Summer of ministry, summer of love - Overview

Joe Westbury/Index

Capri Jeffers is joined by seven-year-old Linda Salazar as they wash a car at Lifeway Church in Vista, Calif. The afternoon free car wash provided a way for youth to minister and get to know residents of the northern San Diego community. Jeffers, a member of the Baptist Collegiate Ministries at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, was one of Georgia Baptists’ summer missionaries serving in the San Diego Baptist Association this summer.

Every year GBC Collegiate Ministries dispatches scores of students to minister around the world. They serve alongside career missionaries and in churches in cities large and small, gaining valuable experience and undergirding local congregations in Kingdom work. This year The Index’s annual coverage focuses on 10 students who are part of an innovative outreach as part of the partnership between Georgia and the California Southern Baptist Convention. See complete story and photos in this issue’s centerspread.

2008 BCM overview

• Record 234 summer participants,up from 200 in 2006
• 25 nations represented
• 5 continents impacted
• 16 semester missionaries serving in Africa – 9 this past spring and 7 this fall
• In 2007, the most recent year available, BCM participants reported 1,200 professions of faith