The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send us more... More of what? We could ask for more resources, we could ask for more money, we could even ask for more vision and focus. But Jesus said to ask for more workers.

"The greatest resource we have as Southern Baptists-besides the Holy Spirit-to accomplish the work of reaching North America for Christ is our people," says Mike Riggins, director of Missionary Deployment at the North American Mission Board. "It's the people who are volunteering to get involved in short-term mission projects all across North America. It's the people who are answering God's call to serve long term as missionaries. That is our greatest resource and what we have so much to be thankful for. That is why we are about sending missionaries and volunteers-to raise up laborers for the harvest to accomplish the work of meeting the needs in North America."

Today, more than 5,000 NAMB missionaries currently serve throughout the United States, Canada and their territories. Their task is to change the world-one person at a time. These men and women who are obediently living a life of service as North American missionaries are supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®.

"The Annie Armstrong offering lets me do what God has called me to do and without hindrance," says Jeff Ford, a resort missionary in Gulf Shores, Alabama. "I don't have to worry about the money or the food on the table or the clothes on my back. I think God allowed the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering-through Southern Baptists working together-to accomplish mighty things."

Jeff is just one of eight Southern Baptist missionaries to be highlighted as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 4-11, 2007. The 2007 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering's goal is $57 million, 100 percent of which is used for missionaries like Jeff.

As you give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions and pray for our missionaries, remember they are an extension of you and your church. Through your gifts to the Cooperative Program and the AAEO®, you provide the necessary resources that enable them to effectively share Christ. Together, we can reach more people for Christ than alone. Join our missionaries in being someone's connection to Jesus-visit www.anniearmstrong.com.

Week of Prayer profiles by Jami Becher, editorial assistant, On Mission.

week of prayer

Day 1
Bill & Arlene Barker
Boone County, West Virginia

National Missionary Bill Barker lives in the rugged coal mining country of Boone County, West Virginia, with its retired work villages, poverty stricken communities and the static non-conformity characteristic of valley life insulated by foothills from the rest of the world.

His ministry, Appalachian Regional Ministry (ARM), covers an area that starts north of Atlanta and extends to Pennsylvania, covering most of that state except metro Philadelphia. It also includes South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and all of West Virginia. ARM is a partnership ministry of the North American Mission Board, the Woman's Missionary Union and 11 state conventions.

The north Georgia mountains-where the Appalachian Mountains begin-include people who are transplants from Florida, south Georgia and Alabama. But as you move into the coal field areas of central and northern Appalachia, you come across people whose families have lived there for generations. They're isolated by the geography, mountainous terrain and profound poverty.

"More than 13 million unchurched men, women, boys and girls live within the 10-state region I cover ," says Bill.

Bill's job is to connect on mission Southern Baptists with the needs of the people. About 50,000 volunteers come to the region every year. The result? A church from South Carolina built a wheelchair ramp for a woman who hadn't left her house without assistance in 10 years. A church from North Carolina cleaned up a lady's front yard, hauling away hundreds of pounds of trash.

One lady, who'd been called "shackrat" by a local pastor because she was living with her boyfriend, was led to Christ by a mission team. "God don't want no shackrat," she'd told them. They told her about Christ's love without labels. In a matter of months the boyfriend was gone, and she and her 15-year-old son started attending church.

ARM helps churches find a niche where they can help rebuild homes, churches and lives and also facilitate new church plants in areas where the population-to-church ratio is as bleak as one SBC church for every 61,000 people.

Through ARM more than 300 locations and close to 1,000 opportunities exist for churches to plug in time, people and resources by helping start new churches and shedding some light on the often-dark Appalachian valleys.

"I told myself I'd never come back here," says Bill, who grew up in West Virginia. As many young people did, Bill left when he came of age. But the mountains slowly drew him back in. Barker believes God used that time to prepare him for his current ministry. He's become the ultimate matchmaker for mission teams and the needs of his own folk.

