Icing on the Cake

By Don Matchett

I’m sure you have heard the idiom the icing on the cake. Though no one knows who first created icing, the recipe first appeared in Elizabeth Raffald’s book The Experienced English Housekeeper in 1769. Sometime later, the phrase the icing on the cake was coined to describe an additional benefit to something already good.

A few years ago, I overheard a pastor describe the World Missions Offering as the icing on the cake. I guess it’s true. The WMO certainly makes something good even better. Cake is good whether it has icing or not. The icing is somewhat dispensable. But the World Mission Offering is not.

If I were to describe the World Missions Offering as a cake ingredient, I would liken it to baking powder. Baking powder activates the batter to rise and fill the cake pan. Can you imagine a cake without baking powder? It might still be cake, but an important element of the recipe would be missing. The texture and flavor would change. The same is true of the World Missions Offering.

Church Planting

Currently, church planting efforts are advancing in Brazil, Cuba, Ivory Coast, India, Nepal, and Central Asia. Evangelism and church planting are the lifeblood of missions. Without the World Missions Offering, evangelism and church planting in these countries and among our partners would be severely hampered.

Recently, the National Association of Free Will Baptists in the Ivory Coast sponsored a new church plant in Burkina Faso. Just north of Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso is home to at least nine people groups. It is also 61% Muslim. Let that sink in.

Because Free Will Baptists have been faithful to give, our Ivorian partners have been empowered to plant a church in a majority-Muslim, African country.

Cross-cultural Projects

The World Missions Offering sponsors several cross-cultural mission projects. These projects reach countries like Turkey, Uruguay, and Ghana, among others.

Through Free Will Baptist workers and our partners, we currently reach so deeply into unreached peoples we can no longer openly discuss some names and locations. If certain groups discovered them, those workers could not remain in the country. Or worse, they would be in great danger. Would you pray for one particular pastor who has fled his middle-eastern home to hide in another middle-eastern country for his own safety?

Our international Free Will Baptist brothers and sisters are mobilizing their own cross-cultural ministries, both locally and around the world. One couple, former students at the seminary in Chame, Panama, initiated a ministry serving in the dangerous village streets of Colombia. They continue to share the gospel despite threats and curses by a witchdoctor.

Pastor Yosvanys Quiñones, his wife Anita, and their two children recently moved from Cuba to Uruguay to serve as missionaries.

Bible Training

The World Missions Offering helps fund Bible training. For decades, IM has concentrated its efforts to establish Bible training programs in countries around the world. Great training produces great leaders who plant strong, autonomous churches. Today, we have mature national leaders, pastors, and missionaries training the next generation. As you can imagine, this has escalated the expansion of the Kingdom tremendously. IM currently collaborates with training programs in Brazil, Panama, Cuba, Ivory Coast, India, Russia, South Korea, and Central Asia.

Sponsorships

The World Missions Offering helps sponsor national conventions, camps, and retreats for various age groups in Cuba. Cuba’s 150-plus Free Will Baptist churches and mission works scatter across the 650-mile island. Our Cuban brothers and sisters simply do not have the means to travel across the island to attend the annual national convention. The only campus capable of housing the approximately 500 attendees is the seminary in Pinar Del Río, located on the western end of the country. The World Missions Offering helps subsidize the cost of transportation for those who otherwise could not make the journey.

The Cuban association also sponsors camps and retreats for pastors, women, couples, young adults, teens, children, and the handicapped. Through these camps and retreats, lives have been enriched, marriages have been strengthened, and many have come to Christ.
Build Churches

The World Missions Offering makes it possible to build churches in countries like Ivory Coast. Ivorian church members are mostly farmers with few resources. They have neither the financial means nor the construction capabilities to complete a church building. IM and the World Missions offering provide much needed assistance. Our agreement? If they construct the walls, IM will provide financial assistance for the roof.

Humanitarian Aid

The World Missions Offering helps with humanitarian aid in a variety of ways, both directly and indirectly. One area is IM’s partnership with BERACA. A Free Will Baptist non-profit in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa, BERACA maintains the Doropo Hospital. They also provide AIDS prevention, support for children with HIV, programs for at-risk children, adult literacy classes, classrooms in villages with no school, and the list goes on and on. Currently, IM, The Hanna Project, and BERACA are partnering to renovate the Doropo Hospital and construct a new patient ward.

A Cuban doctor recently joined the medical ministry in Doropo. Yes, that’s right. One of our Cuban sisters, who is a doctor, and her pastor husband are serving in the Ivory Coast. Pastor Yosniel works in evangelism and discipleship while Dr. Katiuska serves as a physician at the hospital in Doropo.

One article does not allow nearly enough room to write all the ways the Kingdom is growing through IM’s World Missions Offering. Free Will Baptists are reaching further than ever before. Almost weekly, we hear stories of how our partners are reaching the world for Christ. By empowering our national brothers and sisters, we have greatly escalated the expansion of the Kingdom. Your gifts to the World Missions Offering provided this growth.
Could IM and IM partners survive without the WMO? Maybe. I think a better question is do we really want to do less, reach fewer people, and shrink our borders rather than expand them?

Many ministry opportunities go unanswered every year because we simply do not have the funds. Time is running out. Billions of people still have not heard the name of Jesus. Imagine what we could do together. Imagine if the WMO reached a million dollars. How many more churches could be planted? How many more pastors could be trained? How many more people could be reached with the gospel? How many more hurting souls could experience hope and healing?

Will you join me this year in giving to the World Missions Offering? Let’s partner together, empower ministries, and advance the Kingdom.

About the Writer: Don Matchett is director of church relations and development for IM. Learn more about strategic partners, the World Missions Offering, and how you can make a difference: IMInc.org.