Monthly Archives: November 2017

Remembering our missionaries

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The offering at the Kentucky WMU Annual Meeting each year is designated for Kentucky WMU Ministries to Missionaries. These ministries include a $50 Christmas gift to all IMB missionaries from Kentucky currently serving as well as emeritus IMB missionaries.  We also provide online subscriptions to the Western Recorder, gifts for Missionary Kids attending college in Kentucky, a missionary parents fellowship, and travel expense for college bound MKs returning from the field to attend the MK Re-entry Retreat.

At the Kentucky Baptist Convention a few days ago, one of our emeritus missionaries came to our display and thanked Kentucky WMU for the gift each year. “It’s not the amount,” he said. “It’s that you remember us!”

This week I signed checks for 100 missionaries on the field and 62 emeritus missionaries.  Yes, we remember!

We remember and are grateful for the years of service of our emeritus missionaries.  We remember those that are on the field, who may feel isolated and lonely.  We remember, we pray, and we give.  And YOU are a part of remembering our missionaries through your offering at Annual Meeting as well personal notes, emails, packages, gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and through prayer.

This week we hosted our annual Volunteer Luncheon as a way of saying thank you to the volunteers who work in our office counting out envelopes and prayer guides, filling orders for week of prayer materials, and countless other tasks.  Those who came made handmade Christmas cards for us to send to emeritus IMB missionaries along with the Christmas check.  (Those on the field receive a letter by email with a message from our president and each of our staff. Checks are then sent to their bank account in the USA.)

Paul said when he wrote: “Don’t forget to pray for us, that God will open doors for telling the mystery of Christ” (Col. 4:3a MSG).

You can contribute to Kentucky WMU Ministries to Missionaries throughout the year. Please visit our web site for more information and online giving.

Learning from missions history

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I am taking the course “Missional Living: A History of Missions and How It Impacts Missional Living Today” through the Christian Women’s Leadership Center. The videos and reading are reminders of the passion and sacrifice of those who advanced the gospel to unreached people in their day. Missions work today is built upon the legacy of these missionaries and missions leaders.

While I have been familiar with names like William Carey, Ann and Adoniram Judson, Lottie Moon, and Hudson Taylor, the course has introduced me to them again and I have learned things about them that inspire me. I have also been introduced to missions heroes previously unknown to me, but who had great influence in the spread of the gospel and the development of missions.

George Liele was an African American who took the gospel to Jamaica in 1782, long before the Judson’s left for Burma in 1812, making him America’s first international missionary. Liele was also significant to Baptist history in America as founder of America’s first Black Baptist church in Savannah. While life circumstances played a big part in his going to Jamaica to escape being enslaved again after the Revolutionary War, it was his faithfulness in Jamaica in spite of persecution that inspired me. I have also been reminded of the amazing faith displayed by people who were enslaved in receiving the gospel from the very people who enslaved them. I am grateful for Paul’s words in Scripture to slaves to encourage them to be faithful to the Lord in their slavery. Liele was faithful, preaching to slaves in Jamaica, establishing a church and a school, being jailed and persecuted in Jamaica, yet continuing his ministry to proclaim the gospel. While legal slavery has been abolished in most of the world, illegal slavery continues through sex trafficking and other forms of human exploitation. I pray for bold voices who have been freed through Christ to proclaim the gospel to others still enslaved. I pray that those who have never known slavery will yet be voices for the abolishment of all forms of human exploitation.

Another missions hero that was new to me was John Mott who founded the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. As a college student, a sermon and conversation on seeking the Kingdom of God changed his life. He was one of 100 young men who, after hearing the preaching of D.L. Moody, took the Princeton Pledge, “We hold ourselves willing and desirous to do the Lord’s work wherever He may call us, even if it be in the foreign lands.” While Mott never served as a missionary, he was influential in hundreds of students going out as missionaries through the publication of the book The Evangelization of the World in this Generation in 1900. In the future, as I attend IMB missionary appointment services and see the young adults who are appointed, I will be reminded of John Mott. God continues to call out young adults, fresh out of school, starting their families, to take the gospel to the unreached people of the world. The dream of evangelizing the world in this generation lives on!

