Foreign Mission Board
May 14, 1959
49
The Foreign Mission Board met in regular monthly session at 3:00 p.m. on
Thursday, May 14, 1959, with Mr. Jenkins presiding.
Present: J. E. Boyles, Lawrence Bradley, Mrs. Kenneth Burke, Solon B. Cousins,
Horace Ford, J. Levering Evans, L. Howard Jenkins, C. Bailey Jones, Garis T.
Long, Elton Phillips, Emmett Y. Robertson, Herman P. Thomas, James T. Todd,
P. Earle Wood, Baker J. Cauthen, Frank K. Means, Winston Crawley, Cornell Goerner,
E. L. Hill, Elmer West, Rogers Smith, E. L. Wright, Jim Stertz, Bill Cody, Luke
Smith, Edna Frances Dawkins, E. L. Deane, Ralph Magee, Floyd North, Fon Scofield.
Dr. Ford led in prayer.
Mr. West presented the following candidates for missionary service:
Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Chambers Bethea, Indonesia (Special Appointment)
Miss Elaine Hancock, Hong Kong
Rev. and Mrs. Wendell Ray (Jack) Hull, East Africa (Special Appointment)
Rev. and Mrs. Joseph Andrew Jimmerson, Indonesia
Rev. and Mrs. Archie Vale jo Jones, Ecuador
Rev. and Mrs. Carol Glynn McCalman, South Brazil
Miss Sara Sue McDonald, Singapore
Rev. and Mrs. Jesse Allen Smith, Philippines (Special Appointment)
Rev, and Mrs. Jack Elwyn Thrower, South Brazil
Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Laird Watson, Uruguay (Special Appointment)
Rev. and Mrs. James Archie Yarbrough, Nigeria
Each missionary candidate gave a testimony of his Christian experience and call
to missionary service and on the motion of Dr. Ford all were appointed as mis¬
sionaries.
Dr. Cauthen gave a charge to the new appointees and Rev. C. Bailey Jones led in
the prayer of dedication.
Dr. Cauthen filed the following report:
REPORT OF EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
With the appointment today of twenty missionaries, we now have 1,325 missionaries
serving in thirty-nine countries.
We turn our faces to the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville
next week aware that God has wrought remarkably in advance in world missions. The
growth which has taken place in this enterprise has attracted attention far be¬
yond the ranks of Southern Baptists. We praise God for His wonderful leadership,
and we give Him all the glory for every blessing which has come. We are aware
at all points of how utterly dependent we are upon His grace and His leadership,
and we praise Him for the blessings He has given.
We are now at the place where new steps in geographical advance are about to occur.
Dr. Cornell Goerner and I are to visit Africa, leaving immediately after the July
meeting of the Board. The purpose of the journey is to make careful studies in
some of the areas of Africa where we have not been serving. We are particularly
concerned about vast areas in French West Africa as well as large sections under
Portuguese government. We are also aware of the very large section in Northern
Nigeria where only a limited work has been undertaken.
Attention has been called in the last few days to the importance of strengthening
work among Moslem people. A very splendid Christian doctor from Iran called our
attention some days ago to the fact that with the growth of education in his
country people are now reading the Koran for themselves, and are being impressed
with its inadequacy for man's spiritual need. Growing education leaves people
with a spiritual vacuum in those areas, and the way is open for presentation of
truth to people who are in great need of hearing it.
The time should come when we will have mission work over a much wider area of
Africa than we now serve, and we should have far more extensive mission work in
the Middle East.
Well laid plans for the strategy of advance have now borne fruit to the effect
that many of the more recently entered fields have become well established with
quotas of missionaries approximating the number being planned in this period of
expansion. As we move toward 1964 with an expected number of 2,000 missionaries,
all the fields we serve are moving toward clearly defined goals. Such strategy
results in the newly established fields arriving at a place of stability and
well organized work.
