WMU celebrates 130 years of Annie Armstrong Offering

DALLAS—“Missions is not a monthly meeting,” noted WMU Executive Director Sandy Wisdom-Martin, adding, “It is how we live our lives.”

Southern Baptist women at the National WMU Missions Celebration honored 130 years of the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, 60 years of the Journeyman missions program and 30 years of the WMU Foundation.

They also awarded the 25th Dellanna O’Brien Award for women’s leadership development to Julia Ketner, retired executive director of Arkansas WMU.

Texas Baptist churches and partners participated in the celebration.

Drummers from the Africa Fellowship of Dallas drummed and sang the call to worship. Youth Dancers from Texas Kachin Baptist Church of Fort Worth performed a welcome dance. And, Savion Lee, Royal Ambassador coordinator for Texans on Mission, offered a theme interpretation.

In her president’s address, Connie Dixon said the past year had been filled with physical challenges related to knee surgeries, which had kept her home, grounded from her usual ministry activities.

She said even though she recently wrote a book “on finding joy in the struggle, “she was “struggling with seeing past [her] current realities.”

However, she said, a phrase she noted shows up 44 times in the King James Version of the Bible, “but God,” had helped her move through her struggles.

“But God,” is present in Genesis 8 when God remembered Noah. It appears in Joseph’s story in Genesis 50 where Joseph said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” And in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus notes, “but with God all things are possible.”

“But God” also was evident in the 1800s when women weren’t allowed to attend the Southern Baptist Convention meetings as messengers or serve on committees, Dixon noted. “But God, in 1888, placed in the hearts of our visionary leaders to start WMU.”

In 1895 the average woman had little income, yet the Home Mission Board asked the fledgling organization to help raise $5,000 anyway. WMU was the only group to contribute 100 percent of its pledged amount to the $75,000 campaign. “But God,” Dixon said.

In 1965, at a pivotal time in American history, the Journeyman program was established to send individuals who were investigating a calling to missions abroad for two years of service.

The times were challenging, “but God” has used Journeymen, with more than 6,000 having served through the program since its institution and more than 1,000 of those becoming career missionaries, she said.

Then, in 1995, the WMU Missions Foundation was formed. Not everyone wanted to have a “foundation of our own, but God has used the WMU Foundation.”

Dixon noted grants and scholarships of more than $19 million have been awarded since the foundation began. God continues to use WMU today, she asserted.

Dixon’s year was hard, but she said God used her difficulties to teach her and grow her. Dixon concluded: “God’s heart is for the nations. God’s heart is for each and every one of us to grow closer to him.”

She challenged WMU members to “stay faithful to their mandate of making disciples of Jesus who live on mission.”

Celebrating Annie Armstrong

WMU leaders from around the world took turns telling why they consider it a joy to be part of the WMU family, and leaders from around the country took turns telling the story of Annie Armstrong.

From the Southern Baptist Convention Home Mission Board’s request for Armstrong’s help raising funds and exceeding their $5,000 goal that would establish the Annie Armstrong Easter offering to her cooperation with Lottie Moon toward missions and missions support, the organization celebrated Armstong’s contributions to WMU and missions.

Several speakers highlighted Armstong’s commitment to minister to people in the greatest need, without regard for status, race or cultural background.

They noted she played a crucial role in the health of the SBC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, even though women were not permitted to attend or serve as messengers at Southern Baptist Convention meetings during those years.

Wanda Lee, SBC WMU executive director and president emerita, noted the Lottie Moon Offering for international missions, begun when Armstrong was leader of the WMU, “has brought in $5.6 billion for the international missions effort of Southern Baptists,” and the offering bearing Armstrong’s name has raised “almost $2.2 billion for North American missions.

Augusta “Gus” Smith, executive director of Native American LINK and director of Native Praise, spoke about Armstrong’s work among Native American women in Oklahoma.

Smith noted Armstrong welcomed the first delegation of two Native American women to the SBC WMU meeting in 1896.

Armstrong rallied to support women and children in Native American Territory, making five visits to serve in Oklahoma beginning with the first 4,000 mile, 40-day trip in 1900 by horseback, train and carriage “in the hopes of unifying work in the territory.”

“In Ohio, I played on that rock Annie used in mounting her horse on her visit,” Smith recalled.

She observed the changing ways her people have been named by others in her lifetime—as “American Indian, Native American and Indigenous, to name a few.”

Additionally, Smith noted, they’ve been portrayed as “Redskins, Injuns, Indian-givers, squaws, and even our country’s Declaration of Independence refers to our people as ‘merciless savages.’”

Smith said there is still much work to be done in educating others about her people, including the fact their traditional regalia is not a “costume.”

But Armstrong valued and wanted to understand the people she was serving, Smith said, noting the effort Armstrong began continues to offer support for the Christian witness of Native Americans, including her own pastors.

Smith asked the broader WMU to pray for Native American Christians. “Trust remains a huge issue among our people because of the atrocities and the forced removal our ancestors faced,” when “so-called Christians” didn’t always “live or love like Jesus.”

Leaving a legacy

Wisdom-Martin in her executive director’s address spoke about leaving a legacy for future generations of WMU. She told how this year’s Dellanna O’Brien award recipient had poured into her spiritually and how she in turn, had invested in a younger woman, who’d invested in a younger woman and so on. Faithful women also had poured into Ketner before she poured into Wisdom-Martin.

“I want you to see that the missionary influence spans geography, and it spans generations. Think of all the people that have poured into you,” she said.

Women who never bore children physically in that line can be great-great grandmothers in the faith who meet spiritual grandchildren in heaven one day, she mused.

“That’s how you leave a legacy for generations,” Wisdom-Martin said. “For us to be together around the throne, someone has to share the good news.”

Noting the mission is urgent and should be prioritized, Wisdom-Martin urged the women of the WMU not just to focus on the corporate mission of the organization, but to make sure they are doing enough personally to share the gospel.

She said God is working on her. She has committed to share a copy of the Gospel of John with 100 people between Easter this year and Easter next year, despite her initial reluctance to take on the task.

“Who is [God] laying on your heart to tell about him?” she asked.

Make a commitment to tell them, Wisdom-Martin urged, and “be committed to telling the good news until you draw your dying breath.”

Connie Dixon of New Mexico was re-elected to serve as president, and Lisa Thompson of Georgia was elected to succeed Shirley McDonald of Texas as recording secretary.