“In my distress I called upon the Lord,

and cried out to my God;

He heard my voice from His temple,

and my cry came before Him,

even to His ears.”

~Psalm 18:6~

Carl Wayne Stevens seems to be headed in the right direction now. Please continue to pray for him as he is hospitalized in Jackson.

Peyton Alford’s fractured clavicle doesn’t hurt. She’s decorated her brace and will be seeing a specialist Monday. Pray no additional problems are found.

Sherry asked us to pray for her dad, Johnny Smith, who is in rehab at Hammond.

Don Denton

Don had neurologist appointment today. It went well. She will be referring him to a Neurologist – Ent. at Washington University Hospital in St. Louis. We are praying to get an appointment soon.

Our doctors here are really good and at the same time they don’t specialize in the area that Don needs help. So we are very thankful that he will be getting a referral.

On another subject our floors should be done by Saturday. The contractors have had some problems with the floor, so it is taking longer. But it too is a blessing. No more mold. And the floor is going to be wonderful.

WE will have to be out of the house most of the day on Friday and Saturday.

I am going to ask for another favor. I will need help moving furniture back into the den and the Kitchen. I have a refrigerator and I will need to get a dolly to transport it. I also have a kitchen table and a big chair and a cabinet that I can’t move myself. If anyone can help me I would so appreciate it.

Please call me on my cell if you can. 399-8520.

Don has doctor appointment next week with infectious disease doctor. It looks like they are going to try and taper another drug as well. This particular drug is a patch and can cause some very bad side effects. He also will drop down on his prednisone this weekend.

This is the one that when at the 20mg he relapses. We are almost there and are praying that it does not happen.

Thank you for sticking with us, it means so much.

Diane

(I’ve been to many, many wakes over the years. There were more people at the wake for Kyle Brabham than any other wake I have ever attended! There are also a number of people who signed the guest book at McKneely’s and at 2 the Advocate. What a tribute to Kyle and his family!!!)

Visitation continues at Pine Ridge for Kyle Brabham. The family is there, so you can visit any time between now and the 10:00 A.M. funeral service.

Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (Day 6)

(Bro. Lamar Duke pastored in the Hammond area. You may remember him. I do.)

Lamar Duke’s Goal: ‘Make it Harder to Go to Hell from Pittsburgh’

By Mickey Noah

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – In North American Mission Board missionary Lamar Duke’s native Alabama, there’s one Southern Baptist church for every 1,452 people.

In the Pittsburgh area, where Duke served the last six years as director of missions for the Baptist Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania, there’s only one SBC church for 61,225 people.

Some 3 million live in the association’s nine-county area – so broad that it takes over three hours to drive it north to south and more than two hours east to west.

“We believe that approximately two million of those people are unchurched,” says Duke, adding that this flies in the face of one report calling Pittsburgh the third most religious city in America.

“We Baptists, of course, know that what some call ‘religious’ may not always be Christian. There’s a lot of religion here, but there’s not much relationship with Jesus,” he said. Only five percent of the metro Pittsburgh population claims to be evangelical Christians.

Duke is one of more than 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. He is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Duke.

With his size, shaved head and southern drawl, Duke is seldom confused as a native Pittsburgher. And since coming as a long-time pastor in Georgia to Pittsburgh in 2002, Duke had to learn about the culture and diversity of Pittsburgh.

Although ranked as the 22^nd largest metro area in the United States, Pittsburgh also has a small-town feel – comprised of some 1,600 boroughs, each with its own ethnic and religious traits. Some 140 identifiable ethnic groups call Pittsburgh home.

Duke tells a funny story about his most recent object lesson in the area’s culture and diversity and how careful he has to be with words commonly used in the South.

“I recently was speaking in the Polish Hill area of the city, where, of course, most are Polish. I told a funny ‘Bubba’ story,” Duke recalled, explaining that in the South, “Bubba” is the well-known name for a “good old boy” and the brunt of many a joke.

“After I spoke, a man told me he thought I was talking about his grandmother because in the Polish community, grandmothers are known as ‘Bubba.’” Duke just laughs at his innocent gaffe, but said he won’t make that mistake again.

What Duke doesn’t laugh about – in fact he’s known to weep about it – is the profound lostness of the greater Pittsburgh and southwest Pennsylvania area. Before thousands last summer at the 2008 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Indianapolis, Duke became emotional on stage with NAMB president Geoff Hammond when talking about Pittsburgh’s sad spiritual state.

