March 5, 2001

Texas WMU sets $5.75 million for
Mary Hill Davis Offering
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--The restructured Woman's Missionary Union of Texas board of directors approved a $5.75 million giving goal for the 2001 Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions and authorized allocations for 32 new missions ministries during its Feb. 22 meeting in Dallas.
___The board also heard the final executive director-treasurer's report from Joy Fenner, who retired Feb. 28 after 20 years in that leadership role, and welcomed Carolyn Porterfield as executive director-elect.
___The meeting was the first gathering of the 39-member board of directors, which took the place of the 124-member executive board. Texas WMU approved the change in its governing body last October.
___Allocations for the 2001 Mary Hill Davis Offering include more than $528,000 for new ministries, such as:
___ $100,000 to provide Bible study curriculum in at least seven languages. The materials will be available for downloading from the Baptist General Convention of Texas website.
___ $50,000 to help churches provide Victim Relief Ministries emergency aid to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of crime victims.
___ $20,000 each for regional prayer and spiritual development leadership conferences, ethnic retreats and conferences, and funding for African-American field coordinators.
___ $15,000 for a transitional living community pilot program that will help provide group home living, discipleship and life skills development for recently released offenders.
___In addition to $200,000 in ongoing support for Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio and $175,000 for Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center in Harlingen, the offering also includes allocations for other Texas Baptist institutional ministries, including:
___ $80,000 to extend the family ministry programs of South Texas Children's Home in the Rio Grande Valley.
___ $35,000 to help Buckner Baptist Benevolences provide crisis relief and temporary assistance to families along the Rio Grande.
___ $34,000 in scholarship assistance for mentally challenged adult residents of Breckenridge Village at Tyler.
___ $10,000 to help Baptist Child and Family Services of San Antonio provide tutoring and a safe place to study and enjoy recreational opportunities for youth in the Jefferson Area distressed neighborhood.
___ $7,500 for evangelistic missions outreach in El Paso and Juarez by students at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary.
___The largest allocation in the 2001 offering is $1.4 million to help start churches. Other key allocations include $460,000 for the evangelistic and missions programs of River Ministry along the Rio Grande and $290,000 for special projects involving Texas Baptist associations of churches.
___The Mary Hill Davis Offering also includes $913,000 for the operating budget of Texas WMU. The funds allow Texas WMU to provide ministries such as church consultations, multicultural missions, campus involvement, field services and leadership training. Texas WMU promotes the Texas Baptist Cooperative Program but does not receive any Cooperative Program funds for its operation.
___If Texas Baptists exceed the $5.75 million giving goal for the Mary Hill Davis Offering, the first $50,000 received over the goal will be used to buy a new tractor for the Texas Baptist Disaster Relief mobile unit.
___Additional funds will be allocated to church starts.
___"The Church ... God's Work of Heart" is the theme of the 2001 Week of Prayer for Texas Missions and the Mary Hill Davis Offering, Sept. 9-16.
___In her final report to the board as executive director-treasurer, Fenner identified some of the strengths of Texas WMU and noted they also can become points of vulnerability.
___The ability of Texas WMU to customize missions education for churches of many sizes, varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and different circumstances is a strength, she said.
___"Our vulnerability comes when--for whatever reason--we do not hold up consistent, ongoing, age-appropriate missions education as the most effective missions education," she said.
___"We must not trivialize the value of what we're about, which is helping people develop spiritually toward a missions lifestyle. There's not a pastor in this state who would be content to just 'drop in' a few nuggets of the gospel and expect to grow the church in the likeness of Christ."
___Porterfield sounded the same note in her "looking ahead" report to the board, saying, "Little drips of missions education here and there will not cut it."
___She challenged the board to see ongoing missions education not just as providing information, but to view it as "life transformation."

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