities of Louisville, Ky.

– Ken and Thurleen Bain, who work among Native Americans in Arizona.

– Chuy and Maria Avila, who are reaching Hispanics in Laredo, Texas.

– Jali and Sundus Dawood, who minister to the Arabic community in Dallas.

– Harold and Barbara Lunsford, who work among oilfield workers in Wyoming.

– Pedro and Dionisia Escobar, who reach out to Latinos in New Mexico.

All of these missionaries work through state convention partners to most effectively link national and local strategy and maximize efficient use of Southern Baptist resources.

Vivek Arora, as a young man living in India, had a dream that he would find a book someday that would answer all his questions, and that he would be instrumental in bringing people together in a way that they could live in harmony. He discovered that book years later when he came to faith in Christ while reading a Hindi translation of the Bible. As for people living in harmony, he believes the Great Commission is God’s plan for that.

Today, Vivek and his wife Manisha are church planting missionaries in Boston, ministering in the international community that has come from around the world to one of America’s great cities.

“We are reaching out to international students and professionals,” Vivek said. “Many come here from their countries for two or three years. If we can reach them for Christ, the impact will be greatly multiplied when they return to their home countries.”

Harris told the missionaries and chaplains that, in being sent to challenging mission fields, much is expected of them.

“Be evangelistic,” Harris said. “We’re not looking for you to go out there and help us shuffle around church members. We want you to go out there and take the Gospel to people, let the Holy Spirit work in their lives and transform them into new creatures in Christ.”

Mark Edlund, executive director of the Colorado Baptist General Convention who served in Asia as a Southern Baptist missionary for 17 years, thanked NAMB for its partnership in Colorado missions.

“Welcome to this mission field we call Colorado,” Edlund said. “I am so thankful to NAMB for what they do for Colorado.”

Edlund said NAMB provides at least partial funding for the work of 49 missions personnel in Colorado and for another 86 self-funded Mission Service Corps missionaries commissioned by NAMB who serve in the state.

Others participating in the commissioning service were Applewood’s senior pastor, Calvin Wittman; NAMB trustee chairman Tim Patterson; Woman’s Missionary Union Executive Director Wanda Lee; and Bob Ryan, director of missions for Denver’s Mile High Baptist Association.

Harris encouraged the missionaries not to be distracted by things that might derail them from ministry. He specifically addressed the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force which is considering, among other things, recommending changes in how NAMB functions.

“If there’s one thing that Southern Baptists love, it’s their missionaries and their chaplains,” Harris said. “You do what God has called you to do and leave the rest to Him. Southern Baptists will take care of you.”

Harris ended with a challenge: “Go out of here tonight with a new zeal and a renewed belief that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. You’re going to meet some tough cookies. You’re going to meet some people who are mixed up in their theology, their mindset and their worldview. Don’t let it deter you, hinder you or discourage you. Present the truth. Present the Gospel and depend on the Holy Spirit to work through your life.”

–30–

Mike Ebert is communications team leader at the North American Mission Board.

Baptist Press, Oct. 14, 2009: http://bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31457

By Staff

ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)–Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old girl who fled her family’s home after converting from Islam to Christianity, has been ordered to return to Ohio where she will be in the custody of a local children’s services agency.

In July, Bary sought refuge in Orlando after saying that her father threatened her life. In August, Florida’s Department of Children and Families took emergency protective custody of her and placed her with foster parents.

Bary claims to have been a Christian for four years, a development she attempted to hide from her devout Muslim parents. She reportedly hid a copy of the Bible in their home and secretly attended Christian meetings.

In an affidavit filed in August, Bary said in 2007 her father Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, found a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren hidden in her bedroom. He had a serious talk with her about retaining the Islamic bloodline in their family, she said, adding that she didn’t admit her conversion.

After receiving e-mails and phone calls from the family’s mosque, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, urging him to “deal with this matter immediately,” Bary’s father asked her if she had converted to Christianity.

“In a fit of anger that I had never seen before in my life, he picked up my laptop, waved it over my head as if to strike me with it and said, ‘If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me! You are no longer my daughter,’” Bary said in the affidavit, according to the Florida Baptist Witness newspaper.

“I continued to remain silent and then he said to me even more angry than before, ‘I will kill you! Tell me the truth!” Bary said.