“The fact that 95 percent of the local population has no recognizable, identifiable relationship with Jesus Christ is what drives me. It gets me out of the bed in the morning and keeps me up at night.

“Our vision here at our association is that we cannot rest until there is a vital, evangelizing, discipling, reproducing church within driving distance of all the 3 million people in the nine counties of southwestern Pennsylvania, and a church where they can worship in their heart language.”

Before coming to Pittsburgh six years ago, Duke was founding pastor of South Effingham Community Church in Guyton, Ga., serving there from 1996-2002. Before that he had pastorates in Louisiana, New Jersey and Alabama.

He’s been married to wife Dolly, also an Alabama native, for 38 years. They have two grown children – Cheri D. Witmer and Thomas L. Duke, pastor of Iron City Church, also a church plant in Pittsburgh.

So why did he leave Georgia – with SBC churches on every corner – to come to Pittsburgh?

“I thought I was ready to retire,” Duke says. “I’d been a pastor for 31 years and I knew pastoring. I’m still a pastor at heart. I’m more comfortable behind a pulpit than anywhere else. But I felt God was moving me to multiply my ministry.”

A graduate of the University of Mobile with a B.A. in religion and an M. Div. degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Duke had been schooled to believe that church planting is the most effective and efficient way to reach those 2 million unchurched people in his association’s area.

“So we’re doing everything we can to salt and seed the area with the Gospel,” said Duke. “We believe church planting is the way to do that because the more salvation stations we can create, the more opportunity those people have to hear the Gospel.

“So if somebody comes up with a better way to reach these people for Jesus, I’m all about that. But up to this point, they haven’t so we’re planting churches – as hard as we can, as much as we can, as qualitatively as we can. And we’re putting everything around these church planters we can to make them successful.”

Duke – who, as the local director of missions considers himself a wholesaler, not a retailer in the church planting business – still believes as an associational leader, “you have to have smoke on your clothes from being in a fire if you’re gonna tell other people how to fight the fire.”

Since coming to Pittsburgh six years ago, he’s had a direct or indirect hand in the number of churches in his association increasing from 38 to 71 – probably up to 75 in the near future.

One of the fellow church planters Duke has motivated and coached is Larry Walker, pastor of West Hills Baptist Church, Moon Township, Pa., a 35-year-old church. West Hills once ran only 60 each Sunday but now sees a weekly attendance of 90. Another 500 are touched each month via the church’s extended ministries.

“A church that comes back is a church that begins to get in touch with their community and starts thinking outwardly,” according to Duke.

West Hills Baptist did just that, said Walker. The church started ministering in neighborhoods and communities. It now supports a pregnancy center, holds Bible studies for the elderly at a senior high-rise apartment, and works with the homeless in downtown Pittsburgh.

“Lamar just has a great burden for lost people and a great burden to see new churches planted here in the area,” said Walker. “It’s been a privilege to work with Lamar because of his enthusiasm. It’s good to hang around with him and catch the vision God has given him about seeing other churches planted.”

In addition to West Hills’ own ministries, the church also now houses a separate Hispanic church, ministering to the up to 30,000 Hispanics living and working in greater Pittsburgh. Another Duke protégé, Moises Rosario, pastors that congregation, meeting at 3:00 on Sunday afternoons at West Hills Church.

“Lamar has a great vision and is a great man of God,” says Rosario, an Hispanic church planter in his own right, who, in addition to the West Hills church, has helped plant Hispanic churches in Moravia, Oakland, Coraopolis, Grove City, Erie, Altoona and Martinsburg, Pa.

Duke believes that churches plant churches – not associations, state conventions, agencies, or mission boards.

“So our goal is to enable, equip and empower our churches to catch a vision, have the resources, and partner and sponsor with other churches to get new church plants off the ground,” Duke said. “There’s no reason to plant a church if you don’t intend to reach people for Jesus Christ. We’re not planting social clubs here, we’re planting churches.

“We just want to make it hard to go to hell from Pittsburgh,” said Duke.

Editor’s Note: Since his selection as a 2009 Week of Prayer missionary, Duke has accepted a new missionary position as state director of missions for the Baptist Convention of New York.

