Recently, a group of Baptist missionaries with good intentions made a poor decision with major ripple effects. Some well-intentioned missionaries from Idaho attempted to bus 33 Haitian kids (not all orphans) to the Dominican Republic after the massive earthquake that continues to devastate Haiti. Now, indirectly, children who need life-saving surgeries aren’t getting cleared to leave the country. Honestly, that makes me angry. All the red tape that surrounds any Haitian child who needs help can’t be avoided at this point, even in life or death situations.

This is really too bad. Sure, they weren’t trying to “traffic” these kids, although that does happen to thousands of children per year in Haiti. However, you just can’t do things like that; you can’t bend the rules just because God has given you a holy calling. Just because you feel called doesn’t mean you’re immune to the law. We must abide by laws, U.S. and international. This group shouldn’t expect to receive special treatment because they were on a mission, although I think the Haitian government needs to realize it wasn’t their intention to steal these kids.
I’m not defending this group. They broke the law, whether or not their intentions were malicious.
Anyway, as a result of this, “Baptist missionaries” has become a bad word. I’ve been critical of Baptists in the past, but today, I’m going to attempt to redeem the term “Baptist missionaries“.
Here are just a handful of Baptist missionaries who I consider heroic individuals:
Joseph Booth was a Baptist missionary to Malawi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became unpopular among missionaries because he wanted the land of Africa to be for Africans, not for Europeans to colonize so they could do whatever they wanted. He did this by teaching the local people to plant, grow, and harvest coffee. This may be the first example of a fair trade coffee organization.
Many people know about Jim Eliot. Jim was a Baptist missionary in Ecuador among the Auca people. He approached the Aucas in a peaceful and friendly manner, but was tragically killed by a group of Aucas who had been lied to about the missionaries’ intentions. Jim Eliot is often quoted for this famous passage from one of his journal entries: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Lottie Moon may be the most well-known female Baptist missionary of all time. Although all direct evangelism was practiced exclusively by men at the time, Lottie discovered that the only way to minister to Chinese women was by another woman. Frustrated by those in authority not allowing single women to practice direct evangelism, Moon wrote this in an 1883 article:
Can we wonder at the mortal weariness and disgust, the sense of wasted powers and the conviction that her life is a failure, that comes over a woman when, instead of the ever broadening activities that she had planned, she finds herself tied down to the petty work of teaching a few girls?
This feisty and persistent Baptist belle eventually blazed her own trail, becoming a successful female missionary who was culturally sensitive to the Chinese people’s strange (by western standards) customs. She also formed groups of female Baptist missionaries into a well-run organization of women raising support for missionaries in the field. This eventually led to the annual Southern Baptist Christmas offering known as the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The money raised through this special seasonal offering goes to support missionaries spreading the love and hope found in Jesus locally and around the world. Lottie’s eponymous offering has raised a total of $1.5 billion for missions since 1888, and finances half the entire Southern Baptist missions budget every year.
This is part of my spiritual legacy, and I’m proud to claim it. Even today, Baptist missionaries are displaying quiet acts of heroism that go largely unnoticed and unrewarded; most of these missionaries come from a representational model of missions, and only get attention from local churches on their birthdays or when they need money. Today there are thousands of Baptist missionaries serving the least of these by meeting physical and spiritual needs, and they deserve to be recognized as great women and men of faith.
Don’t let the term Baptist missionary become tainted just because an irresponsible group of them keep showing up on the nightly news.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: baptist, haiti, jim eliot, joseph booth, lottie moon, missionaries | 1 Comment »