TAB editor-in-chief speaks about missions journey

TAB editor-in-chief speaks about missions journey

By Michael J. Brooks

Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist

Jennifer Davis Rash, president and editor-in-chief of The Alabama Baptist/TAB Media, said it was a “God thing” when she committed her life to missions as a college student.

“It was 26 years ago, but I can still feel the exact moment,” she said. “Though I don’t remember all that the missions speaker said that Sunday morning, God used her to change the course of my life.”

Rash shared her missionary testimony at Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, on Jan. 26.

“I grew up in church, but I didn’t truly commit my life to the Lord until my sophomore year in college.”

Rash said a call to full-time Christian service wasn’t too far behind and then came that moment when she felt the tug toward missions. It was the final semester of her senior year at the University of Alabama and she and her roommate, who was from the same hometown, spontaneously decided to drive home for a Sunday at their home church and for some “home cooking.”

They were surprised to find their pastor away that day. Instead, a guest missionary shared her story and how she served through communications.

“I was a journalism major, and while I didn’t know exactly what would be next I pretty much had my life all planned out,” Rash said. “But God used this woman’s story to impress upon me that missions would be my next step.

“I can’t say this was my choice in that moment, but the call of God was obvious, and it was one of those things you do because you can’t not do it. It was amazing, scary, exciting and frustrating all at the same time.”

Rash applied to the International Mission Board short-term missions program and completed a battery of tests.

“I had a mixture of excitement and fear as I took this step,” she said. “I felt inadequate, and I had the fleeting thought that I might be ‘cut’ and sent home to do what I’d always planned to do: report events, interview people and tell their stories. Perhaps this was an ‘Abraham’ moment, and God wanted me not to go overseas but be willing to do so. But that’s not how it turned out.”

And she’s so glad, Rash said. “The opportunity to serve the English-speaking Carribean through the publication ministry there was truly fulfilling, and the people I met
became forever family.”

After her missions term wrapped up two years later, Rash found her way to The Alabama Baptist and recently passed her 24-year mark.

While Rash focuses on telling the stories of Baptists across the state, nation and world she also wants her own story to bring honor to God.

“All of us have a story, and I want others to see Jesus in my life,” she said. “What’s your story going to say to others?”