This week's newsletter from Gene

When you give undesignated offerings to Hillcrest, just over 10% of those funds go to missions. These funds are administered by the Missions Team and they give a report each business meeting regarding these funds. There are a variety of missions that we support. The largest recipients are the Southern Baptist Convention, which supports our missionaries all around the world; the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the Southern Baptist Convention of Texas.

In addition to these organizations, we fund some smaller ministries directly and want to keep you informed about these ministries. Here is a ministry that we are supporting directly. Luke and Mary Connally are working with the North American Mission Board, (which is part of the SBC) in Alaska. Because of reduced funding to the NAMB in recent years, they are having to raise part of their support, so we are helping with that. Mary is the daughter of David and Lori Kemerling. David is a former staff member.

This is a note from Luke Connally:
So you can know how to pray for us moving forward: We have been given open doors to a few different things but all of them deal with primarily outreach to military families and young active duty singles. Some of that will be working with Samaritan’s Purse this summer as we participate with Operation Heal Our Patriots. Most of it will be partnering with a Cadence International Hospitality House here in Anchorage. We are engaged in discipling and mentoring with them right now and helping to form disciple makers. We see this as a strategic opportunity because they will only be stationed here for about 3 - 4 years and then move on to other duty stations all over the world. Please pray for all of these things. We are so thankful for how God has continued to provide for all our needs and He has made everything very clear as we have transitioned into this ministry.