VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS)-Charles Jones, acting executive director of International Ministries, announced the appointment of Susan Linderman for missionary service, effective February 1, 2006. "It is with deep joy and thankfulness to God that we take this step with Susan, who will embody the love of Jesus Christ to the victims of human trafficking in Europe," stated Jones. Linderman, a native of Huron, South Dakota, is the first new missionary to be appointed after the lifting of the freeze mandated by IM's board of managers in 2004 and 2005. She has extensive volunteer missionary experience serving with the International Baptist Theological Seminary and with Project Hope, both centered in Prague, Czech Republic. Project Hope, led by IM missionary Lauran Bethell, is a ministry to persons caught up in the global sex trade, especially the victims of human trafficking. Linderman is the first new missionary to be appointed since IM inaugurated its new approach to providing missionary support through Missionary Partnership Networks. The key to the new approach is to meet the spiritual, emotional and financial support needs of missionaries through close, personal relationships between those who are sent and those who send them. A Missionary Partnership Network (MPN) includes both congregations and individuals that want to be involved in the work that God is doing through a specific missionary. Members of the MPN are kept well connected to the missionary and her/his ministry through the efforts of a small core group of volunteers who have made a commitment to become deeply engaged in helping to make sure the missionary is well supported in every sense. This core group of volunteers, called a Missionary Partnership Team, is a crucial part of IM's pursuit of a hybrid model of missionary support, neither the classic parachurch approach in which missionaries raise their own support, nor the classic denominational approach in which all missionary support is raised centrally. This hybrid model, pioneered by Eastern Mennonite Missions, meets the overall support needs of missionaries by combining the strengths of a denominational mission society with the energy of grassroots organizing. Linderman's appointment is also a step forward in the mission partnership between IM and the American Baptist Churches of the Dakotas. The churches and the region leaders have been enthusiastic supporters of God's call to Linderman from the beginning of her volunteer missionary service. They have embraced and adapted IM's new Missionary Partnership Network approach to providing spiritual, emotional and financial support for missionaries. Riley Walker, the region's executive minister commented, "Because of the sense of community shared by churches here in the Dakotas, it makes sense to us to play a major role in sending Susan to serve as a missionary. Her call is very consistent with our vision for mission." Churches and individuals are welcome to join Linderman's Missionary Partnership Network. To explore this or other MPN opportunities, contact IM staff members Ruthie Stevenson or Jim Bell, who are leading the implementation of this missionary support strategy (800-ABC3USA, extensions 2210 [Ruthie] and 2351 [Jim]). IM was established in 1814 to help Baptists in America do mission globally. Today IM works in partnership with some 5,800 American Baptist congregations and over 22,000 congregations around the world, to glorify God by crossing cultural boundaries to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
Matthew Brown Webmaster Office of the General Secretary American Baptist Churches USA 610-768-2159 Phone 610.768.2309 Fax www.abcusamissions.org