By Clint Cook, Executive Director
This post was originally published in the 2016 Spring issue of the GB Messenger. Don’t receive the Messenger? You can always catch the latest digital issue on the Messenger website, www.gbMessenger.org
General Baptists are obeying the Great Commission. I clearly recall the first-hand view I received back in 1999 when I went on my first international mission trip to Honduras.
My first mission trip abroad was alongside one of my deacons, Ken Morris, in which I was to preach and he would lead worship on a medical/mission team. Our trip began at Faith Home where we visited with the children and workers and toured the grounds. We then traveled with the rest of our team several hours by bus over difficult terrain to the capital city of Tegucigalpa and then to a very remote village in the hills near Tegucigalpa. The country of Honduras had only recently survived the deadly and destructive hurricane named Mitch. Their political and economic infrastructure lay in shambles, their roads and other transportation system was nonexistent, and their citizens were in dire need of help. One of the most amazing things I remember about that trip is that despite all of these obstacles, the Honduran people were joyful, grateful for our help, and starving for the gospel! The depth of their struggles and loss paled in comparison to their desire to learn about a man named Jesus and their need for a Savior. While some were unable to change their current situation, they were determined to change their eternal destination. I cried day after day as I watched the altars fill with people asking Jesus into their hearts. I realized I was watching the carrying out of the Great Commission!
I have been honored to serve on many mission teams since that first life-changing trip in 1999, but on each trip I return home both proud and humbled. How proud I am to know that our General Baptist missionaries are committed to establishing new churches and encouraging existing churches. They are teaching and training current and future pastors and teachers to equip them to continue the work of the Great Commission in their own communities. They are immersing themselves and their families in unfamiliar cultures to build life-long relationships with their fellow General Baptist brothers and sisters and pass on their baton of faith.
I am also humbled to know that our international mission work would be impossible without your participation. Each year hundreds of people take time off work and away from their families to join an international mission team. Like me, their lives are forever changed as a result of these short-term trips. Each year General Baptist people give monetary gifts of all sizes to Unified Giving to make sure the Great Commission work of General Baptists continues. It is through your time and financial gifts that your belief in the vision and mission of General Baptists is proclaimed. Those same gifts of time and finances illuminate your burden for seeing the lost brought to Christ, and communicate your grasp of the urgency and time-sensitive nature of our Great Commission assignment!
I hope you will rejoice with me and thank the Lord for what He is doing through General Baptist Missions!