---

UPDATE: A Word from Lamar

You may know by this time that I have received a new assignment from the Lord. I became the State Director of Missions for the Baptist Convention of New York (BCNY) as of November 1, 2008. There are approximately twenty-six million people living in the BCNY territory. We are currecntly serving 423 churches and missions. Some statistics indicate that as many as 98 percent are not yet followers of Christ. Please pray that we may have the wisdom of the Lord to know how to impact the “lostness” of our area. We do understand that a vital part of this taks will be the planting of evangelistic, discipling, reproducing churches so that all people within our territory may hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in their own heart language.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank Southern Bapitsts for your prayers, gifts through the Cooperative Program and through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. These offerings and prayers enable me to do what the Lord has called me to do in the way we do it. It is indeed my privilege to serve the Lord in this way!

God’s blessings on you this Friday!

Anna Lee

A man’s heart reflects the man.

Proverbs 27:19 (NIV)

Our granddaughter, Peyton Alford (5), broke her clavicle at church last night when a youth fell on her. Pray for her as she has additional tests.

Ora Lee Wilson is having a pacemaker installed today. Be in pray that all goes well and the pacemaker is the answer to Ora Lee’s problems.

The wake for Kyle Brabham begins at 5 P.M. today at Pine Ridge United Methodist Church and continues until the funeral at 10 A.M. tomorrow.

Song Sik Kim: Born to reach Koreans in California

By Mickey Noah

FULLERTON, Calif. – Just as Hannah lovingly presented her baby son, the prophet Samuel, to God, Bok Soon Kim, the Korean mother of Song Sik Kim, dedicated young Song to serve the Lord when he was but an infant.

Fifty-three years later, Bok Soon has gone on to be with her Lord, but Song’s still serving God.

“When I was in high school, my mother finally told me she had dedicated me to the Lord,” said Kim, now a church planting missionary ministering to Koreans throughout California – based in Fullerton. Once he learned of his mom’s giant act of faith, Kim says he was burdened constantly until 1980 – when at 25 years old – he finally answered God’s call to preach. “I was 100 percent sure that God called me.”

Today, California has a total population of almost 37 million people, and about a million of these are of Korean descent. But of this million, Kim estimates that some 800,000 are non-believers.

Jointly supported by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the California Southern Baptist Convention, Song Kim and wife Fanny – also a native of South Korea – have worked the last dozen years as church planting missionaries in The Golden State.

Song and Fanny Kim are only two of more than 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. The couple is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like the Kims.

A native of Pusan, South Korea, Song first came to the United States in 1973. He is a graduate of California Baptist College and holds M. Div. and D. Min. degrees from Golden Gate Baptist and Fuller Theological Seminaries, respectively. Song and Fanny – born in Seoul and named for prolific hymn-writer Fanny Crosby – have two daughters, Julie, 26, and Janet, 23.

Living in Fullerton – about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles – but with an office in Fresno, Kim is away from home 7-10 nights each month – preaching, teaching, recruiting and training Korean pastors and seminary students as volunteer church planters.

“When I’m traveling up and down the state of California, I usually leave on Friday or Saturday and return home on Monday or Tuesday,” says Kim. He is responsible for overall Korean church planting in California and currently, there are only 200 Korean Southern Baptist churches in California to reach and disciple the state’s 1 million Koreans.

What does Kim – who by himself can’t possibly plant and disciple all the Korean churches needed in California – look for when he goes to Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary or area churches, searching for and recruiting young Korean church planters?

“If they are to be successful church planters, they have to have a clear calling from God,” he said. “Calling is No. 1 because if they have a clear calling from God, I believe God will provide everything for them. They also must have a clear vision – their own personal vision, not someone else’s – to start with. They also have to understand the Korean culture.”

Kim said the challenge for these young Korean church planters is that they lack experience, and that church planting will be voluntary, second to their full-time role as local pastors or seminary students. The volunteer church planters do not receive salaries.

“We need more churches, more church leaders and more pastors,” he says.

With its 2,500 members, the largest of the 200 Korean churches in California is New Vision Church in Milpitas, Calif., about 50 miles southeast of San Francisco. But New Vision is one of the few Korean churches in California that owns its own building, according to Kim.

