Baugh Foundation helps Texas Baptists provide refugee relief in Serbia

AUSTIN—A gift from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation to the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering enabled Texas Baptists to send $15,000 to Serbia to respond to the needs of   Syrian refugees flooding into that country.

Baptist partners in Serbia will use the funds for food, transportation, hygiene materials, shoes, waterproof jackets and other supplies for refugees. Ministry partners in Serbia currently are assisting about 2,000 refugees a day through volunteer efforts and donations. 

When the refugee crisis began to affect Europe in September, the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission staff contacted the European Baptist Federation seeking ways to respond. 

CLC leaders hoped to put $15,000 from the hunger offering into the project but lacked funds for the above-budget effort. Within 48 hours of contacting the Baugh Foundation for assistance, the family foundation agreed to fund the project.

“When we found out about the opportunity to give to this worldwide crisis through the hunger offering, we were so glad to do so,” said Jackie Baugh Moore, vice president of the foundation. “This is a great chance for Texas Baptists to give to support our brothers and sisters in Europe as they provide aid to those in great need.”

Although the foundation already had appropriated all its funds to projects for 2015, when directors heard about partnering with European Baptists to help through the hunger offering, they found funds from next year to help. The urgency of the situation and extreme need for assistance motivated their response, Moore said. 

“The Baugh Foundation and the Baugh family have a deep passion for the work of Texas and international Baptists,” said Ferrell Foster, associate director of the CLC. “CLC commissioners and staff are thrilled to help make this connection between the Baugh Foundation and the need of refugees in Europe.”

The commission identified the specific need, and the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering had the mechanism in place to move funds internationally. The offering has supplied another $21,000 for refugee relief in Lebanon this year, but this additional gift enables help in Europe. Additional funds through the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering will be sent to refugee relief in Lebanon in 2016.

“As we approach Christmas and the end of the year, I pray more and more Texas Baptists will give to the hunger offering to meet the vast needs around the world,” Foster said.

Through October, Texas Baptists gave $543,518 through the offering—a decrease of about 15 percent from the $639,080 given during the same period last year. 

In 2013, Texas Baptists gave $829,938 in the first 10 months. This year’s giving represents a decline of more than 34 percent from two years ago, Foster noted.