Ansley Baptist pulls together to meet others’ needs

When Barbara Hodge learned about Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union’s (WMU) Teddy Bear Ministry, she thought, “That’s something we can do.”

Hodge, the wife of Pastor Loyd Hodge of Ansley Baptist Church, Troy, is always on the lookout for missions projects in which a small congregation can feasibly participate. The average Sunday attendance at Ansley Baptist is around 40. “Somebody said there was a need, and the church wanted to do it,” she said.

The Teddy Bear Ministry is an ongoing effort that partners the state WMU with associational and church WMU groups to provide the comfort of teddy bears to children in crisis situations. Such situations may include an automobile accident or the loss of a home to fire. According to Linda Adams of Salem-Troy Baptist Association, Ansley collected 16 bears for the cause.

But the Teddy Bear Ministry is far from the only project in which the church has participated this past year. “We try to do something every month,” said Hodge, Ansley’s Women on Mission leader. “We’re a small church but everybody pulls together.” Other recent missions projects include providing Christmas gifts for a local family who could not otherwise afford it, collecting baby booties for a local women’s center and providing the labor and funds to run water connections to the home of an ailing church member. “Anything we hear of out there to do, we like to be a part of it,” she said.