In July, Bary’s mother found another Christian book she had hidden in her bedroom and in tears told her daughter she would have to be sent back to Sri Lanka “to be dealt with,” the affidavit said.

Bary’s father, meanwhile, claims his daughter has been brainwashed by the Orlando co-pastors she contacted shortly after arriving in town. She reportedly became acquainted with Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church through a prayer group on Facebook. They gave her temporary shelter before she was transferred to a foster home, the Witness said.

“This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” Mohamed Bary told an Orlando television station.

The petition filed on the daughter’s behalf in Florida said she faced imminent harm not only from her family but from the extreme radical Muslim community in her hometown of Columbus.

Bary’s attorney, a well-known pro-family lawyer in Florida, filed an Investigation and Intelligence Memorandum outlining four primary concerns about the Noor Center. The leader of the mosque previously was an imam for another area mosque at the same time the largest known al-Qaida cell in the U.S. since 9/11 was operating out of the mosque, the memorandum said, according to the Witness.

Also, a former Islamic scholar associated with the Noor Center has been photographed with men designated by the U.S. government as terrorist leaders, and he has appeared on television inciting violence against Jews.

The Noor Center, the memorandum said, has hosted a number of extremist speakers who have made statements in support of violence and terrorism, including one who has ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

And the center has been directly tied to an ongoing nationwide investigation into Somali-American youths who have trained in camps operated by a terror organization linked to al-Qaida, the memorandum said.

Even so, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found in September no credible evidence that Bary was endangered by her Muslim parents. FDLE interviewed her parents at their home while two officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations were present.

Mohamed Bary told investigators he didn’t threaten his daughter but he did pick up the laptop and start to throw it before changing his mind due to the computer’s cost, the Witness reported. He also said he intends to raise his daughter as a Muslim, and as an adult she will be free to worship as she pleases.

Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Virginia, was raised in the Columbus mosque out of which the Bary family’s mosque was started. He converted to Christianity at age 16 and was disowned by his father, and now he serves as an apologist for the Christian faith.

Caner told the Witness that the FDLE report finding no evidence of a threat is an example of political correctness that could endanger Bary’s life.

“Her blood, which is almost certain to be shed if returned, is on their hands,” Caner told the newspaper before the Oct. 13 announcement. “The police and judicial branch in Florida were her last hope.”

Caner explained that Bary brings dishonor on her Muslim family by converting to Christianity, and death for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in the most sacred Muslim texts. He also criticized the FDLE for allowing CAIR representatives to be present during the interview of the Bary family.

In a compromise, Bary now will be turned over to Ohio foster care after her immigration records are properly filed and she receives assurance that she can continue classes with an online school system in Florida, the Witness said. A judge has set an Oct. 23 hearing to address details of the transfer of custody.

–30–

Compiled by Baptist Press staff writer Erin Roach.

South Asia News EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read follow-up stories about Rifqa Bary’s current legal status and hear her Christian testimony on audio in her own words at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/topic/religion-belief/fathima-rifqa-bary-PECLB000004937.topic.

Baptist Press, Oct. 15, 2009: http://bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31467

By Mark Kelly

SHREVEPORT, La. (BP)–In a day of unprecedented global missions opportunityand great harvest, Southern Baptists will be forced to draw down their overseas missions force in 2010 by as many as 600 missionaries, International Mission Board trustees were told Nov. 10.

The trustees, meeting in Shreveport, La., adopted a $317.6 million budget for 2010 and learned that $7.5 million will be needed from contingency reserves to balance the budget. That unprecedented step leaves the organization with only six weeks of available reserves in case of major unexpected expenses. The funds will be needed in 2010 because projected revenue for the year is lower than projected expenses. The 2008 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering came in $9 million short of the previous year’s receipts and $29 million short of its goal of $170 million.

Because of that shortfall, IMB was forced to suspend two short-term missionary programs, send fewer long-term workers and significantly reduce all aspects of its operating expenses. One of those short-term programs, the Masters Program, is being reinstated in a format that asks new personnel to provide part of their own support package. IMB will provide support in areas such as transportation, training and housing. The Masters Program offers those age 50 and older the opportunity to serve two to three years overseas.

