Alabama Baptists impacted by IMB appointment service

Eighty-seven new missionaries were dispatched to the missions field by about 2,000 Alabama Baptists during the International Mission Board (IMB) appointment service in Huntsville Nov. 15.
   
Held in conjunction with the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Huntsville, the appointment service pulled at the heartstrings of many of those attending the event. And despite a tornado watch in the area, “a respectable crowd” turned out to show its support for Southern Baptists’ latest crop of missionaries, said Reggie Quimby.
   
“If you didn’t come in here with a love for missions, you would certainly leave being impacted by missions,” said Quimby, director of the office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions with the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
   
Quimby, who served as an IMB missionary prior to his position with SBOM, helped organize the appointment service, which was an 18-month planning process. 
   
“The testimonies were the most impactful testimonies that I’ve heard,” he said.
   
Each missionary appointee shared — literally in a matter of seconds — information about a call to missions or his or her salvation experience.
   
“As a former missionary with the IMB, it is always personal hearing the testimonies of these [missionaries],” Quimby said. “It makes me want to go again.”
   
Jay Wolf, pastor of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, in Montgomery Baptist Association described the appointees’ testimonies as powerful — “a missions mosaic of different callings from different backgrounds.” 
   
“They will be woven into a missions blanket that will cover the world,” Wolf said. “Their hearts are on fire to change history.” 
   
Rosalie Hunt, Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union president and former IMB missionary, said, “It’s amazing how the sense of challenge and vision and hope remains the same, even though it is an entirely different era. It is the same thing we felt 45 years ago.”
   
Hunt noted that the service was an impetus for Alabama Baptists. “This is real,” she said. “We’re personally involved.”
   
And no one knows that better than Laurelle Stoudenmire. An IMB trustee from Thomasville Baptist Church in Clarke Baptist Association, Stoudenmire and her husband, Allen, are headed to a three-year missions appointment in Guatemala with the IMB Masters Program. The appointment service was Stoudenmire’s last as a board member. “It was a wonderful service,” she said. “It had a special meaning for us.”
   
Leon Westerhouse, an evangelist from Huffman Baptist Church in Birmingham Baptist Association, said he couldn’t hold back the tears as he heard the missionaries speak. “I will never be the same,” Westerhouse said.
   
As the missionaries recited carefully chosen phrases,  Alabama Baptists captured a sense of who the missionaries are and how they got to this point.
   
Many mentioned missions trips as having an influence on their decision. Others mentioned spiritual mentors in their life or a pastor’s message as the impetus for their missionary calling. Still others described a lifelong process beginning with Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action.
   
A farmer named Joe said he never dreamed his physical work of planting and harvesting would prepare him for missions work. But that’s exactly what it did as he and his wife will be working as church planters among a farming people group.
   
The stories varied as much as the backgrounds of the new missionaries. There were men and women who served in the business community, as contractors, engineers and stay-at-home moms. One was even leaving the police force to go to the missions field. 
   
IMB President Jerry Rankin said, “There are not many pastors or seminary graduates (in this group). They are ordinary people willing to offer their lives.
   
“God touched their heart for a lost world,” Rankin said.
   
Gordon Fort, IMB vice president for overseas operations, noted that the new missionaries are joining the more than 5,000 missionaries who are ministering to more than 1,100 people groups around the world. 
   
Pointing out that there is still much work to do, Fort said that in 2004, the gospel was proclaimed for the first time to 137 people groups. Also in 2004, a Baptist church was planted for the first time for 14 people groups.
   
Rankin said these numbers are “but a drop in the bucket.”
   
“How many multitudes will perish until everyone has an opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel?” he asked. “How can they know unless we are willing to go?”
   
Presenting a charge to the missionary appointees, Rankin said, “God has called you to the nations to declare that they can be free in Jesus Christ from the sin and despair, the bondage to which they are enslaved.”
   
He reminded the crowd, “As we send out these missionaries to faithful obedience to God’s call, it is really a call to which God has called all of us — to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth.” 
   
Preaching from Joshua 1:7–8, Rankin noted how to ensure success on the journey.
   
First, “we need to acknowledge the providence of God,” he said. “Now you are going to give of your life. You are going to stay. You’ve burned your bridges behind you. God would say to consecrate yourself to Him.
   
“The power of the gospel of Jesus Christ will prevail wherever you go,” Rankin said. “The light always prevails over darkness. As you go to share the light to the darkness of the world, no man will stand against you. You will prevail.”
   
Second, accept the promises of God, and adhere to the plan of God, he said. 
   
“God has a plan for your life, your people group, for reaching a lost world,” Rankin said. “Be strong and courageous.
   
“You can’t always know where God is leading,” he said. “Meditate on His Word. Trust Him to give you wisdom and understanding. Adhere to the Word of God.”
   
Third, experience the presence of God, Rankin said, noting the importance of spending time with God.
   
“God is the one that has called you. He goes with you. … He will give you the strength to confront the challenges that you face.”
   
Tom Hatley, chairman of the IMB board of trustees, said, “There’s a storm approaching … but the storm we are sending out today is more powerful than this one. It is the next great wave of God’s missionaries who are going to be pushing back the darkness.”
   
The appointment service served as the Tuesday evening session of the state convention annual meeting and followed a missions fair showcasing the work of missionaries around the world.
   
Rankin congratulated and thanked Alabama Baptists on their commitment to missions. “We are so grateful for not only your support of missions but your involvement in various partnerships around the world,” he said. “We are grateful for your heart.”