October 1, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — Georgia Baptists were among 63 new International Mission Board missionaries celebrated Tuesday, June 9, at the SBC annual meeting.
The Sending Celebration, held during the opening session of the annual meeting in Orlando, highlighted the work of Southern Baptist churches in sending and sustaining missionaries through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
IMB President Paul Chitwood told messengers the missionary pipeline is “exploding,” noting a 500% increase in recent years. He said the new appointees are joining more than 3,500 IMB missionaries and their families serving in 155 countries.
“With more lost people living on the planet than at any point in human history, now is the time for more Southern Baptists to answer God’s call to the nations,” Chitwood said.
Among those answering the call were Lonnie Humes, sent in part by The Church at Godley Station in Pooler; Clay and Elizabeth DeBolt, sent by First Baptist Church in Douglasville; and Jordan and Nicole Bosworth, sent by First Baptist Church Peachtree City.
Humes is returning to Spain at age 65 after a season away from overseas missions. The DeBolts, along with their four children, are going to Brazil to serve missionaries through member care. The Bosworths are leaving a student ministry they love to take the gospel to Prague, Czechia.
For Humes, the road back to Spain has unfolded slowly.
He previously served in Spain with his family, expecting to spend a lifetime there. But after returning to the United States and walking through a painful season, including divorce, he wondered whether he would ever serve overseas again.
Humes said God did not reveal the next step all at once.
“It wasn’t a waterfall,” Humes said. “It was a drop at a time. It was literally a droplet at a time of information and leading step by step. It wasn’t a cascade.”
He said that is how he has often experienced God’s direction.
“He works one step at a time,” Humes said. “And he doesn’t reveal that next step until this one is known, and then there’s a step and step and step. So that’s literally how I’ve seen God unfold this.”
Humes said Gano Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ky., helped him begin moving back toward missions. Later, after moving to the Savannah area during COVID, he began attending The Church at Godley Station in Pooler. He said Pastor Darren Thomas helped prepare him mentally and spiritually to return to a difficult ministry context, this time as an individual rather than with a family.
In Spain, Humes will teach missionary kids through a hybrid model that combines one week a month of in-person instruction with online support while students are at home with their families. The goal is to help missionary families remain together and stay longer on the field.
Humes said his work will also include serving alongside other believers in church planting and gospel ministry in Spain, a country he described as friendly but spiritually dark.
“They know who Jesus is, but they don’t know what Jesus did,” Humes said.
When asked how Georgia Baptists can pray, Humes pointed first to the spiritual need.
“Let’s pray for the world’s greatest need, the lostness,” he said. “We have the solution.”
He also encouraged believers who sense even the beginning of a call to missions to take a step of faith.
“God uses willing people,” Humes said.
He said some may be waiting for God to part the waters, while others may need to step forward and “get your feet wet.”
“There was a step of faith,” Humes said. “They’ve already been at the water’s edge. They felt that twinge. Take a step.”
He said that step might begin with learning about a people group or a place and seeing how God connects a believer’s interests, gifts, and talents to a calling.
“But if they don’t ever take a step,” Humes said, “they’re never going to learn where that might be.”
For Clay and Elizabeth DeBolt, the call to missions was rooted in churches that taught them to love the nations.
“It goes back to both of us growing up in very mission-minded and mission-grounded churches,” Clay said.
Clay grew up in Mississippi, while Elizabeth grew up in Virginia. They later met while serving with Life Action Ministries, traveling around the country and serving churches. Both had discussed missions early in their marriage, but after Clay joined the staff at First Baptist Douglasville, they became deeply involved in local church ministry.
Then, during a missions emphasis at the church two and a half years ago, God reawakened that call.
Elizabeth said the timing did not seem practical. “Of all times in our lives, this almost made the least amount of sense,” she explained. “Here we are with three kids at the time. He’s a pastor in full-time ministry, and I’m a professor. I work and teach, and it seems on paper not to make sense.”
But, she said, they sensed God leading them to surrender.
“We just truly felt the Lord was saying, ‘I want you to lay your yes on the table and start pursuing this,’” Elizabeth said.
The DeBolts will go to Brazil with their four children: Karis Grace, 9; Abigail, 7; Nehemiah, 5; and Selah, 9 months.
For years, they had prayed with their children for missionaries. A prayer board near their dining room table helped keep missions in front of the family. When they told their oldest daughter they were going to be missionaries, Elizabeth said her response showed how God had already been preparing her heart. “She said, ‘All this time I’ve been praying for missionaries, and I didn’t realize I was praying for myself.’”
