BWM Annual Meeting

Every year our mission board holds an Annual Meeting.  If you are on deputation or furlough, you are required to attend this meeting.  Sometimes it seems like a long trip for a short interview with the deputation committee, but I have always come out encouraged and geared up for another round of deputation.  This year was the same.

We traveled to Indianapolis, IN where Crosspointe Baptist Church hosted the meeting.  Their church members did a fabulous job of hosting us, directing us to the right places, and feeding us.  We were blessed to stay with a family of seven who are former missionaries with BWM.  They also had a newborn boy!

Things didn’t go quite as planned.  Elaine had some tummy troubles and then ended up with an ear infection.  But each time we thought we would stay home with her, she perked up and made it through the activities.  She was excited to be with some of her missionary friends again.

Lord willing, this will be our last Annual Meeting for a while.  We hope to be at 100% by next spring/summer and then we won’t attend the meeting every year.  Realizing that made it a little harder for me to see my missionary friends, because I’m not sure when (or if) we will be together again in person.  I’m thankful that in the Lord we can pray for each other and bear each other’s burdens.  Modern technology lets us “keep up” easily, too – but it’s never the same as that hug face to face!

The Board Members (pastors from all over the country), and Home Office Staff of Baptist World Mission.  How blessed we are to be a part of this mission board and serve alongside these seasoned servants of God!

Makaela Little (St. Lucia), Elaine (NYC), and Gabrielle McKinley (Ireland).
International friends that I hope will remain friends for a long time!

The boys – a little harder to capture!
Nehemiah (NYC), Levi Little (St. Lucia), Joel McKinley (Ireland), and Nolan (NYC).
They had fun making noise and trouble together!

Ben, Andrea, Henry
Nolan, Nehemiah, Liberty, and Elaine

The annual meeting always includes a “Parade of Nations.”  Each missionary carries their country’s flag and is encouraged to dress in traditional costume of their mission field.  We all parade in to the auditorium and share where in the world we are serving and for how long.  It’s pretty neat to see!  This year we all wore New York Yankees shirts since we are going to win “da Bronx” to Christ!  {Not Yankees fans, per se.  Ben says we are going to win the lost!}  Even Henry’s shirt says “Born to be a NY Yankees fan” on it!

Liberty was so excited to wear her new shirt.  She walked up to several strangers and tugged on their skirt to say, “I have a ‘ankee shirt!”