“It’s hard to find worship places,” he said, explaining that Korean Baptists are competing for space with other ethnic-group churches such as Hispanics. “We have to partner with Anglo, Hispanic or other churches and borrow their building for our services. Real estate is so expensive in California. If we have to rent an office building or warehouse, it may cost $2,000-3,000 each month, just for rent.”

Kim says that reaching California’s Koreans requires a two-prong strategy – one for ministering to first-generation Koreans and another strategy for reaching younger, second-generation Koreans.

“Probably, 80 percent of the Korean population here is first-generation. They were immigrants from Korea and their mother tongue is Korean. Their English is limited, so that’s why we need English-as-Second Language classes for most of them.” Kim said worship services for first-generation Koreans are usually 100 percent in the Korean language.

“Second-generation Koreans speak good English because they grew up in the U.S but culturally, they know only 25 percent of what their parents know about Korean culture. They want an English-speaking church in a cultural Korean setting, which is hard. We’re losing a lot of second-generation Koreans,” said Kim.

Another challenge while working with the Koreans, according to Kim, is that Koreans are inherently a very shy people.

“They just attend a service or meeting and watch. Americans, on the other hand, are very active. So when Koreans and Americans get together, there’s a wide cultural difference.”

Song’s 53-year-old wife, Fanny, says her job is to support Song in his ministry. She says she doesn’t mind being in the background.

“We’ve been in the ministry, especially in the Korean community in California, for over 20 years,” Fanny said. “And the more I get to know the Korean community, the more I feel we need more churches and a lot more involved Korean women and children, not just the men. Koreans have a tendency to just stay within the Korean community instead of trying to reach out to other people.

“I didn’t realize it when my husband was called as a minister 28 years ago, but I was also called myself. I have a confidence that I was called by God, and feel my role is important. There are a lot of Korean women and pastor’s wives who need support and a mentor. I didn’t understand that was my role until we became NAMB missionaries,” said Fanny.

What does the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering mean to the Kims and their ministry?

“Without the Annie Armstrong offering, I can’t do the work,” said Song Kim. “The money that comes from Annie and the Cooperative Program is helping the Korean church planters and my ministry. As a team, we’re working together to expand the Kingdom of God.”

UPDATE: A Word from Song

I was able to help start a new church in San Ramon, Northern California. Pastor Tae K Shin is the church planter. God has called him to be a church planter and gave him a passion to reach out to the people in the San Ramon area. He is married and has two sons.

Please pray for the church to find a building for worship and to find five support churches to assist them in growing.

BLAMING OTHERS

“Johnny, where’s your homework?” asked the teacher, more in hope than expectation.

“Sorry,” said Johnny, “I couldn’t do it, there was too much noise at home.”

“Noise? All evening? What kind of noise?” asked the teacher.

“It was the television, ma’am, it was just too loud. I couldn’t do my homework.”

“Now Johnny,” said the teacher patiently, “you could have asked them to turn the sound down, surely?”

“No, I couldn’t. There was no one else in the room!”

We are quick to place the blame on others, to talk about what “they” didn’t do. “I think the church should spend more time visiting the sick!” “I think the church should do more evangelizing!” “I think the church should do more to encourage our missionaries!”

There may well be some truth in those statements. But, often, we make such statements without asking the questions, “What am I doing?” or “What can I do?” The reason is obvious. Thinking about we aren’t doing makes us feel guilty, thinking about what others aren’t doing doesn’t bother the conscience much at all.

“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5)

Television too loud? Get up and turn it off yourself!

Have a great day!

Alan Smith
Helen Street Church of Christ
Fayetteville, North Carolina

Thank-you for praying today. Your prayers each day mean so much to so many people.

Anna Lee

“Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble;

You will prepare their heart;

You will cause Your ear to hear.”

~Psalm 10:17~

Scott Lindsey

From Scott Lindsey’s Family, thank you all so much for your calls, visits and prayers. We have seen the power of your prayers over the last three days. Scott remains in critical but stable condition.

Please continue to keep him in your prayers.

Tommy, Becky, Laurie and Karibeth Lindsey
Daniel and Elizabeth Vining
Angelina Hemmingway

Carl Wayne Stevens’ surgery in Jackson went well. He looks good and seems to be progressing. Please continue to pray for him.

