CLAREMORE, Okla. (BP)–Carl Briggs’ Sunday School class is a moo-ving experience. Every week, they take up an offering to buy a cow.
It’s not that members of Briggs’ class at Faith Baptist Church in Claremore, Okla., need milk for their coffee, but they are hoping to raise the quality of living for pastors in Nicaragua.
For several years, Briggs has gone on mission trips to the Central American country with Baptist Medical and Dental Mission International (BMDMI). Although he is a retired telephone company employee, he helps the medical professionals clean instruments and just hold patients’ hands.
Briggs became interested in missions in Nicaragua when Faith members Darrel and Cathey Johnson moved to that country to work as missionaries with BMDMI.
The poverty rate there is high, and pastors are no exception, he noted.
“Most of the pastors are bivocational, and few church members tithe, so pastors have to come up with some ways to support their families,” Briggs said. “The average wage for a day is $1.75-$2.”
The Johnsons and other missionaries in the area wanted to help the pastors economically, though not create a dependency on the mission, so the Pastor’s Project Fund was established, and initially funds were given to pastors to buy chickens to raise. However, because of disease, heat and falling chicken prices, the missionaries discovered that large animals such as cattle are a better investment.
Briggs said a bred cow, one which has already been impregnated, costs about $500 in Nicaragua. From one of these cows, pastors can continue to raise cattle and sell milk and beef.
The pastors buy the cows from the mission, and have to make the first payment in three years, with the balance due at the end of five years. By investing in the cattle themselves, pastors feel more responsibility for taking care of the animals, Briggs said.
To date, nine men have purchased cows. The three cows that one pastor purchased will calve in the next three months. Another pastor who bought two cows now has four, and on it goes.
Briggs said about 90 pastors are being assisted in Nicaragua, so there is a long way to go for all of them to have cows.
On June 28, Faith and First Baptist Church in Sapulpa, Okla., will send a mission team into Nicaragua with medical, dental and construction teams.
Briggs said Faith started a ministry in Nicaragua in 1991 and has had as many as 15 members go on mission trips there.
“Fifteen churches have been established in Nicaragua since we’ve been going,” Briggs said. “In 2001, the group saw 2,000 patients and had 394 professions of faith. We have had as many as 1,000 professions of faith.”
Briggs said the team holds three worship services a day, and those who want to be served at the medical clinic have to attend the worship services.
While the six men in Briggs’ Sunday School class are struggling to buy one cow, Briggs said he believes there are other people or churches who would like to participate in the program.
“The national pastors,” he noted, “are vital to the growth of churches in Nicaragua, the discipling of the new believers and equipping of the members for the work of the ministry.”
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Churches or individuals interested in purchasing cows for Nicaraguan pastors can contact Briggs at Faith Baptist Church, 901 S. Faith Lane, Claremore 74017, or by phone at (918) 341-0581. Dana Williamson is associate editor of the Baptist Messenger, Oklahoma Baptists’ newsjournal. (BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: COWS FOR PASTORS.
