Prayer supporters gather around newly appointed IMB missionaries Austin and Tara Render, sent from Highview Baptist in Louisville, Kentucky. The Renders are joining a team in Thailand to use group fitness as a bridge to the gospel. IMB Photo
By Chris Doyle, IMB
Southern Baptists gathered at First Baptist Rogers of Rogers, Arkansas, Wednesday, Feb. 4 to support and send 41 International Mission Board missionaries who are going to the nations to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
IMB President Paul Chitwood opened the Sending Celebration thanking the church for hosting and thanking all Southern Baptist churches for cooperatively making it possible to send missionaries and follow the Lord’s leading.
He recognized the church for what he referred to as “unprecedented” support. Last year First Baptist Rogers gave $674,000 to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering®.
“This year, they’ve doubled that gift.” Chitwood said, as the congregation applauded. Steve Ellis, executive pastor of missions and church planting at First Baptist Rogers presented a check to Chitwood for $1,356,809.
Twenty-two IMB missionaries, with their 20 kids, claim First Baptist Rogers as their sending church, and the congregation currently has four candidates in the pipeline, waiting for their time of service overseas.
Chitwood described the 180-year partnership of Southern Baptist churches and the IMB as an “incredible missionary-sending model.” He honored the way Southern Baptists care for thousands of missionaries they have never met or even seen. “You love them and you pray for them, and you give generously to support them,” he said.
After Mark Dance, executive director of Arkansas Baptists, offered a word of prayer, attendees shared a time of worship and observed a presentation of flags representing numerous countries, including those where the 41 missionaries will be serving.
Todd Lafferty, IMB executive vice president, introduced the testimony time for the missionaries, noting most could not be shown or their voices heard because they will be serving in hard-to-reach places and do not want to compromise national believers or the spread of the gospel.
“As you hear their stories tonight, pray about your involvement in international missions,” Lafferty said. “Perhaps God is calling you to a deeper commitment to His work around the world through praying, giving, going and sending.”
Near-death experience leads to Louisville couple’s faith reignited
In an interview before the Sending Celebration, Austin Render admitted he turned his back on the Lord and lived for himself before a series of tragic events – a rare brain disease in his father, his mother’s early-onset dementia and the beginning of the COVID pandemic – occurred as his first child was born. These occurrences “drove me to my knees and back to prayer,” he said.
A year and a half later, he faced a life-threatening event while he was walking his dogs. He found himself in the middle of a shooting. One car was chasing another, and Austin tried to avoid the ordeal by cutting through a parking lot, only to find himself in the middle of the melee. One car was six feet behind him, and the other was 15 yards in front of him.
“The shooter missed me by inches,” he said. “I was on the ground while 15 rounds went into another car. My 18-month-old son could have been left fatherless, and my wife could have been widowed. The bullets never came for me, but the Lord finally got my attention.”
That’s when Austin and Tara decided they would return to church, a place neither of them had attended in nearly two decades. It is now their sending church, Highview Baptist in Louisville, Kentucky.
“We sat right up front, and the sermon was everything we needed to hear,” Austin said, recalling the Sunday they returned to Highview. “We both surrendered that day.” And the surrender marked the start of their renewed faith journey.
Tara’s personal background mirrors Austin’s. Her grandmother and mother instilled in her a love for Jesus, but she stopped going to church in her teens. She experienced a spiritual rededication along with Austin, and together with a pre-existing desire to raise their kids overseas, they learned how God equipped them to do international missions.
“We’re joining a team in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand, using group fitness (workouts, CrossFit, rock climbing) to build relationships with Thai professionals, share the gospel and disciple them,” Austin said.
During the Sending Celebration, they shared that Tara has a background in professional project management and a heart for the nations – teaching English to internationals. Austin has traveled to 36 countries with a focus on fitness, adventure travel and business. Along with their four children, Austin and Tara will share the gospel to the lost in Thailand.
Sharing a heart for missions leads to marriage, serving in Colombia
Brian Polhamus loved traveling and already experienced various parts of the world before he committed his life to serving the Lord. He sees his international adventures as “stepping stones to discern my calling.”
