|
Faith in Action
T and his wife Kathie served for 18 years as career missionaries with the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. They were the first missionaries to resign in protest of the changes that fundamentalist, takeover trustees were making at the SBC's mission board. The first changes that trustees made was to cut ties with international seminaries and schools that were considered "too liberal." Then they began to change the assignments of all mission board personnel who were involved in education, medical care, and social work to require that they devote all their energies to proclamation and church planting. Later, they drafted a creed and terminated all the missionaries who balked at signing a creed that made the Bible an idol and required wives to be "graciously submissive" to their husbands. T and his wife Kathie became one of the first two missionary couples to be supported by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. CBF is an organization begun by moderate Baptists, like former President Jimmy Carter, who could no longer conscientiously remain in the SBC after the fundamentalist takeover. The Thomas' first assignment was to minister to the most despised and outcast ethnic group in the world -- the Romany Gypsies. A couple years ago, T became the Coordinator of the CBF chapter in Oklahoma. Shortly after his arrival, he organized a non-profit organization called His Nets that distributes insecticide treated mosquito nets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent news stories about a $280.00 wristwatch that detects malaria, about the need for more "bed nets" instead of advisors, and warnings that malarial drugs may be losing their effectiveness -- all this recent news can be used to demonstrate the importance and cost effectiveness of this ministry. A $6 donation to His Nets -- an amount well within the fund raising abilities of almost any American child -- enables this organization to distribute an insecticide treated mosquito net. These nets can protect an entire family for up to three years during the hours that they are most vulnerable to contracting malaria. Malaria is transmited by mosquito bites.
Faith in Action | 96 comments (96 topical, 0 hidden)
Faith in Action | 96 comments (96 topical, 0 hidden)
|
||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
print page
