Grant funds Standard student initiative project

On-site missions reporting by communications student interns, a blog featuring firsthand impressions from students on mission and ongoing reports by student missionary correspondents are among the projects made possible by a $93,000 three-year grant to the Baptist Standard from the Christ is our Salvation Foundation of Waco.

Founded by the Paul and Katy Piper family, the Christ is our Salvation Foundation also is providing funds to make the Standard available to all Texas Baptist ministerial students, as well as the faculty and staff of seminaries and university religion departments affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Research and development 

In addition, the foundation will underwrite a student internship devoted to a research and development project that focuses on child advocacy, senior adult advocacy and domestic poverty.

“Commitment to missions, dedication to Christian education and compassion for the vulnerable have characterized the Piper family and their stewardship through the Christ is our Salvation Foundation. The student initiative project brings together these concerns in a way that will make a significant impact on the rising generation of Texas Baptists,” Baptist Standard Editor Marv Knox said.

For several years, the Standard has provided a communications internship for upper-level journalism and communications college students, in partnership with the Baptist Building’s communications office.

The foundation grant is providing travel funds to allow the summer communications interns more experience on the field, providing on-site news and feature coverage of missions events, projects and ministries.

Focus on Mary Hill Davis Offering ministries

In particular, the funds are enabling students to photograph and report on ministries supported by the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions and the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger, as well as the Texas Hope 2010 emphasis.

The grant also has enabled the Standard, working in partnership with the BGCT Go Now Missions program, to enlist student missionary bloggers who are providing periodic first-person accounts of their experiences and impressions.

Their entries are posted online at www.baptiststandard.com.

During their first three weeks on the field, summer missionaries already have posted accounts from a clinic serving an HIV-positive clientele in South Asia, a Hispanic outreach team in New Jersey and an orphanage in Guatemala.

Over the next several months, the grant also will provide funding for two student missionary correspondents who will provide on-site news and feature coverage of missions work, as well as post a regular first-person blog reflecting on their experiences on the mission field.

Al Johnson, an English major from the University of Texas at San Antonio, will report from Kenya beginning in July. Jane Owen, who graduated with a communications degree from Oklahoma Baptist University and has been attending seminary, will report in the fall semester from the Pacific Northwest.