Women on Mission - December Update
Published December 11, 2025
December Update
First Baptist Women on Mission on Dec. 8 heard our own WOM Director Nancy Brock and Cindy Jenkins, both former missionaries with the International Mission Board, relate how our Southern Baptist missionaries get prepared for the mission field, in contrast to missionary Lottie Moon, a pioneer among women who forged her own way to China in the 1870s.
Born in 1840, the woman for whom our annual Christmas offering in support of foreign missions is named, Lottie Digges Moon lived a tumultuous and rebellious childhood before accepting Christ as her Savior at age 18. Wanting to use her life for the sake of the Gospel, and choosing not to marry because that did not fit into her vision of going to the mission field, Nancy told us that after a career in teaching and after years of caring for her dying mother, “Aunt Lottie” left for China in 1873, the first year the Southern Baptist Convention allowed women to participate in global mission work.
In China, Lottie first was assigned to teaching in missionary schools in northern China. Eventually, she left her teaching post to spend more time in evangelism in rural China, leading hundreds to know Christ. Known as the "Cookie Lady," she served in the remote villages of that country for 40 years, enduring scrutiny, sickness, war, and hunger, giving her own food away to those she encountered. Lottie died in 1912 at age 72 while enroute back to America.
Nancy shared that Lottie cared deeply about two things: winning souls to Christ and the funding and care of the missionaries who bear this labor. Since 1888, more than $1.5 billion has been raised for global missions in her name. First Baptist’s goal this year is $100,000.
Training for Southern Baptist missionaries began in 1954 and was short-term and informal. Formal training began in 1968 and lasted 16 weeks.
Today, Cindy noted that men and women go to the mission field as a married couple, each called to the work, with their children. Unlike Lottie, these couples receive seven weeks of intensive training at the SBC’s International Learning Center in Virginia. Their testimony, family history, church history, physical well-being, financial status, and psychological profile are all examined. At the Center, they live in close quarters with others headed to the mission field, learning to depend on one another for spiritual and emotional support since they will be leaving their biological and church families behind.
Cindy related that the ILC's quad housing forces people to put aside their idea of just going into their own little space. People learn that other families are going to be there for them and their children, who call the other adults aunt and uncle, e.g., "Aunt Lottie." And on the mission field, they will serve as a team. "The IMB does not send you out alone," she said.
Having already made a commitment to go abroad as missionaries, Cindy said they also learn what to do when they get sick or are threatened with physical harm overseas, how to fit into native people groups, how to use evangelism techniques, how to work as a team, how to start a church, and language training, among other skills, and are charged with developing a prayer strategy with 25 Southern Baptist churches. "Churches send out missionaries, and IMB equips them," Cindy noted.
The missionaries' commissioning service "is a high spiritual moment," Cindy shared. Then comes the sale of their stateside home, choosing which possessions to keep, telling family and friends goodbye — literally turning from their past life setting their faces toward Christ.
Born in 1840, the woman for whom our annual Christmas offering in support of foreign missions is named, Lottie Digges Moon lived a tumultuous and rebellious childhood before accepting Christ as her Savior at age 18. Wanting to use her life for the sake of the Gospel, and choosing not to marry because that did not fit into her vision of going to the mission field, Nancy told us that after a career in teaching and after years of caring for her dying mother, “Aunt Lottie” left for China in 1873, the first year the Southern Baptist Convention allowed women to participate in global mission work.
In China, Lottie first was assigned to teaching in missionary schools in northern China. Eventually, she left her teaching post to spend more time in evangelism in rural China, leading hundreds to know Christ. Known as the "Cookie Lady," she served in the remote villages of that country for 40 years, enduring scrutiny, sickness, war, and hunger, giving her own food away to those she encountered. Lottie died in 1912 at age 72 while enroute back to America.
Nancy shared that Lottie cared deeply about two things: winning souls to Christ and the funding and care of the missionaries who bear this labor. Since 1888, more than $1.5 billion has been raised for global missions in her name. First Baptist’s goal this year is $100,000.
Training for Southern Baptist missionaries began in 1954 and was short-term and informal. Formal training began in 1968 and lasted 16 weeks.
Today, Cindy noted that men and women go to the mission field as a married couple, each called to the work, with their children. Unlike Lottie, these couples receive seven weeks of intensive training at the SBC’s International Learning Center in Virginia. Their testimony, family history, church history, physical well-being, financial status, and psychological profile are all examined. At the Center, they live in close quarters with others headed to the mission field, learning to depend on one another for spiritual and emotional support since they will be leaving their biological and church families behind.
Cindy related that the ILC's quad housing forces people to put aside their idea of just going into their own little space. People learn that other families are going to be there for them and their children, who call the other adults aunt and uncle, e.g., "Aunt Lottie." And on the mission field, they will serve as a team. "The IMB does not send you out alone," she said.
Having already made a commitment to go abroad as missionaries, Cindy said they also learn what to do when they get sick or are threatened with physical harm overseas, how to fit into native people groups, how to use evangelism techniques, how to work as a team, how to start a church, and language training, among other skills, and are charged with developing a prayer strategy with 25 Southern Baptist churches. "Churches send out missionaries, and IMB equips them," Cindy noted.
The missionaries' commissioning service "is a high spiritual moment," Cindy shared. Then comes the sale of their stateside home, choosing which possessions to keep, telling family and friends goodbye — literally turning from their past life setting their faces toward Christ.
Coming in January
When WOM meets next on Jan. 12, 2026, Jeannie Hickey and Vickie Plunkett will share highlights from their team’s mission trip to New York City this past summer, and Cindy Jenkins and Courtney McCahan will tell us about their group’s mission work in Vancouver, Canada, in October.
The January meeting will begin at 11:30 a.m. with a covered-dish luncheon in the Buchanan Hall at First Baptist, followed by the speakers' presentations at noon.
Ongoing Activities
WOM also supports Hope House of Union County by collecting personal hygiene items such as shampoo, body wash, deodorant, etc., which are distributed free of charge to Hope House clients. Through offerings collected monthly and budget funding from First Baptist, WOM are supporting the following ministries:
- Cowboy Church of Jerusalem to purchase food and new boots.
- Pure Love Pure Water for more filters to be sent to missionaries.
- The Clarkston After-School Ministry, which provides a meal for the children and to purchase supplies for the children.