DALLAS (ABP) — Don and Angie Finley, Southern Baptist missionaries since 1988, resigned from their post in Brazil in July 2003 and returned to the United States rather than affirm the denomination's new, more conservative doctrinal statement.
Now — three years and thousands of dollars of fundraising later — the Finleys are returning to Brazil, thanks to individual donors and a Baptist General Convention of Texas missions network. The Finleys will depart for Rio de Janeiro in June.
Don will continue his teaching in the South Brazil Baptist Seminary and Angie will continue her ministry to the urban poor. But their strongest focus will be on a missions training center, for which they were named coordinators in 2003.
“We have a debt to pay to our colleagues at the training center,” Don Finley said, referring to those who have been doing double duty for the past three years to keep the positions open for them.
The center was established by the Brazilian Baptist Woman's Missionary Union in conjunction with Brazilian Baptists' World and Home Mission boards to respond to the lack of training available for Brazilian missionaries. Don's responsibility was biblical and theological studies; Angie's was anthropology and linguistics.
The Finleys, who have spent their entire mission career in Brazil except for 18 months in Central Asia, said they left Brazil during what was “the most productive, fruitful and rewarding time of ministry in our entire lives.”
“We were convinced it was still God's place for us,” Finley said. “The Brazilians made it clear they wanted us back.”
It took those three years for the Finleys to regain mission support at the prompting of Brazilian friends. After their initial departure from Brazil, Baptist leaders there urged the Finleys to find another agency that would return them to Brazil. In November 2004, they were appointed as missionaries of the Baptist General Conference, a Chicago-based convention of historically Swedish Baptists, now numbering 913 churches.
After their approval as missionaries, WorldconneX, a Texas Baptist agency focused on missions, stepped up to help them raise support.
“We would absolutely not be going to the field at the present time if it was not for … the connections they have helped us make in Texas,” Don Finley said. “The way WorldconneX has helped us to connect with churches is an example of how they are seeking to be on the cutting edge of new paradigms.”
Unlike Southern Baptists' International Mission Board, which provides missionary salaries from Cooperative Program gifts, the Baptist General Conference requires their missionaries to raise their own support. Through traveling the country and networking, the Finleys have now completed that task — in what Baptist General Conference leaders told them was “record time.”
“We are grateful to Texas Baptists on several different levels,” Don Finley said.
And although raising their own support is a new experience to the missions veterans, they said it has given them new appreciation for that funding approach.
“We have known throughout our missionary career many missionaries who have raised their own support, because that is the way the majority of missionaries are sent,” Angie Finley said. “They would tease us about how easy we had it, but they would also tell us we were missing a blessing.”
At the time, the Finleys were skeptical, thinking, “That's one blessing we can do without.” But now, after raising their own support, they have a different perspective.
“We feel we have really connected with some churches God has brought into partnership with us,” Angie said.
That partnership “involves a whole lot more than just receiving funds,” Don said. “We've discovered there are people in every church supporting us who are really excited about this and they are part of our team. We expect to see many if not all of our partnering churches on the field with us to do ministry.”
Founded in 2004, Worldconnex helped the Finleys find financial supporters in Texas, including a church that has historic ties to mission work in Brazil. First Baptist Church of Corsicana, Texas — where William Bagby served as pastor just before being sent as Southern Baptists' first missionary to Brazil — provided “the last piece of the puzzle” as the Finleys raised financial support to return to their work with Brazilian Baptists.
David Edwards, pastor of First Baptist Church of Corsicana since March, was unaware of the church's historical connection with Brazilian missions until he heard the story from Bill Tinsley, leader of WorldconneX. Tinsley told him about William Bagby and Anne Luther, an engaged couple who felt called as missionaries to Brazil in 1880.
While waiting for an appointment from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Bagby preached revival services in Texas. When 15 people received Christ during a revival he preached at First Baptist of Corsicana, the pastorless church asked him to serve as their pastor until he was appointed to Brazil. He accepted the call in August, married Anne in October, and they were appointed missionaries to Brazil in December.
“When Bill brought this to my attention, and I learned of our historic ties to Brazil, it was only appropriate that we send the Finleys to Brazil to continue the work the Bagbys started,” Edwards said. “We just saw it as seeing where God was at work and joining him.”
A one-time gift of $8,000 from the Corsicana church “put us over the top,” Don said. About a dozen Baptist General Conference churches, two Baptist churches in Kentucky and eight individuals have also pledged monthly support.
“We see the Finleys as strategic to what God is doing in the world,” Tinsley said. “The Finleys are completing what the Bagbys began over a century ago by equipping Brazilians as missionaries. God is raising up Latin America as a missions-sending base to win the unreached world to Christ.”
-30-