DALLAS—Citing her deep concern for children and passion to promote the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger, Pastor George Mason of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas has announced his intention to nominate Carolyn Strickland for first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“She is a true-blue Texas Baptist with a longstanding desire to see Texas Baptists grow in their care for ‘the least of these,’” Mason said.

Carolyn Strickland

It was a dream she shared with her late husband, Phil, who served 38 years with the BGCT Christian Life Commission, including nearly a quarter-century as its director, he noted.

“Carolyn’s desire is to carry on Phil’s legacy, in a sense, by bringing attention to causes that were so important to him,” Mason said.

Strickland traced her commitment to the issue of world hunger—and her husband’s dedication to becoming “an advocate for the voiceless in Austin”—to a 1975 missions tour that took them to five African nations, India, Thailand and China.

“We both went through culture shock, having never been exposed to so much misery,” she said. “We came back never wanting to see that kind of existence in our own country.”

Strickland agreed to allow her nomination as BGCT first vice president because it would give her a platform to promote giving to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger as part of Texas Hope 2010.

Focused on a three-fold vision—share, care and prayer—Texas Hope 2010 includes an effort to raise $2 million for the world hunger offering and ensure every child in Texas has enough to eat, she noted.

Strickland wants to help put together a hunger advocacy network across Texas, identifying at least one person in every church who will be an advocate for the offering and for people who live in poverty.

Strickland is a deacon at Wilshire Baptist Church, where she has been a member since 1971. She has been involved in mission trips with her church to Kenya, Macedonia, Morocco and Guatemala, as well as in the KidsHopeUSA mentoring program. She also has been a leader in Companions in Christ discipleship small groups.

She is one of the founders of Mi Escuelita Preschool in Dallas, an early childhood program dedicated to teaching English and developing early learning skills in at-risk children.

She serves on the board of directors for Texans Care for Children and the T.B. Maston Foundation, the Christian Life Commission board of advisers, the Texas Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinating Council and the BGCT Hispanic Education Task Force.

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