April 17, 2025
ALBUQUERQUE (BNM) - Eleven volunteers from nine different churches served alongside five Baptist Convention of New Mexico staff members to prepare church resource packets for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The packets, which include prayer guides, donation envelopes, and posters, will be sent to churches around New Mexico.
Volunteers and BCNM staff prepare the packets each year before mailing them out to churches around New Mexico. Typically, the group consists of five or fewer volunteers. But, this year, Melissa Lamb said, "we wanted to...get more churches involved." She sent texts to women she knew loved missions. Eleven responded and came. Around half of those who came are on the New Mexico WMU Executive Board. Others were also involved in missions in some way. The group even included one IMB missionary. Lamb serves as state executive director for New Mexico WMU.
New Mexico WMU participates in mailing out materials for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, and the BCNM's State Missions Offering. Lamb said that this group of volunteers is the largest she has ever seen for all three offerings.
The volunteers assembled at the Baptist Convention of New Mexico building and assembled the packets for around 275 churches. Around 50 packets had already been given to New Mexico churches at the BCNM Annual Meeting in Clovis this year.
Each packet contains prayer guides for the week of prayer for international missions. Inside the guide are prayer prompts for eight different missionaries, covering eight days in total. The posters have this year's Lottie Moon illustration and a motto presented in four other languages: English, Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese. The poster also offers space for churches to write how much they intend to give to the offering this year, as well as a QR code church members can scan for more information.
One hundred percent of donations to the Lottie Moon Offering go to support missionaries and their ministries worldwide.
Denise Clymer, the New Mexico WMU president, participated in preparing the packets. When asked why she participated, she said, "We…know the importance of Lottie Moon...supporting Lottie Moon... and...bringing awareness to our churches of our missionaries who are serving worldwide."
She explained that earlier this year, a pair of missionaries from New Mexico spoke at her church. Hearing their testimony and how some of the missionaries’ children had also joined the ministry, Clymer saw results of the prayers that accompany the Lottie Moon Offering, the result of encouraging missionaries as they serve, and results of Southern Baptists' financial donations.
Clymer said, “I think it’s really important to do this to encourage other churches to do the same.” She also cited her own experience as a North American Missions Board missionary.
Clymer also said it was "neat" to have so many churches come together to prepare the resources for the Lottie Moon Offering. She said, "The Church of Christ is all of us working together, cooperating to do that, and it was just a really nice spirit there …. It really was a joy to spend that time in fellowship with sister churches."
The volunteer group that prepared the mailout included Denise Clymer and Katie Taptto, Jemez Valley Baptist Church; Helen Williams, Celebration Baptist Church, Rio Rancho; Rose Alexa, First Baptist Church, Tijeras; Graciel Guel, Iglesia Sinai, Albuquerque; Danette Salazar and Miriam Lobaina, First Bilingual Baptist Church, Albuquerque; Shelley Scott and Mary Turner, Paragon Church, Rio Rancho; Claudia Martinez, First Baptist Church, Ft. Sumner; and AW, an IMB missionary sent by an Albuquerque church.
The BCNM staff who helped prepare the mailing were Diana Longoria, Church Missions ministry assistant; Melissa Lamb, New Mexico WMU director; Christina Rocha, receptionist; Matt Thackerson, Church Missions Team leader; and Kim Nickel, an Administration and Finance Team assistant.
Taptto, Williams, Alexa, and Guel serve or have served on the New Mexico WMU board. Clymer serves as the NM WMU president. Guel has also served as the NM WMU president and as a former board member of the NM UFM, the Spanish side of the WMU.
For more information on the Lottie Moon Offering, visit IMB.org. You can also find additional resources and stories about the missionaries in the prayer guide at IMB.org.
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This story was originally published by the Baptist New Mexican.
