From our beginning, Baptist Mid-Missions recognized the importance of communicating with our supporters. In January 1921, our three-month-old agency published BMM’s first magazine, Mid-African Mission. This four-page, black-and-white bulletin reported missionary news and challenged people for greater missions involvement.
This year we celebrate 100 years of Baptist Mid-Missions’ magazines. We’ve come a long way since our first publication, but our purpose is unchanged: share what God is doing around the world and challenge churches and individuals to join in that work.
In February, Brazil missionary David Smith published 85 Years Together: Baptist Mid-Missions and the Regular Baptists in Brazil, one of seven historical books David has written. Seeing the need to persevere the history of one of BMM’s oldest fields, David created Acervo Batista Regular (Regular Baptist Archives of Brazil) in 2012. In reality, the archives’ origins date to 1995. In that year, David sought historical information on a Brazilian church but found that no one was actively preserving the rich history of BMM’s ministries in Brazil, a history that new generations of Brazilians and missionaries could learn from.
David set out on a mission: travel throughout Brazil and record all historical information found in BMM’s regional offices. As his archives of documents and photos grew, he formed the Acervo Batista Regular. His work has produced biographical records of every BMM Brazil missionary and their ministries, and he is collecting information on each Brazilian pastor. Several scholars have used the information in their doctoral and master’s theses. David hopes to develop the archives into a self-sustaining ministry with its own building.
Churches graduated and launched in 2021 plus missionaries starting their first term of service
Your stewardship investment is reaching with the gospel those whom the world is discarding on a whim.