Day 2
Thira & Montira Siengsukon
Kansas City, Missiouri

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, the son of non-Christian, Chinese parents, Thira Siengsukon grew up learning about the Buddhist religion of his ancestors.
"When I joined an American missionary's youth program I heard about Jesus for the first time," he says. "I compared Christian beliefs to the Buddhist beliefs. After three years, I surrendered to Christ." 

After graduating from Trinity College and Thailand Baptist Theological Seminary the Siengsukons came to the United States so Thira could continue his studies at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

He and his wife, Montira, soon developed a passion for planting churches and winning Lao immigrants to Christ. He served five years as the church planter and pastor of New Life Baptist Church, a Lao congregation in Olathe, Kansas-one of only 80 Lao churches in the entire Southern Baptist Convention.

Thira intended to return to Thailand but God had other ideas. "I couldn't return to Thailand, because I couldn't find a Lao pastor to replace me. In the meantime, the Lord helped me see the desperate need for biblical training for Lao pastors," he explains.

In partnership with the North American Mission Board, the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Thira founded the Lao School of Ministry in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1988.

It's difficult for most Laotian pastors to leave their congregations, so instead of making the pastors travel to the seminary Thira takes the training to them. He's established 11 satellite-training centers around the country.

Currently, some 100 students are participating in the 30-credit hour curriculum. While Thira makes the rounds to each center on several weekends during the year, much of the coursework is done online and by correspondence. Students who complete the curriculum earn a diploma in Christian ministry.

Thira and Montira, who both learned English when they were young, write all of the school's textbooks and course materials in Lao because English is a difficult second language to master for Laotians.

His greatest joy is "seeing the Lao pastors and leaders succeed in their ministries and produce healthy, fruitful churches that, in turn, plant other healthy, fruitful Lao churches so that many Lao-American souls can come to faith in Christ and live for Him."

He believes the impact of his Lao School of Ministry is felt all the way back to Laos itself.

"Every year, Lao-Americans go back to visit their parents," he says. "They tell their relatives they now believe in Christ, and He is changing their lives back in America and 'Christ can change your life over here, too.'"

In Laos, a communist country, preaching and teaching the Bible is not allowed. "But they can't keep us from answering questions," Thira says.

Day 3
Gary & Joyce Irby
Seattle, Washington

Church planting is part of Gary Irby's DNA. His grandfather was a bi-vocational church planter, and his dad helped start eight churches before Gary was eight years old.
However, Gary didn't plan on going into the family business. "I studied different things in college," he says. "But, God led me into ministry."  

As a young pastor in Washington State, Gary served a church that was growing but very slowly. He became frustrated with himself and with God. He says he prayed and  "then God said to me very clearly-the clearest I've ever heard him-'Gary, you've been adding. It's time to start multiplying.' In other words, He meant ?that it was my turn to start planting churches.

Gary has been starting churches for 20 years now. The last nine have been in Seattle. He has a real heart for the diverse people of the greater Puget Sound area as well as the church planters who come to shine the light of Christ in this spiritually dark region of North America. 

"Of the 4 to 5 million people who live in this area only four percent are evangelical Christians," he says. "Over 80 percent of them believe in something beyond the physical realm. The problem is a great number of world religions are represented here, so many people just compile their own beliefs from these different faiths."

Many challenges face church planters who come to Seattle. "It can be a very lonely enterprise to move from where you have strong Christian relationships to a place where it's so unchurched," Gary says. Because the Christian population is so low churches are started in much the same way they are on the international mission field. Gary looks for indigenous people to come alongside the church planters to help them adapt to the culture and reach out to the unique people groups of Greater Seattle.

Gary's role as a church planting missionary is to help recruit and train church planters, to assess them, help them find partners and help them discern where God is leading them to plant.  

"Seven years ago, we had about 100 churches in the area," he says. "We've seen that number grow to about 170 in 20 different languages."

In addition to planting churches that target nationalities, Gary and his church planters have targeted groups based on age. Some churches focus on the "Millennials" (teens and 20's), the "Busters" (30's) and, of course, the "Baby Boomers" (late 40's to early 60's). They also have planted new churches in apartment complexes, theaters and schools.

