June 21, 2024
INDIANAPOLIS — Kate, a young member of a Girls in Action group, approached her parents in the fall of 2023 with the idea of doing a project for Haiti.
They thought it might be something small, but she told them she wanted to raise $7,000 to build a church in Haiti.
“In two weekends selling hot apple cider, Kate raised $28,000 to build four churches in Haiti,” said Sandy-Wisdom Martin, executive director of national Woman’s Missionary Union, as she gave her report to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting on Wednesday, June 12. “When asked why she wanted to build a church in Haiti, she simply replied, ‘So the children could learn about Jesus.’”
She’s one example of how WMU missions discipleship tells the stories of missions needs and helps churches pray diligently and give generously, said Connie Dixon, the organization’s president.
“I know because that’s what WMU did for me,” she said. “WMU taught me I have a role in the Great Commission.”
During the report, Wisdom-Martin and Dixon shared other stories of how WMU missions discipleship had connected churches with needs on the field and how God had used that connection to meet those needs.
They told of a woman named Betty who had connected with a church in Puerto Rico, and after a hurricane left them with no water, she raised $20,000 for a well. They told of others whose journeys toward redemption had brought them into contact with WMU groups.
Wisdom-Martin said she’s grateful for the way God uses others’ contagious passion for missions to fuel more missions involvement. She said for decades she has been able to sing the national anthem of Liberia even though she’s never visited the west African country.
That’s because when she was in college, a missionary kid who lived in her dorm taped the sheet music up on Wisdom-Martin’s wall and encouraged her to learn the song.
“She loved her country, and she wanted me to love it as well,” Wisdom-Martin said. “She taught me to dearly love and pray for Liberians.”
In a sense, that’s what WMU does, Wisdom-Martin said.
She asked for prayer for a “massive discipleship effort” that WMU is undertaking this year. They’re hoping to raise up 1,000 disciple makers who will use the book 50 Steps with Jesus: Learning to Walk Daily with the Lord, written by Ron and Marsha Harvell.
“We want people to use it as a tool to both bring people to faith and to mentor new disciples,” Wisdom-Martin said. “This makes discipleship incredibly easy, and we hope it will help others get serious about sharing their faith and discipling new believers.”
The gospel has the power to transform lives, she said. “We consider it our sacred privilege to journey with Southern Baptists to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission.”
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This story first appeared in The Baptist Paper.
