Barbara Kay Edwards has a burden for women of all ages, backgrounds and cultures.
Her day job as ministry assistant for Elmore Baptist Association keeps her busy, and as women’s ministry director for the association and president of the board for the Elmore County Pregnancy Center, she is no stranger to meeting women at a point of need. It is her strong conviction that women who know Christ provide pathways to the gospel through sharing their stories.
There is “nothing like people coming alongside us and meeting us where we are, to bring us face to face with Jesus,” she said.
Edwards was this year’s recipient of the Missions Volunteer of the Year Award. Scotty Goldman, director of the office of global missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, presented the award Nov. 15 during the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham. The annual recognition highlights someone who exemplifies the Acts 1:8 strategy for missions involvement, having served in associational, state, North American and international missions. It’s easy to see why Edwards was chosen.
Open doors
God has opened door after door of opportunity for Edwards to walk through over the years, as Edwards offered her story up in prayer first and then in writing.
While on a missions trip, Edwards first experienced an “arrested heart” for women in Nicaragua. The women she saw “had one baby on the hip, one hanging on the leg
and one in the belly.”
That wasn’t a problem. To the contrary, Edwards says the women were participating fully in their culture and were happy to a point, but there was no joy. They had very little and were doing their best to survive. Edwards describes feeling their need and their desperation to the point that she prayed, “God send someone to minister to these women.” Edwards recalls that after she had prayed this, she heard in her spirit God say, “I sent you.”
She realized almost immediately the answer to her prayer would be a return trip, even though she didn’t know exactly how that would happen.
Edwards also began to write. Having journaled for years, her writing began to focus on memories of her own conversion at the age of 15. Using those memories as a catalyst, she began writing her first devotional book, “Well Worn Paths.”
She worked with her friend, Jenny Rhodes, who Edwards knew as a physical education coach but who also happened to be an editor, to get the book into print, thanks in part to speaking engagements that helped pay for the printing. The book’s title mirrors the name of Edwards’ ministry, Well Worn Paths, which was founded ten years ago and became a nonprofit in 2021. A second devotional book, “Well Worn Paths II” came later.
Another friend in ministry led her to Crossing Cultures International. Ray McKenzie, director of missions for Elmore Baptist Association, volunteers with CCI, and Edwards partners with him to raise money to train pastors.
Encouraging literacy
A particularly poignant moment during her missions experiences occurred when Edwards witnessed a child reading the Bible to his mother, revealing yet another need in Central America.
“The women were hungry for the word of God in a culture that didn’t allow education for them,” she said.
In the Lord’s provision for these women, a school in Guatemala is allowing literacy classes for women in the area, and a five-year commitment has been established to continue teaching those classes. April 1, 2023, will end the first year, and a special ceremony is already in the works allowing the women to receive certificates for their hard work and accomplishments.
Recently, doors have been opening in north and westward directions for Edwards. Recently, Elmore Baptist Association brought pastor Cody Schwegel of Liberty Church in Craig, Alaska, to Alabama as part of the partnership between Alabama Baptists and churches in Alaska. After meeting Edwards and learning of the Well Worn Paths ministry, Schwegel asked if she would consider bringing a team of ladies to Alaska. On Sept. 1, Edwards was able to take a team of eight women into a remote area and minister in a women’s revival.
While the hunger for the Word in Central America was overwhelming, Edwards describes the attitudes encountered in Alaska as matching the climate: in many ways cold and hard. But one thing she has learned along the way in women’s ministry is the value of being intentional to love others as Christ loves the church.
For example, small gifts for the women to whom they will be ministering demonstrate this intentionality. For the women of Alaska, it was bracelets and bags, refrigerator magnets and nail files with Scriptures on them. Edwards says the impact this makes is unmistakable because it says, “We came with you in mind and were thinking about you beforehand because God is thinking about you.”
A couple of years ago, pastor Tony Scarborough of Shoal Creek Baptist Church, where Edwards is a member, worked with her to develop “Daily On My Path,” a four-week study on the Book of Ephesians. Using this study, they taught the women to be “intentional about reading the Scriptures, noting that the first three chapters of Ephesians tell ‘who and what’ about Jesus. The next three tell who we are in Christ, and how to come boldly before the throne, praying God’s word back to Him.”
Need for encouragement
The trip to Alaska was followed almost immediately by a church planters’ wives retreat in Phoenix, Arizona. This time the opportunity came through Jesse Powell, a missionary with the North American Mission Board who serves as a church planting catalyst. Formerly of Alabama himself, he now works with new church planters in the Phoenix area and saw a need for the wives of the pastors there.
This group of women was impacted by the opportunity to have a getaway of sorts and focus on fellowship with others while being refreshed in God’s word. As the women studied and prayed together, their prayer focused on a hedge of protection around themselves and their families.
When asked if the work in Phoenix and Alaska are like what she experienced in Central America, Edwards was quick to respond with a resounding, “No. Not at all. God has three different demographics with these groups of women, and our prayer is that in each case, their roots grow deep and they understand how far and wide God’s love is. That looks different in each place.”
What is the same is the Lord’s love for each of the women, she said. A prayer Edwards teaches each group is this: “Lord, lavish Your love on me and teach me how to love others and how to walk in the path You have prepared for me.”
Learn more about Edwards’ ministry and books at wellwornpaths.org.
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