The goal of all Gary's hard work is seeing people come to know the Savior. "I love to be part of their baptism services," he says. "They're just huge celebrations of peoples' lives that have been radically changed."

Day 4
Diana & John Lewis
Dixonville, Arkansas

"We have fun playing in the prayer garden. We like playing freeze-tag or running laps. Sometimes we just like to look at the clouds," Wnoka says. The prayer garden of Dixonville Baptist Church is a very special place for her because just a year ago during Vacation Bible School in this very garden she asked Jesus to be her savior. "I come to VBS whenever they have it," she says. "Because I want to learn how to share with other people about God and Jesus."

Wnoka is one of many children living in the poverty-stricken mission field of church and community missionary Diana Lewis. "In Arkansas there are some counties where over half the children live in poverty," she says. "Statewide one in four children lives in poverty."

The enormity of the problem was brought to light by a government study done in 1992. The study's findings led Arkansas Baptists to launch a project called the Mississippi River Ministry. "We began this project to call attention to the great mission field right in the midst of where we live," Diana says. "We need Baptists in Arkansas to realize there's a great mission field right outside the doors of their sanctuaries."

Dixonville is a little town that you won't even find on an Arkansas map, but God laid the needs of this tiny community on Diana's heart 16 years ago and she's been ministering there ever since.

"The people in Dixonville have become part of my family," she says. "I love getting to go to camp with the children and spend day and night telling them more about Jesus. I love singing songs with them in VBS and spending time in Bible study with their mothers."   

Diana also ministers in the very economically depressed town of Helena in Phillips County, the poorest county in Arkansas. Diana has been working there with Mandy Chaney to begin Mercy Ministries to reach out to women who are pregnant but don't have the resources or the skills to care for their babies. Future plans for the ministry include expanding to meet other needs in the community as well.  

Mandy and Diana were the answer to each other's prayers. "When this ministry first came to my heart, I didn't know what to do about it," Mandy says. "The North American Mission Board and the state convention told us to talk to Diana. She told us that she'd been praying three years for God to raise someone up in the Arkansas Delta for a ministry just like this."

The most important thing Diana wants churches across the nation to know is, "the people that I've come to know, living in poverty, have many, many strengths," she says. "Strength of family, strength of endurance, strength of character, things that our churches could benefit from knowing about."

Proverbs 22:2 (NAS), Diana's favorite verse says, The rich and the poor have a common bond, the Lord is the maker of them all.

Day 5
Ken & Cindy Wilson
Mesick, Michigan

"I don't think God could have called me to a better place," says Ken Wilson, Director of Missions for the Northwest Baptist Association in northern Michigan. It's an outdoorsman's paradise.
 
 "We'll have dozens of fish fries throughout the summer and fall, with several hundred people attending. We take these and make them evangelistic. 
"We have wild game dinners with speakers sharing the gospel. We even do evangelistic deer hunts." 

But even a hunting and fishing paradise has its dark side, according to Ken. Many northern Michigan towns have a staggering lost population of 70-80 percent. 

Within the Northwest Baptist Association there are only 15 churches and missions, and these congregations have an average attendance of only 30 people each Sunday.
Yet there's great potential for growth. Most of the area is growing by 15 percent annually. However, Leelanau County and Leelanau Peninsula are growing at a rate of 35 percent each year.   

"We have many church-planting needs," Ken says. "We need some partner churches to come up here and help us."

One area in desperate need of a church plant is Mackinac City. In the summer when tourism is at its peak Mackinac grows to 10,000 people or more, but during the winter, it reverts to a ghost town. 

"It's a beautiful area, and there are several things we could do because of the tourism," Ken says. "But first, we need to reach the indigenous people who live there year-round." 

Ken believes it's important to recruit locals as pastors and church workers, because they know the local culture better than anyone else, and know how to relate to the people in the area.

"It gets lonely up here when the snow's 36 inches deep, and there's no place to go," he says. "It's a calling to be here."

With so few Southern Baptists, Wilson relies on Baptist volunteer mission teams who come  from locations around the U.S.

