White Cross … Fall 2020
In June, I sent out the packets for White Cross requests to all of the Association White Cross Coordinators. The packets included address labels for each church in their association, if available. I did not have addresses of churches in Metro NY or Rochester Genesee. I did ask those contacts to please forward the information to all the churches in their region. I also had some issues with putting some of the churches in the proper association. That will be fixed going forward.
My goal was to reach every church in NYS for White Cross.
I thought my letter to the churches clearly requested for White Cross to be promoted as a church mission project. I’m not sure people understood that as I have received indications that the ladies’ groups are shrinking and unable to donate to White Cross. This was my point in the letter I sent.
Women’s groups are not only shrinking but becoming obsolete across the state but the needs of our missionaries are still prevalent. I also included four mission efforts in our state that could use monetary assistance for churches that would prefer to give to a more local mission.
I obtained the address labels from the ABCNYS region office.
Churches inactive in AB Women are still consider American Baptist Churches if you received an address label for them. Please let them decide if they want to contribute to White Cross.
This is for our missionaries NOT AB Women. We are assisting International Ministries and American Baptist Home Mission Society in their efforts for our American Baptist missionaries. I don’t know how to emphasize it more clearly.
I also saw in the materials that there wasn’t a form to be returned to the Association contact in order for them to let me know who contributed so I added my contact info for churches to let me know if they were contributing. I have heard from 8 churches. Six will be contributing; two felt their ladies group was too small to help. Again, this is the reason I asked to invite the whole church to help.
There are approximately 286 churches in ABCNYS.
There are over 300 churches if we add Metro NY and Rochester Genesee regions.
Five or ten dollars may seem like nothing to a church but if 300 churches give $10.00, $3000.00 will be added to the fund to help our missionaries.
If 300 churches gave $50.00, $15,000.00 would be collected and we would surpass our goal of $11,000.00.
If your church is small, and most of us attend small churches, please consider the importance of giving to White Cross. Thank you.
Lillian Cabral, White Cross Coordinator
