Mission Spotlight
The Body of Christ on the Other Side of the Globe By establishing a permanent endowment with the American Baptist Foundation (ABF) in 1999, Virginia and Gordon Palmer envisioned a significant way to support the Body of Christ. Their estate planning goal was to strengthen ministries regionally, nationally, and internationally beyond their lifetimes. In fulfilling that plan, one of the grants from the Palmer Trust in 2024 was awarded by ABF to the India Mission Coordination Committee (IMCC) whose headquarters are in Balasore, Odisha, India.
The creation of the IMCC was one of the results of the All-India Baptist Summit of 2014, marking 175 years of the outreach in India by American Baptist International Ministries (formerly the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society). Specific forums, which included youth, religious freedom, and women, were formed during that momentous conference. In its concluding declaration related to the Women’s Forum were these words of confession:
“We have failed to provide opportunities and avenues for women to exercise their God-given gifts and abilities in ministry.”
As a response to that shortcoming of the past, IMCC submitted a successful 2024 proposal for a Palmer Trust grant to fund a wom- en’s awareness program in 2025. Entitled “A Voice for the Voiceless,” it is designed to raise the level of consciousness for the concerns of women in ministry, human trafficking, domestic violence, and women’s self-sufficiently. Plans call for a three-day conference for approximately 200 representatives, who will return to their locations and conduct training sessions based on the content they learned.
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