Showing Compassion During COVID-19
In March, when Richmond’s First Baptist Church went virtual, Steve Blanchard began rethinking how the Ministry of Compassion could continue to serve our neighbors safely in this critical time. Feeding people has become his top priority. Read more…
Acts of Compassion and Connection, Prayers for Peace and Hope
Our first morning in Bosnia was beautiful and sunny and we were ready to get to work! Our team was led and accompanied by Elvis, Tiha and Vlad, another experienced humanitarian aid worker with a truly Christ-like, compassionate heart who joined us in Bihac. Read more…
100% Involved! A Career in Christian Service
Shirley Robertson has truly given her life to Christian service and is a shining example of what it means to live a life that is 100% involved in that service. Read more…
VCU International Students–Part of the FBC Family
Working with international students attending Virginia Commonwealth University through the ministry we have at Richmond’s First Baptist Church has been the most rewarding experience of my adult life. Read more…
CARITAS’ Changing Model of Ministry
In an effort to help alleviate as much stress as possible for their participants, CARITAS has decided to change their model of service for those facing homelessness. Read more…
For the Love of Christ
In May, 2017, a medical team from Richmond’s First Baptist Church traveled to the Middle East to serve the refugees from Syria. Read more…
I have plans for you.
What a gift to have a community of faith that partners with parents to shape the lives of our children, so that they serve like Christ, wherever they go… Read more…
Poverty in Paradise
Yes, St. Lucia is a beautiful island in a paradise setting for mission work. But beyond the tourist areas are communities of people living in poverty. It is a blessing to work alongside Christian friends as they fulfill God’s calling to reach out in love to their community… Read more…
A Tiny Bit of Heaven
FBC’s youths, college students, and adult leaders embarked on a mission to change the lives of the homeless community in Nashville, TN. Read more…
Love and Presence with Roma Children
How do you work with Roma (also known as Gypsy) children? Vacation Bible School and Facebook are two ways, but love and presence are the foundations of this work. Read more…
Your gifts built a mill.
When you gave to the World Hunger Fund/International Mission Board, your gifts helped purchase a flour mill in Burkina Faso (West Africa) that provides several small villages the means to grind their grain. The income from the mill pays the salaries of those who run it and also pays for a number of training and outreach efforts of the churches in the area. Read more…
Voices from Croatia
It was a test case for unmet expectations. This group had come to Croatia, sacrificing their time and their own resources to volunteer at the refugee center. Read more…
What good does a week do?
I had always envisioned myself going on a mission trip and this summer the timing was finally right. I was drawn to the Haiti mission opportunity through Richmond’s First Baptist Church and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. Read more…
Two Hearts for One People
Steve and Meredith Booth, father and daughter, both traveled to Manila, Philippines, to work with indigent families and with inmates of a women’s correctional facility. But not together, nor at the same time! Read more…
Ministering to the Zulu People of South Africa
Mountains graced the horizon as we passed through villages of small huts with thatched roofs. Zulu women carried water and firewood on their heads. Sheep, goats and chickens roamed the streets. We were on our way to our first health clinic in South Africa. Read more…
Recognizing His voice
I never thought Christians being compared to sheep very flattering. I think of them as dumb, unable to care for themselves, always needing to travel in a group, and not very clean. On a recent trip to the Middle East I had an experience that changed my point of view. Read more…
Working with them
For ten days in Johannesburg, South Africa, an FBC mission team taught Bible school, prayed, sang, danced to the Lord, studied scriptures, gave testimony, enjoyed fellowship, ate wonderful Zulu food, laughed, and felt God’s presence. Read more…
SKEINS knits for South African children
At First Baptist, SKEINS (Sewers, Knitters & Embroiderers Involved in Needlework & Service) responded enthusiastically to a request for warm hats. Read more…
Enough
In early August, our 10-member team of volunteers served families and children living in evacuation centers in Metro Manila. Read more…
All you need is love.
Last October, a team of six retired teachers from Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas, and two ministers from Richmond’s First Baptist Church traveled to work with Virginia Baptist Ambassador Lynn Yarborough in Nanjing, China. Read more…
How do you spell missions? B-e f-l-e-x-i-b-l-e.
A First Baptist Church team, 13 adults and students from China, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, traveled to Xi’an to help the local YMCA with a basketball camp. We all felt led to go to China and almost all of us felt led to teach basketball. I can dribble, shoot and pass, but not teach basketball. However, I knew I needed to be flexible when on assignment with God. Read more…
Teaching English for God
The work that goes into planning Christian English Camp in Ruzomberok, Slovakia, pays off the minute a hundred kids flood into the gym. Even without understanding what they were saying, we knew they were excited to be at camp and to see the gym decorated like Egypt, the theme for this year. Read more…
Mission trips are a funny thing.
Mission trips are a funny thing. You select a location that has a need. You minister, but you come away with the transformational experience of having been ministered to by the community you went to help. Read more…
What Matters
A week of summer vacation doing manual labor doesn’t sound very appealing, but to First Baptist’s Youth Two it means everything. Nashville, Tennessee, experienced a disastrous flood in May 2010. With downtown Nashville under ten feet of water, many homes and businesses were destroyed. A year later… Read More…
Until the Tears Roll
When you ask people to define what heaven on earth would be like for them, I doubt that many would include spending a week with middle schoolers. But I beg to differ. I just spent a week with 27 middle schoolers, and it was indeed heavenly. Don’t believe me? Well, read on. This was Youth 1’s 7th year… Read More…
Even for those you don’t know
Paul instructs Timothy, “The first thing I want you to do is to pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know” (1 Timothy 2:1, The Message). I assume Paul would not object to my adding “…and even for those you don’t know, when you hear of a need.” First Baptist Church’s Ministry of Compassion, under the leadership of Steve Blanchard, has… Read More…
A Letter from the Field: Paul and Cathleen Bishop, Missionaries to Cambodia
Life on the mission field has turned out to be much different than we had planned. When we first went to the field in April 1997, we were going to be church planters in a restricted access country in Asia. Our first term, while not without its struggles, was a wonderful time of learning language and culture. Read More…
Teaching English, making friends.
In many ways, the summer of 2010 in Ružomberok, Slovakia reads like a fairy tale for college students Philip Delano, a senior at William and Mary, and Erin Cumbia, a sophomore at Liberty University. Like Hansel and Gretel, Philip and Erin tentatively left home… Read more…
Our Missional DNA.
As a child, I attended Mission Friends, placing my hard-earned quarters into the Lottie Moon offering and learning about the missionary families serving all over the globe. Each week, I wrote down the names and ages of the family members, tucked them into my Bible… Read more…