wfn.org | ABCUSA: American Baptist Foundation Awards Grants

["BROWN, Matthew" <Matthew.Brown@abc-usa.org>]

VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS)- The American Baptist Foundation is pleased to
announce the presentation of three grants whose focus fulfills the
guidelines of the Virginia and Gordon Palmer, Jr. Trust. Grants totaling
$25,000 are to be provided in March 2006 for three projects - two that
will affect local congregations and one that will support training in
Cameroon, Africa.

The first award will provide $10,000 to undergird the Got Style?TM
enhanced training of the National Evangelism Team (NET). Got Style?TM is
an evangelism approach developed by the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey A. Johnson,
National Coordinator for Evangelism (National Ministries, American
Baptist Churches, USA). It identifies six different personality styles
and suggests the best ways to share the message of Jesus Christ
according to each style. Fifteen of 80 NET associates from across the
nation, who have been teaching this approach, will attend a
"train-the-trainer" event. Then each, in turn, will offer in-depth
training to three other associates. The exponential aspect of an
additional 45 associates, who will each reach at least three more
congregations annually with the Got Style?TM approach, will bring
American Baptists even closer to the NEW LIFE 2010 goal of making
1,000,010 new disciples!

The second award of $10,000 will benefit churches that send mission work
teams to Nicaragua. Since 1998, 60 such short-term teams, composed of
approximately a dozen people each, have traveled from the U.S. to
address the needs of remote communities in that Central American
country, where one in ten children does not live to the age of five. The
funding will help provide mission education to these teams as well as
pastoral care during the adjustment periods of entering and leaving a
developing nation, while freeing American Baptist missionaries from
having to coordinate team visits directly.

The third award will grant $5,000 for a micro-funding project of
Tabitha, a Cameroon Baptist women's group. As its namesake suggests
(Acts 9:36), Tabitha - which is composed of nearly 1,000 women - has a
sensitivity to "good works and acts of charity." The project will
provide training, including such classes as sewing and soap making, so
that young women will have a means of making an income while maintaining
their God-given dignity.

These grants from the American Baptist Foundation are made possible
because of the vision of Gordon and Virginia Palmer, who established a
trust with the Foundation to fund a variety of American Baptist
ministries. The American Baptist Foundation provides this service as
just one way to fulfill its mission of encouraging individuals to
include American Baptist ministry and mission in their estate plans.

Matthew Brown
Webmaster
Office of the General Secretary
American Baptist Churches USA
610-768-2159 Phone
610.768.2309 Fax
www.abcusamissions.org