Posted: 4/13/07
| Dearing Garner, recently named executive director of Children’s Emergency Relief International (the overseas arm of Baptist Child & Family Services), visits with a resident of the Brinzen Home for mentally handicapped adults in Moldova. Garner was there directing distribution of 12,495 pairs of winter boots as part of a CERI program. (BCFS photo/Craig Bird) |
Texas Baptist named to
head international aid ministry
By Craig Bird
Baptist Child & Family Services
Dearing Garner, longtime Texas Baptist pastor, has been named executive director of Children’s Emergency Relief International, the Houston-based overseas arm of Baptist Child & Family Services.
Garner previously headed the agency’s work in Africa. Steve Davis, who had the organization’s work in Moldova, has been named associate executive director of the agency.
Garner joined the staff in December 2005, just months after retiring as founding pastor of First Baptist Church of Kingwood after 27 years, to continue his lifelong involvement in partnership missions. For several years, he had been working closely with Children’s Emergency Relief International in Moldova on Operation Knit Together—an ongoing ministry he founded in 1999 to provide shoes and a Christian witness to the residents of Moldova’s government orphanages.
“At my first staff retreat, I mentioned that CERI should look at Africa. And before I knew it, I was put in charge of doing just that,” he explained. “I wanted to be part of CERI because I had seen firsthand its philosophy of working with national Christians to help children and families, and I had seen the passion and commitment of the staff. This opportunity was too big a blessing to pass up.”
Garner has been a member of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board and a trustee of Houston Baptist University.
Garner, a Virginia native, graduated from Carson-Newman College before earning his master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.