For the past five summers, the Lord has given me a special treasure – hanging out with hundreds of the International Mission Board’s finest for a week of training, worshipping, praying, laughing, crying, playing, and hugging. What a blessing!
McDowell, right, joins South Carolina volunteers as they prayerwalk at a large mosque in South Asia.Missionaries representing the seven countries of South Asia converge on a special retreat setting. All come from places of extremes – extreme heat, extreme poverty, extreme lostness, extreme loneliness, extreme dirt, extreme opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus, extreme dependency on God alone, extreme gratitude to South Carolina Baptists.
Since South Carolina’s Baptist volunteers began serving alongside many South Asia personnel, the missionaries now ask me about specific churches or people. They tell stories of how much the work of volunteers has impacted their ministries and encouraged them. The missionaries express appreciation because South Carolina Baptists know where they are and are praying for them. We have been a consistent presence in their lives for the four years of our South Carolina-South Asia partnership. The missionaries tell of e-mails or phone calls that they have recently received from South Carolina Baptists. One missionary told how God used a challenging question that a volunteer asked national leaders during a training event to alter a major decision he was about to make.
The South Carolina Baptist Convention is represented in South Asia through prayers, giving, short-term volunteers, and through the long-term ministry of South Carolina Baptists who now serve full-time in South Asia. This summer, I was able to spend time with former South Carolina Baptist pastors and church staff members, graduates of our Baptist universities and former lay leaders in South Carolina’s Baptist churches. All are now serving as IMB missionaries in South Asia.
I shared meals with missionaries from other states who now have children at one of our universities and with some who are looking for a place to live during their stateside assignment. I crossed paths with Dr. Rebekah Naylor, who lived in South Carolina as a child. Even those who have no South Carolina connections offered to come to our state whenever possible so that they can network with our churches. One missionary reminded me of how she searched on a map of our state trying to find the town of “Mill Village,” so she could see where I grew up. When she could not find it, she asked me about it. I told her South Carolina has many mill villages, but the map does not list them as towns. If you have not guessed, she is not from around here! Yet, we now claim her as one of our own since she and her husband spent part of their stateside time in the Lake Murray Baptist Church missionary home.
Volunteers from South Carolina wash the feet of their Christian brothers in South Asia.A highlight of each summer meeting is a South Carolina reunion fellowship. Usually 40 to 50 South Asia missionaries with ties to South Carolina attend. The world is getting smaller as God has used the partnership to build a long bridge between South Asia and South Carolina. More than 600 South Carolina Baptists have traveled that bridge to serve as volunteers in South Asia.
This summer, I met with IMB missionaries who are asking for our help in 2009 and beyond. They need churches to become a part of their team to help reach the more than 1 billion lost of South Asia. You will soon see a list of some of the requests for teams to come be a part of their church-planting strategy plan for 2009. God has called us to join him and our IMB missionaries to impact the growth of his kingdom in South Asia and in South Carolina. I am humbled to have represented South Carolina Baptists at these meetings the past five years. We have incredible family members in South Asia. May we give our best to them and to him during these last 16 months of our South Carolina-South Asia partnership.
McDowell is missions mobilization director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To learn more about the convention’s service opportunities in South Asia, visit http://www.scbaptist.org/international.