International Mission Board missionaries and staff mingled with participants, as close to 2,000 people filled tables at the IMB dinner Monday (June 8). The event was held in conjunction with the SBC annual meeting in Orlando. The theme of the evening resonated across screens: Together, We Sustain Gospel Presence.
IMB leaders used the event to highlight a “day in the life” video series featuring missionaries Cal and Erin Hiebsch, who live and serve in Poland. Cal is active with the digital engagement strategies team, using innovative ways to spread the gospel in Poland and beyond. Cal and Erin’s days start like most people’s — coffee, time with their young sons and prayer.
Read more stories from the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.
What does he pray for when he heads out for ministry each day? “That’s an easy one,” Cal said. “It’s gospel fruit.”
Videos showed a typical morning, afternoon and evening for Cal and his family. Cal often meets with ministry partners to interview people in public areas for a podcast he produces and broadcasts through social media. These interactions open opportunities to share the gospel and find those who have spiritual questions or are open to knowing more.
Cal emphasized how continued generosity allows his family to stay and build a long-term presence among the lost in Poland.
“God can absolutely use a day. He can absolutely use a week. But we wanted to see what God could do with years or even a lifetime,” Cal said.
IMB President Paul Chitwood expressed the importance of sending and sustaining missionaries around the world — a message that was evident in all IMB’s messaging at the annual meeting.
“I want you to understand something critical tonight,” Chitwood said. “The missionary you just saw walking those streets wasn’t just there for a weekend. That family lives there. They have learned the language; they are navigating the culture and building the trust required to share the greatest news in history. And they are there because you sent them. They are there because you sustain them.”
Developing local leaders
Todd Lafferty, IMB executive vice president, highlighted the importance of developing local leaders to take ownership and responsibility for evangelism and disciple-making.
“That kind of vision takes time,” Lafferty said. “It takes trust. And it takes the kind of sustained partnership that doesn’t waver when the work is slow or the results are invisible or the years start adding up.”
He continued, turning attention to the participants watching and listening from the tables.
“You are that kind of partner,” he said. “The fact that you are in this room tonight says something about you and what you believe. You are the kind of Southern Baptist who shows up — for your church, for the Great Commission and for the men and women on the other side of the world who are there because you made it possible.”
Jacob Boss, IMB vice president of global engagement, also connected the videos to the commitment of missionaries to invest in local believers to multiply the advance of the gospel. The gospel flows, he explained, not by missionaries doing the work forever, but by staying long enough to earn trust, raise up leaders and plant churches.
“I can tell you firsthand: the places where the gospel is taking deepest root are not the places where we showed up the most dramatically,” Boss said. “They are the places where the gospel is heralded through our determination to stay until all hear the name of Jesus.”
He continued, “The vision is clear in Revelation 7:9 — every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne. And every time a local believer in Poland receives the gospel and shares it with a neighbor, that vision moves closer to its fulfillment. That’s what you are a part of. Not as observers at a distance, but as partners in the truest sense of the word.”
Chitwood took to the stage to conclude the event, speaking transparently about what it takes to keep a missionary family on the field. Among other support, generous gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Cooperative Program cover missionary salaries and living expenses, education for children, healthcare, language acquisition, housing, visas, security and research tools.
“I have had the privilege of leading this organization for seven years now,” Chitwood said. “And I can tell you that what keeps me going — what I come back to when the work is hard and the challenges are real — is rooms like this one. People like you.”
He closed, “Southern Baptists have decided that the nations matter, that the unreached deserve to hear the gospel, and that we are better together than we could ever be apart.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Leslie Peacock Caldwell and originally published by the International Mission Board.
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