Exhibits area

Always a highlight for messengers

It’s always a highlight for convention attendees, and this year’s exhibition hall was no exception. Reasons vary for its popularity but the general consensus among visitors and workers who mingle among the 38 booths is the same. It’s a great opportunity to network, visit and find out what’s going on in the world of Alabama Baptists.

For exhibitors such as the Alabama Association of Baptist Secretaries, the state convention gives their organization an opportunity to recruit new members as well as urge pastors who drop by their booth to encourage their secretaries to join if they are not members.

Decked out in matching red blazers and blue skirts, the officers in attendance at the booth had an easy time of explaining their 2001 annual meeting’s theme as curious onlookers stopped to admire the miniature lighthouses adorning their tabletop.

‘Let your light shine’ from Matthew 5:16 is our theme,” explained Janie McBay, secretary at Round Island Baptist Church, Athens, and also 2nd vice president of the association.

Possibly the youngest worker at the convention was 5-year-old Mary Brandon, great-granddaughter of Sara Nixon who was staffing the exhibit for the Alabama Baptist Retirement Centers. Nixon is the center manager for the Tuscaloosa facility and is a member of Circlewood Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa.

“God bless you,” the young representative said as she handed passers-by  miniature phone directories.

For Dale Huff, director of LeaderCare and church administration for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, the three-day convention gives him a unique opportunity to learn about — as well as check up on — any ministers in the state who may be in need of his department’s services. He works with churches that may be having problems as well as with ministers who may be having difficulties such as the loss of a job.

“The primary benefit to me is that I am able to visit and share with as many ministers in a day and a half as I would ordinarily do in a month,” he said.

Huff said there are approximately 5,000 Baptist ministers in the state, pointing out that this number incorporates all ministers on a church’s staff such as ministers of music, education, etc.

The couple attending the International Mission Board’s (IMB) booth, Mary and Errol Simmons, enjoyed something akin to a reunion of their own. The Simmons, on furlough from Hungary, were reunited with friends delighted to see them.

They recently moved to Birmingham and are teaching a class at Samford University on biblical perspectives.

They were asked by IMB to staff the booth and gladly accepted. Unbeknownst to IMB, the Simmonses had never constructed a exhibit display before and found themselves at a total loss as to how to put it together.

“Our idea of modern technology is a blackboard,” Mary quipped.

The Simmonses were reunited with Elmore Association’s director of missions, Jim Jackson and his wife, Betty, who had housed them on a previous furlough.

“We always find the exhibition hall a beneficial place to visit because we are able to get a hands-on perspective of what’s going on as opposed to just a verbal report,” Jackson said.

“We get to visit with friends and we are able to see what Alabama Baptists are doing up close and personal,” Jackson added.

“And the candy’s not bad either,” he said jokingly.