Tess Rivers

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Nathan and Aimee Pressley* are not easily deterred. After the International Service Corps program was suspended by the IMB in 2010, the husband-wife applicants relocated from their home in Kentucky to a city in the Midwest. Their goal: to live in the United States among the unreached people group they wanted to serve overseas. The Pressleys are two of 50 new missionaries appointed Aug. 27 at The Heights Baptist Church in Colonial Heights, Va. They join 4,842 IMB missionaries now serving around the world. The appointment service capped several days of meetings near Richmond, Va., when IMB trustees elected David Platt, 36, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., as president of the 169-year-old mission board. Platt succeeds former pastor and Southern Baptist Convention president Tom Elliff, 70, who has served as IMB president since 2011. Elliff asked IMB's trustees earlier this year to begin an active search for his successor. Platt preached from Romans 9 before a nearly packed auditorium, including two new missionaries from his church. "Every saved person this side of heaven," he said, "owes the Gospel to every lost person this side of hell. "What else can we give our lives to that is more important than this?" Platt asked. "We've been invited by God to be part of making His salvation known among people that He loves, and we know that when we share this Gospel, people are going to be saved ... somebody from every tribe, nation and people group. "They are going to be around the throne that day," Platt continued to a responsive audience, "which means if we go to the hardest, most resistant, most rebellious people group and preach this Gospel, somebody is coming out!" God promises such an outcome, Platt asserted, "for their salvation, His glorification and our satisfaction." Dependent, determined, undeterred Nathan Pressley, as a seminary student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, began researching where he and his wife might serve internationally. "We identified an African unreached people group with whom we wanted to share the Gospel," Pressley said. "Then we moved our family to a city in the United States that has tens of thousands of refugees from this people group."

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Richard and Sharla Rachel are typical American grandparents who enjoy being a part of their grandchildren's lives. They babysit. They have dinner together. They read books and play games.

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- "Over my dead body!" Those were Connie Beckler's exact words more than seven years ago when she got the phone call that her daughter and son-in-law had committed to international missions. "I prayed for everything to go wrong," Beckler, who is a member of Maywood Baptist Church, Independence, Mo., said. "I didn't want them to go because they talked about India. They talked about Africa, and I thought, 'Oh my.... No!'"

BANGALORE, India (BP) -- Life has not been easy for Sabal Pathak.* Born with cerebral palsy, Pathak, 18, lives with his family in a rural village outside Bangalore, India. Although he is mentally alert and highly sociable, Pathak suffers from severe deformities in his arms and legs. He cannot walk; even crawling is difficult.

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Biblical obedience to God is insane. That's the conclusion of Nik Ripken, based on his 15 years of research and hundreds of interviews with persecuted believers around the world.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (BP) -- Chiijik Lhomi has never been a big fan of Christians. Everyone in her community knows it. The 51-year-old woman -- who makes and sells rice beer -- once loved to poke fun at those who believe in Jesus.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (BP) -- There is no word for abortion in the language of ethnic Tibetan people. The closest phrase is "throw-away baby."

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- More than $11 million. That's the amount of money given to missions at LifeWay camps since 1984. "It's incredible," said Mark Robbins, FUGE camps coordinator for LifeWay Christian Resources. "Just incredible." The collection is, indeed, incredible especially considering the offerings come from students ranging from third grade through high school. Summer 2014 will mark the 35th anniversary of the FUGE mission offering. Centrifuge, now called FUGE, is a summer camp for seventh- to 12th-grade students which began in 1979. Campers gave their first offering for missions in 1980. Since then, LifeWay has divided the offerings between the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. LifeWay campers -- 100,000 this summer -- donated more than $600,000 to missions. For the North American Mission Board, the offerings will fund missions efforts in the Bronx and in Canada. For the IMB, 2013 donations will help meet needs of orphans in East Asia through a project called One Child, in a new focus on age-appropriate projects, said Jeremy Echols, who leads LifeWay's CentriKid team. Meanwhile, the 2013 CentriKid partnership (grades three through six) provided $65,009 to orphans in East Asia living in isolated and difficult conditions, reported Tobias Jones*, an IMB student strategist in the region. In an environment where $10 will feed a child for a month, and $30 will provide clothing and thermal underwear to keep kids warm throughout the long winters, the offering literally changes lives. "Many of these kids were orphaned because their mothers died during labor or their parents died because they didn't have basic medical care," Jones said. "Spiritually, these kids have almost zero opportunity to hear about Jesus. They need to see His love and hear His love." Christian workers among the orphans are praying for more opportunities to show God's love, such as meeting their most basic needs, Jones said. "FUGE has partnered with IMB for years and years," Echols said. "Sometimes the projects like True Love Waits and HIV awareness were a better fit for teens than for kids. It's been great this year for CentriKid to focus on meeting the physical needs of kids in an orphanage in East Asia." When CentriKid began in 2001, LifeWay combined the FUGE and CentriKid offerings and gave them to support student projects through IMB's International World Changers (IWC). In 2006, LifeWay and IMB also began identifying specific projects that allowed students to "pray, give and go" to a specific people group. "The 'pray, give, go' tag keeps kids from getting confused with the details," Echols said. "Praying is something they can all do. Giving is something they can all do, and they can go now or go later."

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- IMB President Tom Elliff rarely is surprised. But one pastor has managed to surprise him not once, but three times.

HAMPTON, Va. (BP) -- David Taylor never imagined himself on an overseas mission trip. But when his Bible study leader at North Carolina State University asked him to pray about a summer mission trip in 2002 to Asia, Taylor agreed. Taylor subsequently made the trip, and it changed the direction of his life. "I assumed I would get a job, get married, make a lot of money and raise a family," said Taylor, one of 65 new missionaries appointed by IMB trustees at Liberty Baptist Church in Hampton, Va., on Aug. 28. "God had different plans," said Taylor, who will be serving in Southeast Asia with the mission board. Belinda Oakes*, who will serve in Central Asia, went on a mission trip nearly every year from the time she was 12. "God began stirring up a deep desire in my teenage heart to share the Gospel around the world," Oakes said. "When I was 21 on a mission trip to the Americas ... God called me to serve Him among the nations." After college, Oakes spent two years in Africa as an IMB journeyman. For Oakes, her appointment is simply the next step in obedience to God's call to international service. The implication of stories like these is not necessarily surprising -- exposure to missions as a student is a first step toward long-term service. Of the new missionaries, 27 indicated that mission trips during high school and college sparked their initial passion for global outreach. Five others previously served with IMB through the Journeyman and ISC (International Service Corps) programs. The appointment service comes as classes resume across the United States and hundreds of student missionaries begin sharing their summer international missions experiences through IMB. Kirk Jefford*, a junior majoring in physics at Washington State University, ventured in his first international trip to East Asia where he taught English on university campuses. For Jefford, who served through a new IMB initiative called Face2Face, it was his first time to grasp "the true joy of sharing Jesus." Because of his experience, Jefford is rethinking his career goals. He plans to return overseas for six months as an IMB Hands On worker when he completes his undergraduate degree. "I've got the bug," Jefford said. "I need to go back. Those few months were awesome but they weren't enough to cultivate relationships. I wish I could have stayed longer."