Participants at the 122nd annual meeting of national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) elected a new president, listened to Sudan’s ambassador, honored Kaye Miller’s five years as WMU president and heard missions challenges June 13–14 in Orlando, Fla.
Debby Akerman of Ocean View Baptist Church, Myrtle Beach, S.C., was unanimously elected WMU president to succeed Miller. A native of Massachusetts, she has led GAs in her church since 1982 and served many years as WMU director. She also served as WMU president for the Baptist Convention of New England 1993–1997. In 2007, she received the Dellanna West O’Brien Award for Women’s Leadership Development.
Akerman, a nurse for 30 years, and her husband, Brad, share a ministry leading Bible studies at Street Reach, a mission in Myrtle Beach that ministers to the homeless and people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction.
In her last address as WMU president to the 600 registrants present, Miller followed the program theme, “Unhindered,” based on Hebrews 12:1, speaking of facing challenges in God’s strength despite hindrances.
Miller, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ark., said while growing up as a missionary kid in Thailand, she learned many things try to hinder the work of missionaries on the field.
She recalled how her childhood Thai friend Sombon suddenly quit attending school. “She just vanished,” Miller said. Years later, Miller saw her in Bangkok.
“Because there was no money in her family, she had been sold into prostitution. … Her father, an opiate addict, sold her services from the time she was about 11 years old,” Miller explained. “My heart broke, partly because I felt guilty for not being able to find her earlier and for all that she had been through. She looked old and used. She was just a shell of who she used to be. … I never saw her again.”
In November, Miller received a letter from Sombon.
“After I saw her, something had stirred in her soul and she knew she had to get out of the life she was living. A Southern Baptist missionary woman who felt called to minister to these trapped women often came by her club to talk with her … to share about Jesus,” Miller said, noting that missionary felt called to missions as a GA.
“Sombon escaped from the life of prostitution to a life in Jesus Christ and was able to make a life for herself and her family. She was redeemed in Christ. … Sombon is now teaching young girls that they, too, can be all they can be through Jesus Christ.”
Human exploitation “is not just happening on the other side of the world,” Miller said. “Right where you live, young girls are being trafficked for prostitution or some form of exploitation.”
Miller encouraged the WMU annual meeting participants to open their eyes and hearts, learn about the issues and seek out ways to help.
Noting Wanda Lee has completed 10 years as WMU executive director, Miller told the assembly WMU is renaming its Joy Fund, which meets pressing current needs and secures the organization’s financial future through the WMU Foundation, the Wanda Lee Joy Fund.
In his first public address after being elected president of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee, Frank Page challenged participants at the WMU annual meeting to guard against complacency. Citing Luke 13:1–9, he shared the parable of the fig tree and said the sin of uselessness is paralyzing Southern Baptist churches.
While God has a plan, Satan also has a plan — to move Christians from their initial excitement over salvation to becoming useless, like the fig tree that did not bear fruit, to being a negative influence in the church, he said.
“It is a satanic strategy to destroy the Great Commission work in the church,” Page asserted. “But the reality of grace is that Jesus is interceding on our behalf … to give us another chance, another opportunity to do what He called us to do in the first place.”
Mary Lou Serratt, of Amarillo, Texas, received the 2010 Dellanna West O’Brien Award. Serratt has served in church, associational and state WMU leadership roles, including serving as vice president of Texas WMU and a volunteer multiethnic consultant.
Joy Cranford, a member of First Baptist Church, Fort Mill, S.C., received the Martha Myers GA Alumna of Distinction Award, given annually to recognize a GA alumna who influences the lives of others for Christ and serves as a positive role model for girls.
Cranford has served as a GA leader and director in her church, GA director for York Baptist Association and GA consultant for South Carolina WMU.
Angela Kim, of Houston, and Lee reported growth in missions education among Korean Baptist churches in the United States. In 2007, national WMU and Texas WMU partnered for a special, three-year project to provide Korean-English bilingual missions curriculum for preschoolers and children. With these materials, the Korean leadership team, comprised of Korean pastors’ wives across the United States and led by Kim, began missions education in more than 10 percent of Korean churches in the first year of publishing.
“WMU has long embraced the importance of equipping and involving every church of every language and ethnic group in the Great Commission,” Lee said.
More stories from the WMU event will be in the July 1 issue of The Alabama Baptist. (Editor’s Network)
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