A couple with Alabama ties was among 67 new International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries appointed at a Nov. 11 service in Lexington, Ky.
Steve Flippo, who served as youth minister of First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals and Lakeview Baptist Church of Auburn, will minister to university students in southern Africa. His wife, Cala, an Alabama native, will serve with him doing community and home outreach.
Steve Flippo earned his bachelor’s degree in youth ministry at Oklahoma Baptist University, as well as a master of divinity at Mid-America Seminary in Memphis, Tenn. Cala Flippo received her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Alabama in Florence and has also studied at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
The Flippos have four children.
At the service, IMB President Jerry Rankin said the new missionaries “are the champions of Southern Baptists,” gesturing toward the Kentucky Wildcats’ seven basketball national championship banners hanging in Rupp Arena.
“They are the ones who have been willing to focus on that purpose- to do whatever it takes to take the gospel of Christ to a lost world,” Rankin said, adding that they “are the ones God has chosen to go out at this time.”
Citing recent budget shortfalls that have led the IMB to put other appointments on hold, Rankin said, “There are 100 others who would love to be sitting where they are sitting. They’re waiting for Southern Baptists to provide the support so they may join this host and go out and proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth.”
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