September 4, 2000

Offering extends beyond borders
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--The influence of Texas Baptists stretches well beyond the state's borders, and the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions does the same.
___Funds from the offering support ministries in northern Mexico as part of the Rio Grande River Ministry, and they shore up the work in foreign countries and other states via Texas Partnerships.
___"Probably 70 percent of River Ministry money is spent on the Mexico side of the border," said Dexton Shores, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas program. About $420,000 in offering allocations this year is spent in cooperation with six Texas Baptist associations along the Rio Grande.
___"People on the border will tell you they don't see the border the same way we do because there is such an interaction," Shores said from his office in Dallas. "They feel like they are very much a part of each other. There's a genuine concern of the Texas Baptist associations and Texas Baptist churches to minister to the needs of their brothers and sisters on the other side of the river."
___All 70 of the ministry's clinics are south of the border, Shores said. And they are "pretty much totally funded" through the Texas offering. That includes funding for five Mexican doctors and one dentist, as well as three nurses.
___"More than one-fourth of the money we receive from Mary Hill Davis is spent on health care," Shores said.
___The offering also is involved in support of evangelism. This year Texas Baptists are helping the Coahuila Regional Convention in Mexico to hold simultaneous revivals. The offering provided six billboards in strategic locations to promote the events and 20,000 copies of the Gospel of John. After the first phase of revivals earlier this year, 459 professions of faith were reported, as well as creation of 146 home Bible studies and 180 cell groups, Shores said.
___River Ministry also helps support 10 children's homes south of the border, including one for handicapped children in Piedras Negras, near Eagle Pass.
___As for Texas Partnerships, $150,000 in Mary Hill Davis Offering funds is used for ministry needs in the various partnership locations, including Australia, Germany, Spain and the northwest and northeast United States.
___Without Mary Hill Davis money, "the Texas Partnerships' worldwide efforts would be severely hampered and we would have to curtail various linkages that help our churches find meaningful missions experiences," said Don Sewell, director of Texas Partnerships. "We can serve Texas Baptist churches with multiple national and international missions opportunities due to the Mary Hill Davis Offering."
___Offering funds have been used to provide "on-field witness materials," such as a bilingual tract for use in the new Spain partnership, Sewell said.
___"Lay envoys" also are supported. Such envoys are Texas Baptists who are living overseas, usually due to a job, Sewell said. Texas Partnerships supports them with prayer, preparation, linkages with missionaries and churches, and printed resources.

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