The DeBolts originally considered serving in India, but that door did not open. Later, through the IMB process, they connected with a team in the Americas and eventually learned they might serve alongside a missionary couple in Panama.
That connection surprised them. Though the DeBolts had never met their new team leaders, their church had been praying for the couple for years.
“We had never met them before,” Elizabeth said. “We’d never spoken to them, never touched base, but our church had been praying for them, and we felt like we knew them already.”
The DeBolts will serve in member care in Brazil, helping missionaries remain emotionally, spiritually, and relationally healthy on the field. Clay said there are more than 30 missionary units in Brazil without a direct member care representative.
Elizabeth said that the role is directly connected to the Great Commission.
“Statistically, there are a lot of reasons that missionaries come off the field,” she said. “But if we can address some of those while they are on the field and keep them emotionally and spiritually healthy on the field, then it’s just so much more fruitful for their ministry and the well-being of their marriage, their family.”
Clay said God has shaped their ministry around loving people. Elizabeth added, “We really want to seek their good.”
The process, according to Clay, has required surrender, something many believers resist.
“A lot of us don’t like surrender,” he said. “But surrender is where we see the peace of God and growth come up. Don’t be afraid to surrender.”
He encouraged Georgia Baptists to pray, give through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and encourage those who sense a call to missions.
Elizabeth said believers should not think they have no role in international missions simply because they are not the ones moving overseas.
“Don’t think that because you’re not going that you don’t have an active part in international missions and getting the gospel to the nations,” she said.
She said prayer is real participation in the work.
“I think we’ll be amazed at what we see in heaven that got accomplished through prayer,” Elizabeth said. “Georgia Baptist members and church members are actively participating in that. They might not live in Brazil, but a piece of them is participating in that ministry through prayer.”
She also urged Georgia Baptists to live on mission where God has already placed them.
“The biggest thing that I would encourage is that God has called them to whatever field that he’s placed them in at this point and to engage fully with the gospel where God has planted them,” Elizabeth said. “But to always have a yes open.”
She added, “Don’t let the everyday have the tyranny over what God might want to do.”
Jordan and Nicole Bosworth are preparing to leave First Baptist Church Peachtree City for Prague, Czechia, where they will focus on evangelism and discipleship after a season of language learning and family transition.
They will go with their two daughters, Piper, 5, and Isla, 3.
Jordan has been serving as student pastor at First Baptist Peachtree City, making the church’s act of sending especially personal. Nicole said the church had been praying for God to raise up people to be sent, even as that meant sending one of its own staff members.
The Bosworths said they did not want to move ahead unless they were confident God was leading.
“We don’t want to make a step that the Lord is not telling us to,” Jordan said. “We don’t want it to be our desire alone.”
He said their pastors and church leaders walked with them from the beginning, praying with them, asking hard questions, and helping them seek confirmation from the Lord.
When they told the student ministry, Jordan said he knew he had to model the obedience he had been teaching.
“We preach saying yes to Him, even when it’s uncomfortable and hard,” Jordan said. “But I can’t stand in front of them and continue to teach them if I’m not willing to do the same thing.”
Nicole said the students’ response was heartwarming.
“The night we told our students, they all came up and prayed over us,” she said. “And that was just a very special moment for them because we’ve always had a heart for the global church, and we tried to plant that in our students.”
Jordan said the call to Czechia became clear as they prayed through possible assignments and met with team leaders. Though they had never been to Prague, they sensed peace that the Lord was opening the door for them to serve there.
He said the opportunity excites them because they believe God has prepared them for the work.
“It’s using the gifts that the Lord’s given us, uniquely equipped us to be able to do,” Jordan said.
Jordan grew up in a small Georgia town, the son of a small-church Baptist pastor. For much of his life, he said international missions felt far away and out of reach. But he said God has shown him that obedience opens doors.
“When he calls you to go somewhere, and you’re willing to go, he can make a way for you to get there,” Jordan said. “But it takes saying yes and doing uncomfortable, hard things and being willing to let him shape and form you.”
He said that obedience may lead someone across the world or across the street.
“When God tells you to do something, even if it’s just walking across the street, that’s fine,” Jordan said. “But don’t think something is so far out of reach because you serve a God that can open the doors to make it happen if it’s in his plan.”
The Sending Celebration was a reminder to Georgia Baptists that the work of getting the gospel to the nations begins in local churches. It begins around dinner tables, in student ministries, through prayer and giving, and through believers willing to say yes when God calls.
Share with others
