This article was featured in the March 2022 edition of The Baptist Courier. 

During the founding meeting of Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), the women took on their first project – raising $5,000 for a new church building and cemetery in Havana, Cuba – at the request of the secretary of the Home Mission Board.

A passion for the lost of North America is part of the DNA of WMU – and that passion was fanned by her first Corresponding Secretary, Annie Armstrong, as was the idea of self-denial and sacrificial giving to enable home missionaries to share the Gospel across North America. The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering began in 1895 when the Home Mission Board, because of its debt, faced the possibility of calling her missionaries off the field. WMU was approached about taking an offering in January – above the women’s usual gifts – to keep this from happening. This offering, later moved to late spring and named the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering – became an annual event.

The need to share the Gospel across North America is just as great today – perhaps even greater – as it was then. Sacrificial giving, support through prayer, and onsite ministry alongside our missionaries enable us to partner with these women across the centuries to impact our country, our world, God’s Kingdom for His Glory.

-Laurie Register, Executive Director-Treasurer Woman’s Missionary Union