Let me encourage you to take courses through the Christian Women’s Leadership Center. The Leadership Certificate program includes nine courses and each one will inspire and challenge you. The courses are not difficult and the time spent in reading and learning will expand your leadership skills and knowledge. The courses that I have taken thus far have all been timely and helpful. Whether you consider yourself a leader or not, you will find that the courses have great application wherever you serve.

Missional Living is a lifestyle. We can and should learn from those who went before us as we continue to share the gospel every day.  Join the movement!

Retirement Is Coming

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It’s official…

Here’s the backstory. One of the most difficult decisions that I have ever made has been the decision to retire. Like many others, it began to be on my mind after I turned 60, and more so at 62. But when my husband retired and asked me to consider retiring, the decision moved from conjecture to a decision I had to make.

A few weeks ago, at the close of what we call October Board Meeting, I shared the following with the Kentucky WMU Executive Board.

I have asked Susan to allow me to close out this meeting. When I came to Kentucky WMU 18  years ago, I came with the support of Lee Bolton who promised me when he proposed that if the opportunity came for me to do WMU work as a career, he would go with me. And so he did when the opportunity came to join the SC WMU staff in 1995 and again in 1999 when we came to Kentucky.

Now it is time for me to honor his request for me to retire. While you would not know it to look at him, his health has not been good this year and he is ready for me to slow down. This has been an agonizing decision for me for many reasons.

I talked with Susan and Marcia, chair of the personnel committee, when I had my annual review and shared with them that I was wrestling with what to do and that Lee’s health was driving the bus for me. 

I will be 65 in August. I propose to retire not earlier than September 1, 2018 but not later than September 1, 2019.  I am committed to a smooth transition and will stay as needed to work with the next executive director. I watched Wanda Lee stay on and work with Sandy Wisdom-Martin for about 6 weeks to take her to meetings, spend time with her to explain things, and eventually slipped out and left Sandy on her own. They modeled a positive transition and I want to follow her example.

I love you all, love Kentucky WMU and the KBC. I have been blessed to serve with you and am also committed to work hard to my very last day. I will not coast this year. I have a long list of things to be done before I retire, including writing up helps for the next person who has this position.

Thank you for your love and support. Kentucky WMU will forever be in my heart – and, Cheryl, Kentucky WMU has already been named beneficiary of a legacy gift.

I asked the Board not to put this news on Facebook to allow me time to make some calls that I needed to make. I appreciate the Board for honoring my request.  After the meeting, I talked with Dr. Chitwood, and made the decision that the Western Recorder would break the story.

A Search Committee will be named by Susan Bryant. Please pray for Susan as she names the committee, and for the next leader of Kentucky WMU.

WMU, chocolate cake, and gospel conversations

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Doug Williams, Missions Strategist for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, caught me in the hall and said with excitement, “Let me show you this picture!”  He proceeded to pull out his phone to show me a picture he snapped in Salt Lake City.  After I heard the story, I wanted the picture!  Here’s what Doug said when he sent me the picture:

Here is the picture of the Kerns’s home pantry. I was in their home this week, as I took a group of KBC church leaders to meet planters and hear the vision of reaching SLC with the gospel. We sat around their table eating chocolate cake and listening to the testimony of a couple who they won to Jesus, coming out of Mormonism. Because WMU featured the Kerns family in September and it mentioned that Stacie loves to bake, they continue to receive baking goods. Oh, did I mention that the chocolate cake we ate was from a mix sent to them by someone from WMU?! Thank the Lord for mission education through WMU! Who would have thought that chocolate cake could be used for gospel conversations!!

Doug told me that these baked goods had come from Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors, Children in Action, and other WMU missions groups. If you sent items to the Kerns, thank you!  To all who prayed for the Kerns and shared their story with your missions group, thank you.

Teaching children about a missionary, then leading them to pack a box of baking items and send them to a missionary, might not seem significant to some.  But we know that when you do this, it has an impact on the missionary AND on the children who learned and responded.

Yes, WMU teaches missions and provides chocolate cake for gospel conversations.