More than 60 Southern Baptists are slated for overseas missionary appointment
by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board March 10 at 7 p.m. at Broadmoor
Baptist Church in Shreveport.
More than 60 Southern Baptists are slated for overseas missionary appointment
by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board March 10 at 7 p.m. at Broadmoor
Baptist Church in Shreveport.
For the “City of Churches,” Christian events are
nothing new. “At one point, one out of every five or six people that walked
the streets in Shreveport was probably Southern Baptist,” said Wayne Jenkins,
director of evangelism at the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
“In the northern half of the state, especially Shreveport,
there are some strong, strong Southern Baptist churches and strong giving to
the Cooperative Program.”
Among the missionary appointees are several candidates with
ties to Louisiana, mainly through New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
For instance, Charles “Elliott” and Patricia Nichols
moved from Alaska to Louisiana for the sole purpose of receiving missionary
training at the school. As African Americans, the Nicholses join the International
Mission Boards growing ranks of non-Anglo missionaries.
Patricia Nichols said she felt Gods call to missions
as an active member of Baptist Young Women in Anchorage.
“I had a passion for studying missions and praying for
(missions),” she recalled. “The articles in Contempo magazine would
move me, wanting to be there in places I could not pronounce. I can remember
wanting to share the gospel with the people in the pictures.”
In 1986, Nichols said she felt God calling her to serve overseas.
“The Lord showed me a vision,” she recounted. “Elliott and I
both were serving together on foreign soil.”
Elliott Nichols said he was not keen on the idea – so, his wife kept praying.
Two years later, he announced, “God has called me to serve as a career
missionary on the foreign field.”
The Nicholses are preparing to help plant churches among the
Wolof people of Senegal, who are traditionally Muslim.
The appointment service is organized in tandem with a March
8-10 meeting of mission board trustees in Shreveport.
During the service, attendees will hear testimonies from newly-appointed
missionaries. The program also includes a missions challenge, a global update,
a parade of international flags and special music by the Zambian A Cappella
choir and a combined youth choir.
The board also has planned a pair of International Missions
Opportunity Conferences on March 11 – from 2-3:30 p.m. at Broadmoor
Baptist Church in Shreveport and starting at 6:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church
in Monroe. The conference will provide information about different missions
service options available to Southern Baptists through the International Mission
Board..