41
Richmond, Virginia
May 10, 1962
The Foreign Mission Board met in regular monthly session at 3:00 P.M. on
Thursday, May 10, 1962, with Mr. Jenkins presiding.
Present: T. F. Adams, Joseph P. Edmondson, J. Levering Evans, Horace Ford,
Stuart Grizzard, Oscar Hite, Josiah Hoover, L. Howard Jenkins, J. Walter
Martin, Ryland 0. Reamy , Meredith Roberson, Emmett Y. Robertson, Herman P.
Thomas, James Todd, Mrs. John C. Tyree, P. Earle Wood, C. Bailey Jones,
Baker J. Cauthen, Winston Crawley, Rogers M. Smith, E. L. Hill, lone Gray,
Floyd H. North, E. L. Deane, Luke Smith, Edna Frances Dawkins, Franklin T.
Fowler, E. L. Wright, Elmer S. West, Frank K. Means, Jess Fletcher, Fon H.
Scofield, Inez Tuggle.
Rev. J. Walter Martin led in prayer.
Dr. Cauthen gave the following report of the Executive Secretary:
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
Already announcement has been given to the press of the final total of the
Lottie Moon Christmas Offering which has reached the sum of $9,315,754.78.
This is the largest mission offering as far as we know in the history of
any church group. It almost reached the full goal of the offering which
was $9,390,000. We again express appreciation to the Woman's Missionary
Union for their labor of love in this offering.
Final lists for the appropriation of the Lottie Moon Offering are now being
drawn up and will be reviewed with the Executive Board of Woman's Missionary
Union in San Francisco with a view to appropriations being made by the
Foreign Mission Board at its next meeting in July.
As all will remember, the Board will not meet in June due to the meeting
of the Convention in San Francisco followed by Foreign Missions Week so
soon thereafter at Ridgecrest. We will be having a meeting of the Board in
August .
It will be necessary for me to miss the July meeting of the Board as I am
scheduled to go to the missions in Southeast Asia about the first of July
and will be back about the first of August.
Even at this point, preliminary thinking is necessary with regard to the
1963 budget. Careful study has been made already of the anticipated funds
for the budget and it is evident that as we proceed through the year with
a conservative policy of current appropriations looking forward to being
able to appropriate approximately $600,000 from current funds for the 1963
budget, we will be able to make the necessary provision for the budget which
will need to be adopted. We keep in mind that each year the budget has to
be increased approximately one million dollars to sustain the advance being
made .
One of the most helpful studies made each year is that of analysis of the
Foreign Mission Board audit. It will be remembered that at the April meeting
of the Board the report of the Audit Committee indicated that the audit had
been studied and approved.
The analysis of the audit indicates a total expenditure for 1961 of $19,199,594.48.
This means that the foreign mission work of Southern Baptists costs $52,601.62
per day. Or reduced to a finer point, it means that it costs $36.53 per minute
to carry on the work of foreign missions throughout the world. Of this large
expenditure, 92.907, of the money was spent on foreign mission fields. The
grand total of this expenditure was $17,837,077.07.
The sending and maintaining of missionaries called for a total of $6,667,255.99.
Of this amount, salaries and cost-of-living supplements amounted to $3,603,462.03
The remainder of the money for missionary support was used for medical allowance,
language study, children's school allowances, property operating, travel for
mission business, local leave, furlough travel, refit allowance, group insurance,
outgoing expenses for new missionaries, expenses of moving missionaries on the
field, and miscellaneous items.
