Kelly* is a South Carolina Baptist “sent one.”
I met her a few years ago while leading a trip to Los Angeles to serve people on Skid Row. She was educated at one of our South Carolina Baptist universities, equipped through our Baptist Collegiate Ministry, and a member of Palmetto Collective. Her plans were to intern with a small mission organization she met at her university’s mission fair and maybe join them full-time after graduation. I asked her how she would be funded and supported. She said she would have to spend a lot of time fundraising and trying to get her church, friends, and family to support her.
I then asked, “Did you know South Carolina Baptist churches have already raised the money for you and are ready to support you now so you can stay on the mission field full time without having to raise your own funds?”
The Cooperative Program is an ingenious funding strategy that provides an infrastructure of support to send missionaries all over the world. The support CP provides includes a salary, language training, missionary care, health insurance, living costs, 24/7 security, travel expenses, and foreign tax help. In addition to the infrastructure for personnel to support her, it also provides seminary education and state mission work to help churches reach the lost and raise up future missionaries.
This past month I saw Kelly again. She had decided to be sent by SCBaptists and was preparing to launch as a missionary to another part of the world where there is little to no access to the gospel. The South Carolina Baptist family is surrounding Kelly with support, prayer, and love. We join other Baptist churches around the nation who hold the rope for her and thousands of others to take the message of the gospel to the far ends of the earth.
Grip the rope and hold the line. Give and go!
(*Name changed to protect her identity.)