Thanks for supporting the Cooperative Program
April 19, 2005
Editor’s note: Once a month throughout 2005 The Pathway will present columns from Southern Baptist missionaries around the world encouraging Missouri Southern Baptists to support the Cooperative Program. This is the fifth in this continuing series.
In September of 2002, my wife Niki and I began to pray about something else for our lives. We were living in Monroe, Louisiana with our two daughters. We were living close to our families. I was a new partner in a local CPA firm. Niki was a stay-at-home mother. We loved the church we were a part of there. We were “content” as defined by cultural standards. However, we both begin to think that there was something else out there that God had for us.
Niki and I have both been involved with missions for several years. We both have taken mission trips and were very involved with our missions team at our church. We have several friends who are missionaries and loved getting to know missionaries on furlough. We got to know one particular family well and in talking with them, Joel mentioned to me that there was a great need through the IMB for business directors for missionaries. He told me that I would be perfect for that role. I really began thinking about this because before my mindset was “I am not a preacher or evangelist, how can I be a missionary?”
This was something that I am equipped for and would feel comfortable doing. So we began praying to see if this was God’s direction for our lives. We were thinking maybe four or five years from then, when our girls were a little older. But God had other plans for our lives.
Through a series of events, I received a call from the Missouri Baptist Convention about the possibility of interviewing for the Controller’s position. Our first reaction was, “Missouri?” We were praying and thinking foreign mission field. We were thinking Central America, Asia or some other remote place. But God has His timing and His plan. We interviewed for the position in May of 2003 and before we got back on the plane to leave for Louisiana, Niki already knew that God was leading us here. It took me a little longer to come to that realization, but through careful prayer and seeking out godly people for counsel, I began to feel God leading us here as well.
We have been in Jefferson City for a year and a half and I am the Controller for the Missouri Baptist Convention. Through your Cooperative Program giving, I am your missionary to Missouri doing what God has equipped me to do. God has really shown us a lot through this process and is still working in us as we do His work here in Missouri. We are blessed to be a part of what God is doing in Missouri and through the Missouri Baptist Convention. We covet your prayers as we continue to adjust to being away from our families and continue to see how God wants to use us in our church. I also covet your prayers for the work I am doing. I ask that you pray for me for wisdom, financial integrity and knowledge in handling the support services of the Convention. We thank you for your prayers. Thank you, Missouri Baptists, for your support of the Cooperative Program which allows me to serve you. (Jay S. Hughes is a certified public accountant and controller for the Missouri Baptist Convention.)