"They help us in so many ways," he says. "And they're a real shot in the arm to our pastors."

In fact, it was on a short-term mission trip to the area that Ken first felt God's call to leave the church he had pastored for eight years in southern Illinois to plant churches and share the gospel in northern Michigan.

A church planter at heart, Ken loves to talk about The Orchard, a new church start in Traverse City-the largest city in northwest Michigan.

"When I came here in 2003, I prayed for someone to start a new church in Traverse City. God answered that prayer by sending Rich Ratts, who is The Orchard's pastor," Ken says. "They constituted in April 2006 with 120 members. Working alongside them through the whole church plant has been an exciting adventure."

Day 6
Leroy & Carolyn Fountain
Irving, Texas

Leroy Fountain, church planter associate for the North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, is passionate about his calling. He's ready to follow wherever God leads.

Leroy and his wife, Carolyn, are a ministry team. In fact, God revealed His plan to move the family to Texas to Carolyn before he revealed it to Leroy. They're passionate about seeing churches started that will reach new population segments for Christ. 

"If there's anything being done in the world today, to change the world, it is planting churches," says Leroy.

His mission field is as big and vast as the state of Texas. It includes African-American, coffeehouse, language, suburban, storefront and college churches and western heritage cowboy churches from east to west Texas, over 770 miles apart.

How do he and Carolyn serve and support such a variety of Texas churches, with different memberships, dynamics, histories and cultures?

"Well, they're all different but there are, at the heart of every church, things that are the same," he says. "We want them to be churches that concentrate on ?the basics of developing a group ?of people who know that Jesus Christ is Lord, and are following Him as disciples."

"By planting new churches, we want to develop an evangelism program that will cause people to be transformation agents in the neighborhoods where they live," Leroy says. "Then they can begin to lead people to Christ and help the church become a beacon of light in neighborhoods where there is often darkness.

"We often think that all the darkness is in the urban inner-cities," he says. "But there's so much darkness in our suburbs, in our young people and in our senior citizens. Even though the world is more crowded than ever, people are lonelier than ever. The church can be a refuge, an oasis, in the middle of this dark and desolate world."

But Leroy is quick to say he's not for planting the same old traditional churches-the kind of church his parents attended.

"We don't need churches like we have built in the past. We need new churches that stretch us-churches that look like the new generation. Many new-style churches are actually more demanding, more discipleship-oriented and have stricter accountability than traditional churches."

Young people, he says, are looking for a church that presents the gospel in a package they can readily understand.

"We want to instill a missionary mindset in the hearts and minds of young people in Texas that if and when they move to another city or state, they don't have to look for a church, they can start a new one," Leroy says.

He believes "this is what I was shaped and gifted to do. Church planting has brought a joy to my life. It's something I still get a thrill in doing."

Editor's note: Following the writing of this article Leroy joined the staff of the North American Mission Board, where he continues to assist church planters.

Day 7
Anatoliy & Natasha Odnoralov
Denver, Colorado

Anatoliy Odnoralov was the son of a shoemaker who along with his Jewish wife, were faithful believers in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, they were believers living in the atheistic Soviet Union. The KGB and the Soviet Union's Committee on Religious Affairs constantly harassed the family. "Since early childhood, I knew the price for my convictions," he says.

When the iron curtain finally was lifted, Anatoliy was thrilled to be able to share Christ openly. "I never thought I would go to America, because I was a missionary, back in Russia," he says. But God created extraordinary circumstances, and I had to go to the states."

Eight months into his new life in Colorado, Anatoliy was still wondering why God placed him there. "One day while I was handing out literature an old Jewish man came up to me and asked, 'Why do you come here? You bring a strange God to us by your literature.' He looked deep into my eyes and said, 'I'm an old man, but my people will live until Messiah comes.' At that moment as I looked into his empty, hopeless eyes the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He said, 'I want you to tell these people about me. Tell them without stopping.'" That was the day Anatoliy realized his calling, to be a missionary to Russian-speaking Jews in North America.

Denver is home to 60,000 people from the former Soviet Union, 80 percent of them are Jewish and only 3 or 4 percent are Christians. Communist atheism made them very closed to the gospel.