The drawdown in the missionary force during 2010 will be accomplished through natural attrition, completion of service, retirements and limiting appointments, not by recalling any personnel, the trustees were told.

Because economic realities are forcing IMB to retrench its efforts, the organization must deliberately plan to have fewer missionaries — with implications for a lost world that should distress Southern Baptist church members, said Gordon Fort, IMB vice president of global strategy.

“When doors are swinging open all over the world, when our work force is finding great harvest in some of the most difficult places in the world, we are drawing our force down from 5,600 to 5,000. It just shouldn’t be,” Fort told trustees. When Southern Baptists collected $11.1 billion in offering plates in 2008, according to the denomination’s Annual Church Profile, and 2.77 percent “finally arrives to support the vision of reaching a lost
world, and when [Southern Baptists] are structuring ourselves in a way that guarantees we will fail in our mission, it just shouldn’t be.” (See Editor’s Note below.)

The IMB’s 2010 budget anticipates $100 million in Cooperative Program funding (a decrease of $7.6 million from 2009) and calls for $175 million in Lottie Moon Christmas Offering receipts, said David Steverson, IMB chief financial officer. The operating portion of the 2010 budget is $23.2 million less than 2009, and the total budget represents a decrease of $2.2 million. The plan includes $29 million for capital needs that will not be spent unless the Lottie Moon offering surpasses its $146 million operating budget goal.

The overseas portion of the new budget accounts for 85.3 percent of the total, while the portion for stateside administration and promotion amounts to 14.7 percent. As part of the belt tightening, benefits have been reduced for both missionaries and staff.

A statistical snapshot of work conducted in 2008 by IMB missionaries and their Baptist partners shows God continues to work in dramatic ways to push back spiritual darkness and advance His Kingdom, said Scott Holste, associate vice president for global strategy.

Among the report’s highlights:

– Church-planting strategies were implemented among 1,159 people groups, 886 of which are unreached. Of the 93 people groups newly engaged in 2008, 77 were unreached. Of the 208 urban centers in which church-planting strategies were implemented in 2008, 164 are unreached.

– The number of churches worldwide increased globally to 204,192 — more than twice the 95,383 reported in 2004. Church membership grew more than 390,000 to 10.7 million — an increase of about 3.4 million since 2004. Although baptisms were down worldwide by 59,956 and the number of new churches was down 2,230, the numbers still represented one person being baptized about every minute and a new church every 22 minutes.

– While the number of individuals enrolled in residential leadership training increased by 2,607 to a total of 24,453 — an 11.9 percent annual growth rate — the number of partner home missionaries decreased by 186 (6.5 percent) and the number of partner international missionaries dropped by 128 (6.1 percent). Those declines reflect the same pressure of economically forced strategic retreat IMB is experiencing, Holste said.

Without exception, however, the Gospel is eagerly received when taken to people who have never heard it, Fort said.

Mark Sauter, who along with his wife Vesta, leads work with deaf peoples worldwide for IMB, told trustees about sharing the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ with a man whose culture believes that death imprisons a person in a dark cell for eternity. For the deaf, being in darkness would mean being forever unable to use sign language to communicate with others, Sauter said.

After the man heard Sauter’s witness about how he could spend eternity in a place of heavenly light, in the presence of a God who loves him — instead of being eternally imprisoned in darkness — the man said, “You know, that’s the best news anyone has ever told me. I don’t know why you Americans call it ‘Good News.’ You should call it ‘Best News.’”

Sauter’s story reflects the essence of what Southern Baptist international missions is about, Fort told trustees. Drawing back from the mission, he said, imperils not just organizational advance but the eternal destiny of
human souls.

“Those who live in great darkness are seeing the Light,” Fort said. “But you know, the best news that we have is Good News, but Good News is only good when it’s received in time.”

The next trustee meeting will be Jan. 18-19 in Richmond, Va. The next missionary appointment service will be held in conjunction with a March 2010 trustee meeting in Memphis, Tenn.

