LYNCHBURG, Va. — The journey to follow Christ is a risky adventure requiring those who embark on it to break the confines of their cultural boundaries, members of Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia were told Nov. 3.
“In our encounter with another culture or language or socio-economic status, our lack of knowledge defines our boundaries,” mission leader Ruby Fulbright said. “We must not confine ourselves to our own cultural boundaries because there are still millions of people all over the world who are lost and dying and will never know the abundant life that Jesus promises.”
Fulbright, who retired last year as executive director-treasurer of Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina and continues to serve as its acting director, was the keynote speaker at WMUV’s annual meeting at Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center near Lynchburg, Va.
Leaders at the WMUV annual meeting were (from left) new president Pat Wright, retired North Carolina WMU executive Ruby Fulbright, WMUV executive Laura McDaniel and outgoing president Ann Brown.
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Participants in the meeting also elected Pat Wright of Williamsburg, Va., as the organization’s new president. She succeeds Ann Brown of Gretna, Va., president for the past four years.
Fulbright said becoming a disciple of Christ is “a personal decision but not a private decision” and is profoundly unifying.
“We are meant to live in fellowship and unity with other Christians, to encourage and support one another, and to serve Christ together,” she said. “I think that’s what Jesus was praying for in John 17,” she said, a reference to the Gospel of John in which Jesus prays that his followers “may all be one … so that the world may believe ….”
“It is that fellowship which calls us and equips us to make a difference in our world,” Fulbright said. “It’s pretty bold to participate in God’s mission. It takes a leap of faith. It’s also dangerous.”
Fulbright said she experienced those risks first-hand as a missionary in Africa for 12 years.
“It was frightening and mind-expanding and body-strengthening and rewarding and humbling, and it was there that I began to understand what a global fellowship might mean,” she said. “My label is ‘Baptist’ but what kind and where I fit gets messy. But I was raised to believe that Baptists burned with missionary zeal. I also learned that WMU was carrying that torch.”
Fulbright discovered there was a cost to discipleship. She recounted the experience of a missionary colleague who was asked by Christians in another country if their fellow believers in the United States suffered discrimination, job loss or hunger. Told that they didn’t, the questioners wondered, “Then how can you know you’re really a Christian if it doesn’t cost you anything?”
“There are hungry and hurting and lonely and sick people around the world who feel no one cares,” said Fulbright. “All the while we spend time debating who our leaders are and who can do what. If being a Christian doesn’t cost me anything, how will I ever impact my world?”
New leader
Wright, a member of Walnut Hills Baptist Church in Williamsburg, began a one-year term at the annual meeting as WMUV’s top elected officer. The organization’s bylaws permit her to be reelected to three more terms, as most of her predecessors have been.
Her immediate predecessor, Brown, concluded her tenure Nov. 3, but not before participants expressed appreciation for her service.
Executive director-treasurer Laura McDaniel praised the “wisdom, courage, leadership, humor, joy and integrity that you have brought to WMUV” and which has “greatly blessed women around the world.”
“Four years ago when I said ‘yes’ to this job I thought I would never be able to do it, but it has been a marvelous journey,” said Brown. “When someone asks you to do something you don’t think you can do, try it anyway.”
McDaniel presented the outgoing president with a nativity set carved by an artist in Ghana who donates the proceeds from his craft to provide water and vocational education to the hearing-impaired in his country.
Alleviating malaria
Ghana was on the minds of participants at the annual meeting, who were encouraged to support “More than Nets,” a two-year project to be launched this month by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board to distribute 100,000 mosquito nets in the African nation, where malaria is the No. 1 cause of death.
Ghana’s entire population of 24.2 million is at risk for malaria, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Public health facilities report more than 3 million cases every year; nearly 1 million of those are children under 5 years of age.
In Ghana — as in much of Africa — many houses lack window screens and anti-malarial drugs are expensive. At this point no effective malaria vaccine exists. Many medical authorities believe insecticide-treated mosquito nets are the most cost-effective way to prevent malaria transmission.
The Virginia Baptist project will focus largely on Yendi, a city in northeastern Ghana, said Karen Brown, a Blackstone, Va., social worker who serves on the “More than Nets” steering team.
“But we will do so much more,” said Brown, a member of Blackstone Baptist Church. Volunteers will educate recipients on the proper use of nets and the value of draining stagnant water — a breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitos, she said.
In addition, they will work closely with pastor Emmanuel Mustafa, a Ghanaian who lost two of his six children to malaria and who wants to start a new church in every village where nets are distributed.
WMUV dedicated an offering taken at the annual meeting to purchase nets, which will cost $10 each. Earlier, director Reuben Todd of WMUV’s CrossRoads Camp and Conference Center announced campers there had contributed nearly $2,900 for the project last summer, and McDaniel said 50 nets had been donated in honor of outgoing president Brown — Karen Brown’s mother-in-law.
“Over the next two years, I challenge you to make things happen in Ghana,” said Karen Brown. “Pray that we will eliminate malaria there. Pray that people will hear about the love of God. As Virginia Baptist women, you know how to make things happen.”
Developing leaders
In other action, McDaniel drew attention to the organization’s new mission statement — “WMUV inspires and equips women to influence the world for Christ” — adopted earlier this year by its board of trustees.
“We have for so many years been influencing and inspiring women to reach the world for Christ,” she said. “That is still who we are and will continue to be. The way we do it today needs to be relevant.”
That commitment to developing “influential and inspiring” woman was on display as staff members described initiatives to develop mission leaders among children, youth and young adults — many of whom took the stage to recount firsthand their mission involvement in communities around Virginia.
“The future looks bright,” McDaniel said.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is a managing editor of the Religious Herald.
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