After meeting Charlotte Wyckoff, Alabama team leader for Baptist Nursing Fellowship and president-elect for national BNF, at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega in July 2021, I had a desire to get more BNF members in the area of Mobile and Baldwin counties and southern Alabama. BNF is a compassion ministry of Woman’s Missionary Union. Knowing there were colleges and universities with medical training opportunities in the area and many medical facilities in that part of the state, I began praying about how to get this accomplished.
What followed was my husband, Bobby, who had been a church planter and revitalizer for 30 years, serving most of those years as interim or director of international ministries for Mobile Baptist Association, being diagnosed with a type of aggressive Stage 4 lymphoma in 2022 that took both of us down a new path where I became a caregiver and was sometimes asked to do some medical processes I, a counselor by profession, never expected to perform. In the process, I met many Christian medical personnel who were helpful and encouraging during this unexpected journey that has been miraculous in outcome.
In April 2023 at the Mobile Baptist Association WMU annual celebration, I concluded my three-year tenure as the associational director of WMU and announced the beginnings of reaching out to get more members involved in BNF. In October, I began working with Wyckoff to get a date for a first meeting. Alan Floyd, the missions-minded pastor of Cottage Hill Baptist Church in Mobile, was very supportive and helpful.
First meeting
With holidays and meetings already on schedule, the date was set for Feb. 20 at Cottage Hill Baptist. Twenty people attended the first meeting, including Alabama WMU missions and ministry consultant Pat Ingram and Wyckoff, who presented the format and opportunities for missions through BNF.
With five who were already members and others who have joined after that night, there are 18 who are now members or participating in the group, with missions endeavors in Mobile and Baldwin counties. More are expected to join. Within six weeks, those present at the first meeting helped bring items for blessing bags for 43 graduates of nursing at the University of Mobile. Eight people had met at Cottage Hill to put together the bags in early April that were presented on April 25.
The group is excited to meet, reach more members and discuss ideas of how to reach out to other nurses in training. They are also discussing other ideas for missions.
Only God can do these things in His time, and all praise goes to Him.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Mary Morton. For more information about Baptist Nursing Fellowship, click here.
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