His first overseas trip happened in 2007 when two friends from childhood invited him to study abroad for a month in Ghana. He also spent a year teaching English in South Korea. Shortly after spending four years in Costa Rica with the Peace Corps, Brian had a life-changing experience. “I rededicated my life to Christ and realized what people really need is Jesus,” he said.
Keny grew up in Mexico where her family battled spiritual warfare and oppression. She heard a pastor’s sermon on the radio, and God used this message to work in her heart. She made a profession of faith in Christ and shared the gospel with her family. A few years later, God called her to the mission field, and she served two years as a missionary in Colombia and four years in Honduras.
Brian and Keny met in Honduras during a short-term mission project. Six months after the project ended, Brian returned to Honduras where he and Keny got to know each other and were married in 2018.
For the past few years, they have been living in Roanoke, Virginia, actively involved in their sending church, North Roanoke Baptist. Brian has completed the stateside coursework for his Master of Divinity degree at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Keny became a U.S. citizen.
At the Sending Celebration they announced they will serve in Colombia, using Bible storying to plant churches among Indigenous people. “Please pray for our four children as they adjust to life overseas,” Keny shared during the event.
BCM, children’s ministry fuels mission work in Spain
Both Keegan and Karman Cullen faced challenges in their faith journeys before meeting at the University of West Florida. Keegan had open heart surgery not long before he started college, and he realized God had given him a second chance at life. Though she grew up in a Christian home, Karman realized she wasn’t following the Lord and made a profession of faith in Christ as a college student.
Being involved in Baptist Collegiate Ministries deepened their walks with Christ, especially Karmen who admitted she never read her Bible on her own before BCM leaders encouraged, challenged and offered her daily Bible reading methods.
“When I started reading the Bible on my own — guided by mature believers at BCM — I finally understood who Jesus is,” she said. “It was life changing.”
They also experienced the COVID pandemic during their college years, but the shutdown gave them time to get to know each other and refine spiritual disciplines.
“Being stuck with too much free time forced me to be still before God,” Karmen said. “That stillness helped me refocus on Him amid a busy schedule.”
They graduated in 2021 and were married the day after graduation, which they claim was a “mistake” to schedule both events close together, “but we survived,” they said with a laugh.
Keegan served as children’s director at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, their sending church, and he discovered how relevant this role was for preparing him to serve in international missions.
“I loved children’s ministry,” he said. “I loved conveying deep gospel truths to 5- to 10-year-olds, using a ‘children’s language.’ It made the message much easier for non-Christians to understand.” He mentioned at the Sending Celebration his Spanish is “at a seven-year-old’s level.”
Keegan and Karman shared the gospel message together as Journeymen in Spain. “We started a college ministry from the ground up,” Keegan said. “There was nothing there. The Lord was faithful, and we saw spiritual growth and numbers increase.”
They will be returning to Spain, three hours north of where they previously served, to an area where there hasn’t been an IMB presence for some time. “It’s daunting but exciting to start from ‘nothing.’”
The Cullens shared Wednesday night they are excited for the opportunity to reach 30,000 college students through the church plant where they will be serving.
George offers charge to appointed missionaries
Wes George, senior pastor of First Baptist Rogers and IMB trustee, preached a message of remembering. He commended the missionaries who were recognized at the Sending Celebration and challenged them, as well as all in attendance, to remember the mission vision in Acts 16:9-10.
“You are our joy! You are our hope! You are our crown!” George said, speaking to the 41 missionaries and offering a charge to remember their calling, remember their local church, compel others, keep going on and keep looking and listening.
“When God calls us, it doesn’t matter what anyone says,” George said. “This vision is pointed and powerful that God has called us to preach the gospel.”
George offered an invitation to answer God’s call for them to serve in missions, and many in the service responded.
Prayer time
Carol Pfeiffer, IMB trustee chair, led a prayer time for those making a commitment to missions and for the newly appointed missionaries. She invited friends and family to gather around the missionaries.
The event concluded with a special performance of “Amazing Grace,” sung in five languages with instruments, including flute and bagpipes. The congregation rose to its feet to join the choir in praise for the final verse.
The next Sending Celebration will be at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 9-10.