WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — “The world is changing, and we need to catch up a little bit,” Robbi Francovich of Austin, Texas, told members of Global Women at an interactive missions conference Oct. 27-28.
Francovich, who has spent 10 years as a missionary with Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said, “We need to move out to the world … and demonstrate strategic savvy to build international relationships.”
She was among several speakers to a group of nearly 100 women who met at Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., to focus on ways to better minister to women around the world. Francovich, who has worked with Gypsy women in India for 10 years, is a new board member for Global Women, a primarily Baptist group that ministers to women around the world and nurtures women for global service.
“Even this group of Global Women is way too white,'' she said.
Francovich spoke near the end of the conference, and her speech echoed other challenges and strategies heard in a series of discussions focusing on how the organization can meet the needs of women on an international basis. The goal is to move beyond ethnic and cultural boundaries, several speakers said.
One way to do this is to “open your homes to different people,” said Francovich.
“My passion is nurturing a call for young women in the next generation,” she said. Women need to be global witnesses and have inquisitiveness about the world, she added. “We need to display tolerance without being judgmental.”
“We need to demonstrate the character of a follower of Jesus Christ,” she added.
A major speaker was Lilian Lim of Singapore, who told how Asian women follow the calling of God to share Christ. Lim is president of Asian Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary. Also participating was Young-Shim Chang of Seoul, South Korea, former president of Asian Baptist Women.
Mimi Haddad of Minneapolis, Minn., president of Christians for Biblical Equality, made two major speeches, encouraging more activism for missions and recounting the “Golden Age” of missions, which was led largely by women missionary societies in the 19th century.
Lectures and discussions by several women on these subjects helped the participants share strategies on how Global Women can better meet the needs of women in Christian service.
A board of directors meeting was held before the conference.
Organized five years ago, Global Women hopes not only to grow by being inclusive of different cultures but also to move beyond being identified as a Baptist organization, said founding president Dorothy Sample of Flint, Mich. “We want to be open to women in all churches,” said Sample.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based group already is making strides toward a more international flavor, with key conference participants coming from Singapore; Seoul, South Korea; Auckland, New Zealand; and Toronto, Canada.
The group also is inclusive in age, with girls from middle and high schools being included in the organization. The organization has goals of “growing the number of women missionaries and educating individuals and churches about the specific needs of women worldwide.”
Sample, one of the eight women who organized Global Women, was honored at the conference “for what she means to the women of the world.” Denise Dillon of Tulsa, Okla., will become president Jan. 1.
The first global challenge — showing the need for doing more in missions, advancing the spiritual causes for women and becoming “activists” — came in the opening-day session from Haddad, who also heads a track of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization which focuses on gender issues in missions.
Women “can't help but express the work that God has given us to do,” she said. The divine commission not only cuts across gender lines but also across ethnic and class distinctions, she said. “Without distinction, [Christ] commissioned men and women as co-laborers,” she said.
Women have always been in the forefront of Christianity, and many lost their lives in the Reformation, she noted. And it was women who became leaders of the “exciting missions in the 19th century, “Women used to fund mission organizations. They did some of the most miraculous work one can imagine,'' Haddad said. “It was an exciting time to be alive.”
Most of the graduates from Bible colleges during the 1800s were women. Many became involved in missions, and many died on the mission fields, she said.
“These women gave us something that the church has lost. I'm sad about that,” she said, pointing out that the women were involved in social activism, missions and biblical scholarship.
In another session, Haddad described the early missionary societies formed by women as the “first wave of feminism.” She pointed to female missionaries such as Lottie Moon, Amy Carmichael, Amanda Smith, Pandita Ramabai and Mary Slessor as stalwarts for helping people.
Smith, who served in Africa and India and had a “unique and powerful gift of leadership,” was an example of a woman who was not accepted by the men of the church — “not that I was black, but a woman.”
Haddad said these women “lived in the full embodiment of people's needs.” Moon, for instance, lived with the people; when they starved, she starved. When she died of starvation, she became a hero, Haddad noted.
“What purpose is God calling you to at this point in your life?” she asked.
Diana Bridges of Starkville, Miss., said it is important to listen to others. “Are my prejudices and stereotypes getting in the way of hearing you? Has it occurred to me I might be wrong?”
Bridges said she is prone to monologue instead of dialogue, and dialogue is important. Even Jesus listened. “His silence is as powerful as his words,” she said. “Listening is vital for spiritual life and ministry.”
Global Women also will be involved in a conference Nov. 17-18 in Moldova, a former Soviet republic in eastern Europe, to help combat human trafficking. The United States is one of the main markets for selling young women for sexual exploitation and forced labor, according to information gained by Global Women. The United States is a destination country for trafficking victims from more than 49 countries. Children and men also are victims of trafficking, being used for forced labor.
Cindy Dawson of Pelham, Ala., the new national coordinator for Global Women, will be involved in Global Voices projects in Moldova and Russia, where she spent eight years as a representative of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Global Women also will be involved in Burma Project, sending a team of three nurses to train 60 women from the villages in nursing skills. The nurses will train health-care workers for six months, working with two other women's organizations in Burma, said Catherine Allen of Birmingham. Allen is an organizer, advisor and director of Global Women.
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— Bob Burchette is a retired writer and editor for the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record.
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