NORCROSS, Ga. (BP)–Leslie Allen grew up hearing about missionaries, praying for them and supporting them however she could. It was only after college that she realized God might want her to do more.
“One day God told me that he had not called me to work in a chemistry lab and stay home in Birmingham where it was comfortable,” the Alabamian said as she was commissioned to two years of missions service Jan. 31.
Allen, who will serve in Memphis, Tenn., as assistant director of the Tennessee division of Mississippi River Ministries, was one of 11 US/C-2 missionaries commissioned by the North American Mission Board at First Baptist Church of Norcross in suburban Atlanta. The new missionaries will serve two-year terms in 10 states in various settings, including a Baptist center in rural Kentucky; a student ministry in Hilo, Hawaii; and in interfaith witness/international ministries at the United Nations in New York.
“At the end of two years, I don’t know where God will have me to go,” Allen said. “But that’s OK, because he knows where he wants me to go.”
Robert E. “Bob” Reccord, president of the North American Mission Board, reminded the missionaries and the congregation they “no longer had to go to the ends of the earth to reach the ends of the earth. God has brought the ends of the earth to the United States and Canada.”
He further charged the missionaries to remember “as you serve, you are called by name. Listen to the voice of God who leads you and don’t negotiate. Just go.”
John King of Oklahoma will serve as the campus evangelism coordinator for Missouri. He credits Southern Baptists from his church, association and state convention for preparing him to be a missionary. “The strength that I go out in is the strength of Southern Baptists together, praying for me, for all the missionaries,” he said.
King further encouraged the congregation to remember “we’re not extraordinary. We’re simply people who depend on your prayer support and depend on the strength of God.”
For more information on the US/C-2 program, contact the NAMB missionary personnel office at (770) 410-6171.