Billy Joe Ann Hammons Estess
(February 11, 1933 – March 2, 2009)

Died on Monday, March 2, 2009 at her residence in Yazoo, MS. She was a native and lifelong resident of Kentwood, LA Age 76 years. She was a U.S.M.C. veteran during the Korean Conflict, was a floral designer for many years and a youth counselor at Drug Rehab Center at Southwest Mississippi Mental Health. Visitation at McKneely Funeral Home, Kentwood, from 9 a.m. on Thursday until religious services at 11 a.m. Thursday. Interment Woodland Cemetery, Kentwood, LA. Survived by 2 daughters, Joda Hudson and her husband, Billy, McComb, MS, Tara McWhirter and her husband, Wally, Flora, MS, son, John Reid Estess, III and his wife, Debbie, Yazoo, MS, 6 grandchildren, Joshua Thibodeaux, Tchona Hudson, Chelsea Hudson Paniquana, Katy McWhirter, Anna McWhirter, A. J. Alford, great-grandson, Brody Thibodeaux, brother, Jon Carl Hammons and his wife, Lou, Amite. Preceded in death by parents, Joe Lee and Uda M. Hammons, great-grandson, Noah Braeden Paniquana.

Week of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstron Easter Offering

Brenda Crim ‘Coaches’ Alaskan College Students into a Relationship with Christ

By Mickey Noah

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – She was a Caldwell, Texas tomboy who could play tennis or volleyball with the best of the local boys. She was the product of a solid, blue-collar family, with a dad who she thought hung the Texas moon.

In the mid 1970s, Brenda Crim took her God-given athletic ability 30 miles down the road to College Station, where Texas A&M gave her a four-year scholarship to play volleyball as an Aggie.

In a college career driven by athletics, Brenda always thought she’d one day be the coach of a college team. And she didn’t want to be just any coach, but one of the greatest women’s coaches ever.

Fast-forward to last winter. It’s 18 degrees outside with two feet of snow on the ground. Brenda Crim tools down an Anchorage, Alaska road in her silver Toyota pickup.

Since 2005, Brenda’s served as director of the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at the University of Alaska-Anchorage (UAA), and as a North American Mission Board (NAMB) missionary. Though she never realized her dream of becoming a sports coach, today she coaches young people in the toughest spectator sport of them all – life.

Crim is one of more than 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. She is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Crim.

When Brenda was a student back at Texas A&M 30 years ago, she made her decision to follow Jesus Christ.

“I was involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Baptist Student Union at A&M and there I was saved and discipled,” Brenda says. “I came from a good family. I had gone to a good church. But somehow I missed an in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit in my life.

“After an FCA meeting, I drove home and sitting on the tailgate of my dad’s pickup, I poured my heart out to God and asked him to take over my life. I haven’t been the same since, and my life has been an amazing wild ride.”

Leading a young girl named “Angela” to Christ while on a BSU mission trip forever changed Brenda’s life.

“Leading my first person to Christ was the turning point for me, when I first knew what I wanted to do with my life. My life had been wrapped up in sports, but sports victories are short-term, ephemeral things. You win the game or the championship, and then you start preparing for the next game. The victory is momentary.

“But when I led Angela to Christ, I realized this was something that had exponential purpose. It was eternal. I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I hoped there was a way to make a vocation of this.”

After graduating from Texas A&M and then earning an M. Div. degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, she began her 26-year journey in campus ministry. Her path would take her through West Texas A&M in Canyon, Texas, Richland College in Dallas, the University of Texas at Austin, back to Texas A&M at College Station, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, La., and finally to Anchorage.

Compared to college towns in the Bible Belt states of Texas and Louisiana, Brenda discovered early on that Alaska would be a brand new ballgame. Even after 26 years of on-campus experience, she was not ready for what she found in Alaska.

Brenda likens Alaska more to a foreign missions experience than that of a North American missions assignment.

“The language is the same, but you must familiarize yourself with Alaskan Native culture or your efforts can be ineffective. Outside Alaska’s few urban areas, people up here are isolated and live subsistent lifestyles much like their tribal forefathers. Their acceptance of outsiders and Anglos depends on a perceived genuine love and respect for the Alaskan people.

“Alaskan students are awesome,” she said. “High school and college kids have depth and are can-do people. Up here, it’s a pioneer lifestyle. You have to be able to fix things that are broken and even engineer a part if you don’t have one. You have to be innovative, especially in creating ways to reach people with the limited resources at hand. I value that. I grew up respecting people, like my dad and uncles, who could do that.”

