ATLANTA (ABP) — An anonymous donor has made a $5 million contribution to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, designated for global missions.
It is the fourth anonymous multimillion-dollar donation to CBF missions in the last three years, and the second this year. In 2002 CBF received a gift of $4 million. In 2003 it was $5 million. And earlier this year $2 million was given, bringing the total to $11 million for global missions support.
Last year CBF spent $11.3 million on global missions.
The latest gift will be used over the next three years for a variety of mission ministries, including deploying nine new field personnel, helping 15 long-term volunteers, doubling the number of stipends for student summer/semester missions and helping 10 indigenous missionaries.
It also will fund wellness programs, emergency response, HIV/AIDS initiatives, micro-enterprise development grants for the poor, church planting, and the Fellowship's rural poverty initiative, according to CBF global missions co-coordinator Barbara Baldridge.
“This very generous gift makes it possible for us to increase in a substantial way our efforts in ministry among those living with HIV/AIDS, those struggling to feed their families, those living without clean water, and those who have never had the opportunity to experience the gospel of Christ,” Baldridge said. “This comes at a time when many missionary-sending organizations are having to make significant reductions in ministry and personnel.”
The CBF, an organization of moderate Baptists, currently supports 150 missionaries, most of them among unevangelized people groups and the world's poor.
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