JEFFERSON CITY – The president of Southern Baptists’ international relief agency is headed to Jefferson City.
Jeff Palmer, the president of Baptist Global Response, will speak at a dinner July 22 at 5 p.m. hosted by Riverview Baptist Church in Osage Beach and the Missouri Baptist Convention.
Palmer will share the organization’s vision and strategy, as well as partnership opportunities for churches and individuals to provide disaster relief and community development assistance to those in need around the world. Baptist Global Response (BGR) is a disaster relief and community development organization with a heart for helping people in desperate need. One ministry bearing BGR’s fingerprint is World Hunger Relief. Partnering with the International Mission Board, BGR manages and distributes 80 percent of those funds to help feed those in need around the globe, while the remaining 20 percent goes toward hunger ministries in the United States through the North American Mission Board and state conventions.
“When a lot of people think of hunger relief, they think of food being handed out during a disaster,” Palmer said. “While that does happen, hunger funds are used for a lot more than that. Part of it is to get food after a disaster or drought, but hunger funds can also help people learn to sustainably produce food as well.”
Palmer said hunger funds have helped provide seeds for planting in drought-recovering Africa, job skills training to gain more income to get greater access to food, and storage strategies.
“In some parts of the world, they lose 50 percent of their surplus due to improper storage,” Palmer said.
BGR and its partners respond to people with critical needs, whether those needs arise from chronic conditions—like extreme poverty, contaminated water, or endemic hunger—or acute crises—such as natural disaster, personal trauma, or social upheaval.
BGR undergirds the work of Southern Baptists worldwide and partners with others who are like-minded. Baptist Global Response is rooted in the soil of Southern Baptist life and committed to helping Southern Baptists who care connect with people in need around the world.
The July 22 dinner is free, but attendees must register online at mobaptist.org/bgr.