The South Carolina Baptist Convention began the FINISH initiative to encourage and serve churches in helping find, engage, serve, and share the hope we have in Christ with people from diverse groups whether refugees, immigrants, businesspeople, or students. Recent statistics show the foreign-born population is growing faster in our state than the total population. The Send Team now has two part-time FINISH team members serving in two regions of the state. Walter Ludwick serves in the Upstate, and Jake Bolotano is serving in the Midlands. Both men have experience as missionaries and as church planters. They will be working on several projects as part of their responsibilities. These include:

• Casting vision and raising awareness for people group engagement / FINISH Initiative and serving as a resource for AMS leaders and pastors in their region.
• Organizing regional gatherings of ministry leaders serving ethnic people groups for collaboration, networking and help identifying groups engaged and those not yet engaged.
• Identifying the largest unreached people groups without churches in their heart languages.
• Developing strategies to reach the unreached groups.
• Organizing ethnic pastor cohorts to encourage and strengthen leaders.

Recently they have identified unreached people groups from South Asia, the Middle East and Europe and have found ministries working with them. An ethnic pastor’s cohort met in the midlands and will continue meeting monthly on the last Sunday of the month. A regional gathering of ministry leaders engaging ethnic people groups will meet in the midlands in May to collaborate and learn about changes in immigration law and the effect it is having on people in our communities. These are just a few of the many ways the FINISH team members are making an impact.

To contact Walter Ludwick serving in the upstate, e-mail theludwicks@gmail.com To contact Jake Bolotano serving in the midlands e-mail: noreenbolotano@yahoo.com.