–30–

Mark Kelly, an assistant editor with Baptist Press, wrote this story for the International Mission Board. EDITOR’S NOTE: Southern Baptists’ total tithes, offerings and special gifts of $11.1 billion included such items as Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, world hunger and state missions offerings. Total undesignated receipts amounted to $9,013,807,646. Of that amount, churches retained 94 percent and contributed $548,205,099 through the Cooperative Program, of which $204,385,593 was forwarded by the states to support national causes. The CP Allocation Budget apportions 50 percent to the IMB, 22.79 to the North American Mission Board, 22.16 to theological education, 3.40 percent to facilitating ministries and 1.65 percent to the Ethics &
Religious Liberty Commission. The IMB also received $141 million through the2008 Lottie Moon offering.

By Don Graham

SHREVEPORT, La. (BP)–Despite the rocky economy and a red-line budget, International Mission Board trustees took a step of faith Nov. 10 when they celebrated the appointment of 55 new missionaries at Summer Grove Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., in conjunction with the Louisiana Baptist Convention annual meeting.

Earlier this year, 25 of the 55 appointees were told they would be delayed going to the mission field until 2010 because there wasn’t enough money to send them. The global recession, decreased giving through the Cooperative Program and a $29 million shortfall in the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering left the IMB with a limited budget, forcing trustees to restrict new missionary appointments.

But during the summer, Southern Baptists responded to the IMB’s financial restrictions with a grassroots effort to raise additional support to send as many of the delayed missionary candidates as possible before the end of 2009. IMB leadership determined the extra gifts would be enough to send 25 of the 69 career candidates on hold, including Tim and Audrey Shepard.*

The Shepards had already quit their jobs, sold their house, said goodbye to family and friends — even given away the family dog –when they got the news their appointment was being delayed until 2010, potentially leaving them in limbo for six months or more. But now they won’t have to wait and are already preparing for their assignment in Asia.

The Shepards previously served 15 years with the IMB but left the field in 2004 so their daughter could attend high school in the United States.

“We’re thrilled to be missionaries again,” Audrey Shepard said. “We have seen how it is for missionaries that are sent without the support that Southern Baptist missionaries have, and we know that in this economy they must be really struggling.

“We don’t have that burden as Southern Baptists…. We can be on the field, drawing people into the kingdom, and not think about where our next paycheck is coming from, and that’s a tremendous blessing,” Mrs. Shepard said. “We have faith in Southern Baptists that they will never let their missionaries go in need; that they will always support missions, and they’ve proven that throughout history.”

Zoe Parker,* who also was among the 25 appointees who would have been delayed, is now getting ready to go to South Asia, where she’ll serve as a church planter.

Born to an abusive, alcoholic father, Parker became a Christian at age 9, only to turn her back on God at 16 when her boyfriend committed suicide. Parker says she was angry at God because He didn’t seem to answer her prayers to heal her family, and her boyfriend’s death was the last straw. She eventually married and became a social worker, trying “to fix an unfixable world.” She remembers sitting on urine-soaked sofas and fending off roaches while visiting clients’ homes — experiences she now recognizes as training ground for her work overseas.

Then at 34, her life was rocked again by death when her husband, Carl, died suddenly of a heart attack. But this time, instead of driving her away, the death brought Parker back into a relationship with her Savior. Fifteen years later, she is answering God’s call to share Christ’s love overseas.

“God has used everything with a purpose for getting me to this point,” Parker said. “I’m very excited that God is allowing me to go [to the field] earlier than expected…. I feel very humbled and very grateful.

“How do you say thank you in a situation like this? … It’s an honor and a privilege to serve the Lord my God and to go on this adventure with Him,” Parker added. “It’s not something that I take lightly or for granted.”

BEST OF THE BEST

IMB trustee chairman Paul Chitwood praised missionaries like Parker and the Shepards for their commitment and passion, calling them the “best of the best,” in light of the IMB limiting the number of new appointments to the most strategic assignments.

“Their testimonies are clear. Their commitment is unquestionable. Their identity as Southern Baptists is without apology. And their call — God’s call on their lives — is so evident,” Chitwood said.

But he cautioned that the extra gifts making it possible for many of the new missionaries to go would have been given in vain without Southern Baptists’ continued support to keep the missionaries on the field.

“In the midst of this unprecedented opportunity all over the world, we find ourselves … paring back our missionary force because of a lack of funding,” Chitwood said. “As excited as we are to see these 55 new missionaries appointed, and as grateful as we are to Louisiana Baptists for [helping to] make it possible, my prayer is that you will be challenged to make a greater commitment to pray and — during this Lottie Moon Christmas Offering season — to give.”