After she first traveled to Alaska during a mission trip in 2004, Brenda says she was drawn to the Alaska Baptist Convention- and NAMB-supported staff people already serving in Alaska. “I thought they would be great to work with.”

Since arriving in Anchorage, one of Brenda’s prized connections is with 22-year-old Melissa Okitkun, the daughter of a Yup’ik Eskimo seal-hunter from the small west Alaska village of Kotlik (pop. 600).

“Student leaders are the best missionaries to reach other students,” according to Brenda. “Engaging students in leadership to reach others is a key philosophy in student ministry.”

When she met Melissa over a year ago at a Sonic Flood concert, the young woman fit the bill as a leader. Brenda recalls how much influence she had over other Alaska Native students at the university.

“But Melissa had become involved in drinking and smoking. She knew better because her dad is a lay Assembly of God pastor back in her village. But Melissa came to college in Anchorage and got away from God.

“Slowly, we connected and began to forge a friendship. From the start, I thought she would be a great person to help me because she was well-connected among the native students. She could open doors to the others. She ultimately trusted me and gave her life to the Lord.”

Melissa, now as a Christian, continues to be a spiritual magnet attracting UAA students to Brenda’s “Breakaway” student worship on Tuesdays and to Friday night discipleship dinners at Brenda’s home.

Every Friday night, Brenda hosts a discipleship dinner and Bible study attended by dozens of students – a session which may go until the wee hours of Saturday morning.

“I prepare a home-cooked meal, get the students off campus, give them a place to be, and try to create options for some good clean fun. My home becomes full of life, and good things always happen.”

The students – many of them, like Melissa, Alaska Natives from isolated villages – encourage each other through small groups, revealing the tough lives they left behind when they came to the university in Anchorage.

“Some of the things they talk about from home will just tear your heart out sometimes,” said Brenda. “It’s wave after wave of bad news, and it’s hard for them to wage the mental battle that goes with it.”

You won’t find the social problems and taboos these students encounter back in their villages mentioned in the Alaskan cruise line ads or on the Travel Channel. Tourists to Alaska would be shocked.

“Sometimes students share their despair in personal conversations,” she says. “Alaska is a leader in the nation in suicide, rape and alcoholism. Many young girls were the victims of rape and incest back in their villages.

“Why would God call a woman like me to Alaska when there was a list of guys wanting the same job?” Brenda asks. “Now I know. Women are needed here who are willing to be patient, listen, be a friend and walk through life with them.”

Brenda is eager for Alaska’s dark secrets to be exposed in the light. She wants Baptists to know that she and her fellow missionaries are dealing with the worst of real-life issues in their ministries.

“Even though prime-time television is intrigued with Alaska, Americans don’t hear about our tragic social issues because it’s not popular for tourism or the cruise industry.”

Brenda learned first-hand about life in Kotlik when she, Melissa and a few others took the six-hour, 500-mile plane trip between Anchorage and Kotlik, which is located where the Yukon River pours into the Bering Sea on the western coast of Alaska.

When Brenda hosted a student retreat during the trip to Kotlik, 40 Yup’ik youths gave their lives to Christ.

Crim said there are some 130 villages in the state of Alaska along the Arctic Circle without a single Christian witness. “That means no Baptists, no Methodists, no anything. That’s why the ‘Melissas’ are so important. We must develop indigenous leaders.”

How long does Brenda expect to serve as a North American Mission Board missionary in Alaska?

“I expect to live out my days here,” she says honestly. “God would have to pry me out of here. My vision is a lifelong vision, not a short-term vision. The task requires someone to invest their life here.

“The stuff I want to accomplish here could take the rest of my life,” said a woman who has never lost her Texas drawl, and looks and sounds younger than her 50 years.

“I had no clue I’d fall in love with Alaska. I loved my home state of Texas. I loved South Louisiana. But Alaska has stolen my heart. Alaska will change your life.”

Brenda tells Southern Baptists to picture her face as they give to the 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

“Everything I own originated in a Baptist offering plate. You made it possible for me to be here and to have a witness here in Alaska,” she says, speaking directly to Southern Baptists everywhere.

“I am truly privileged to be your representative here. Nothing in my life has been greater than to be a missionary for the North American Mission Board.”