Great Commission

Texas Baptists was recently recognized by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) with an evangelism award for the “Highest Number of Baptisms” for the 2016 calendar year. Texas Baptists churches had a recorded 28,765 baptisms, making this the second year in a row for Texas Baptists to receive this national award.

The story began about three years ago. I was a sophomore at the University of North Texas (UNT), in my rookie semester as an RA in the "artsy dorm" and I had decided to apply for GoNow Missions. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do or who I wanted to serve. I applied for a position in Jamaica because a friend of mine went the previous winter break and highly recommended it. However, I quickly discovered that the timing was not going to work out for that trip. So I ended up going to Discovery Day with absolutely no idea what position I was wanting or being called to.

As Texas Tech’s campus is growing, so is the ministry and vision of Tech BSM. A new building will generate excitement among an increasing student population and will provide additional space that the BSM currently lacks, including a prayer room, missions room, leadership training area and a larger meeting room. These areas will serve as a catalyst to help them accomplish their vision of reaching the campus.

The first day we were in Flushing, New York, my team prayer-walked around the city to find locations for conducting surveys the next day. We were conducting surveys about the new churches to be planted in that area, to determine how people felt about religion in general and new church plants. We prayed that people would take the time out of their busy lives to talk with us and have open hearts to hear about Jesus Christ.

I went on my first mission trip when I was eight years old. My parents introduced me to missions when they took me to Reynosa, Mexico with our Spanish church at the time. I was so heartbroken by seeing how the people we ministered to lived, and I could not help but gain a huge ambition to do whatever it took to help them while we were there. Since then, I have fallen in love with missions.