‘SECOND MILE’ OFFERING

As a sign of their commitment to support the new missionaries, Louisiana Baptists present for the appointment service took up their own special offering of nearly $8,500. David Hankins, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, called it a “second mile” offering, in reference to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

“Louisiana Baptists love missions, and we’re going to make a demonstration of that tonight,” Hankins said, addressing the many church pastors in the audience. “If someone compels you to go one mile, then you go a second mile. The first mile is out of duty, the second mile is out of love. The first mile is what you do under ordinary conditions; the second mile is what you do under difficult conditions.

“One of the most important things you can do pastoring people is to go to your church and say, ‘This year we don’t care how hard the economy is, how strong the recession is, we’re going to do more for international missions through the Lottie Moon offering than we’ve ever done before,” Hankins added. “This is what is demanded by difficult times, and we’re going to go the second mile.”

DEAF AND KOREAN APPOINTEES

Gordon Fort, IMB vice president of global strategy, pointed out the special significance of having Korean Americans and Deaf Americans among the appointees. He lauded the more than 200 Korean Americans now serving with the IMB, as well as the growing number of Deaf missionaries. There are more than 30 IMB missionaries, a third of whom are Deaf, who use sign languages to share the Gospel.

“We became convinced that a person who is, for instance, a Deaf Chinese, has more in common with a person who is a Deaf Russian than they do with a hearing person in their own population,” Fort said. “We began to understand that there had been an artificial barrier that was preventing many of the Deaf people of our world not only from hearing the Gospel but from crossing the boundary into the church.”

Fort spoke about meeting a young man, both deaf and blind, who responded to God’s call to missionary service.

“He had to understand what was being said through the interpretation of the fingers of the lady whose hands he held,” Fort said. “With tears streaming down his face the young man said to me through his interpreter, ‘Could God use someone like me as a missionary around the world?’

“Friends, I felt so ashamed …… because there are people that have far greater capacity and ability than that young man has, who today are unwilling to go,” Fort said. “We as Southern Baptists claim to be a missionary people — and we are. But we only have [5,500] missionaries engaging 95 percent of the world’s population, and if we as Southern Baptists would simply send 1 percent of the 10 million active members … we would have 100,000 missionaries. While a young man like that is willing to go and should go, there are many of us that might consider the possibility that we are the ones to take this Gospel into some of these last remaining strongholds around the world.”

RANKIN’S CHALLENGE

IMB President Jerry Rankin concluded the appointment service with a challenge for the appointees and some words of advice. He urged the new missionaries to fully let go of the life they leave behind in the United States and to be wary of distractions once they reach the field.

“It’s so easy to get diverted, to get caught up in our ministry and doing good things that we lose the focus on why we are there,” Rankin said. “Satan knows how vulnerable we are to busyness…. It’s so easy to determine your own agenda and miss God’s priority for what He wants you to do.

“Don’t compromise in longing for a more comfortable lifestyle, the amenities that you enjoyed in America,” Rankin said. “Don’t always be entertaining thoughts that if it doesn’t work out ‘I can always return to the States and ministry there’ — no, place your life on the altar. Never forget the reason
you’re going is that God has called you to plant your life among people who are lost. Tell them about Jesus, preach the Word and proclaim redemption until all have heard.”

Rankin also reminded the missionaries that their effectiveness as Christ’s witnesses is dependent solely on His power.

“We have no business going and thinking we can convince Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others of the truth of the Gospel … except for His power to draw all men to Himself because He was lifted up on the cross, died and rose again.

“We’re not sending you out simply because of your qualifications and your education … certainly that’s important, in fact, essential,” Rankin added. “But it’s not your ability — it’s your availability to the power of Jesus Christ…. Never forget He will demonstrate His power as you faithfully bear
witness according to His purpose.”

Rankin also asked the audience to consider God’s calling on their lives.

“God may want you right here in northwest Louisiana — or wherever you’re from,” Rankin said. “But you can never be sure you’re in the center of God’s will if you’ve never come to the place of saying, ‘Wherever He leads I’ll go.’ There is no greater thrill than sharing Jesus with someone who has never heard.”

*Name changed. Don Graham is a writer for IMB.