"It's difficult for Russian-speaking people, especially Jewish people, to accept the good news. We have to work for a long time to create faith in them," he says. "So what we're doing is showing love."

One of the ways Anatoliy is sharing the love of Christ in Denver is through the International Center of Hope. Launched just a year ago the chief project of the center is teaching English as a second language to as many as 100 Russian immigrants at a time. The center also offers computer, music, art, Russian history and Hebrew language classes. All of the classes are free. In addition, the center sponsors home Bible studies. Anatoliy says Russian-speakers prefer studying the Bible in private homes rather than in local churches.

"These people are very hard-working and are just trying to survive," he says. "Unfortunately, we see many families on the edge of divorce and lots of people are depressed." Anatoliy's goal is to develop deep relationships and establish a sense of trust and community.

"We are open to them," he says. "They can see our households. We are not afraid to show them how we live. So, we have mutual understanding, and then they open up to the gospel. That's a huge reward for us when we see families that were almost ruined restored." 

Larisa is a great example of the the Odnoralovs impact. She began taking ESL classes with them five years ago. Anatoliy's wife, Natasha, befriended her and through their relationship she eventually accepted Christ. "I don't have family here," she says. "Just my kids-Anatoliy and Natasha. They're my family, I feel like they're more than family. We're so close and it has helped me a lot. Now I know it's all from God."

Day 8
Jeff & Thea Ford
Gulf Shores, Alabama

As Jeff and Thea Ford planned for their life together they knew God's calling would play an important role. "We felt like we needed to do something before we did the house and the white picket fence kind of thing," says Thea.

"We felt God opening doors for us to be a part of US/C2." After serving two years on the Gulf Coast of Alabama Jeff and Thea felt that God had been orchestrating events throughout their lives-from the summer in college when they both served as summer missionaries to a last minute change during their US/C2 application process that lead them to Alabama-to prepare them for full-time missions service on the Gulf Coast, so they stayed on. Today Jeff and Thea are resort missionaries and head up Gulf Area Resort Ministries in the twin resort cities of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.

"Someone once told me that lost people are most open to the gospel two times in their lives," Jeff says. "The number one time is during a crisis. And the second time is during times of recreation, leisure or vacation."

The warm weather and beautiful beaches of Alabama's Gulf Coast draw over 6 million visitors year-round, and 70 percent of them don't know Christ. The Fords' use creative strategies to open up dialogue and create connections with vacationers that will lead to opportunities to share Christ. 

Fall and winter on the Alabama Gulf Coast attracts senior citizens-"snowbirds" as Jeff affectionately calls them-from the Northeast and Midwest, who come south to the Gulf for up to six months to escape winter.

"During our snowbird ministry in the winter, we hold worship services at local campgrounds and have a bicycle club where Thea and I ride bikes with the snowbirds, just trying to build relationships. " Jeff says.

 But without a doubt, the Fords' busiest time of year is spring break and summer, when college and high school students-and kids with their families-swarm the Alabama Gulf Coast beaches.

Starting with a website called www.barefootbelievers.com and a NAMB-developed group called "Innovators," the Fords use a myriad of methods to creatively spread the gospel on the beaches. "Barefoot Believers" comes from Romans 10:15, where Paul refers to a verse in Isaiah that says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news." 

"We spend a lot of time barefoot on the beach handing out bottles of water, Frisbees with the gospel message imprinted on them, setting up face-painting and hair-wrap booths or serving people cold watermelon," Jeff says. "We just want to have a presence."

Jeff's spring/summer ministry also uses worship services, Christian music concerts, backyard Bible clubs and other forms of beach evangelism.

Jeff also uses teams of Innovators, college students for whom he finds summer jobs in the Gulf Shores or Orange Beach areas. They work most of the day in a local hotel, resort or tourist attraction, and then spend the rest of their day doing ministry.

"People talk about Gulf Shores and Orange Beach as being party places," Jeff says, "but I believe the true party is the abundant life, and that party only happens through a relationship with Jesus Christ."