By Beth Sowers
HLG Public Relations Staff Writer
Hannibal – Hannibal-LaGrange College (HLG) hosted the seventh annual Carroll Missions Week March 15-17. This year’s featured speaker was Roger Rucker, missionary to Northern Africa/Middle East.
Rucker has spent 30 years serving with the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention as a field evangelist/church planter, a strategy leader for the desert peoples, and now the IMB Northern Africa and Middle Eastern Peoples Affinity-Cluster Strategy Leader. During the 2009 spring semester, HLG student, Zebulon Auxier, worked with Rucker through an internship agreement with the International Mission Board.
During the three-day missions emphasis, Rucker addressed issues related to the call of ministry in the lives of believers. His messages from Scriptures in Matthew and II Corinthians entitled “Whose Ministry Is It?” “As You Go,” and “Where’s Waldo?” detailed Rucker’s personal call to ministry, inspiring and challenging the campus community.
“These three days have nothing to do with my being here, these three days are for you, because of God’s Word,” said Rucker. “Missions begins with you. We will never reach all those people unless we begin at home.”
“Here’s the command: make disciples. It begins with sharing your testimony and who you are with the Lord.” Rucker challenged the students to take the time to share their testimony with someone else, and to ask to hear theirs in return. “Sharing your faith can be a very fearful act at first, but we have to get over that,” said Rucker. “‘God is an awesome God;’ that is the confidence you have to have with you.”
“Missions begins in your heart,” concluded Rucker. “And from there we move to the uttermost parts of the world.”
On March 17, during the final Chapel service of Carroll Missions Week, HLG held a summer missions commissioning service. During this service faculty, staff and students were commissioned for summer missions all over the world. Volunteers from HLG will be traveling throughout several continents this summer, partnering with a number of missions organizations as they endeavor to spread the love of God.
Carroll Missions Week is a result of the vision and generous resources of Rheyma and the late Kenneth Carroll of Monroe City. Before his death in 2008, Carroll said he wanted to do something that would make a difference in eternity. Through the establishment of the Carroll Missions Week and the building of the Carroll Missions Center, the Carrolls are touching eternity through the lives of thousands of HLG students. Rheyma Carroll continues this vision by supporting student missionaries who go out from HLG and impact the world for Christ.