By Anna Anderson

We did not know what to expect when Woody and Bev Baker began to talk to us about ministry opportunities in eastern North Carolina. They knew that being in an area closer to their aging mothers would be helpful. They knew that they weren’t ready to retire fully, and they wanted to remain engaged in ministry. What they didn’t know was that right in their hometown, new opportunities were emerging that they could have never imagined or planned.

In Ahoskie, North Carolina, (Hertford County population roughly 5,000 in the northeast part of the state) there were two churches closing their doors in 2021. One church was purchased by a community church that needed a new building; the second church had lost its membership but not its desire to remain active in community ministry. The First Presbyterian Church entered an arrangement with the Roanoke Chowan Christian Women’s Job Corps in 2022 to occupy the building and re-imagine ways for it to be used for community ministry. Already housing a food pantry and a piano teaching studio, the building repurposed many rooms, like the fellowship hall and Sunday School rooms to become clothing and housing goods closets and offices.

Bathrooms were repainted and other rooms refreshed. Perhaps the most important of all is the ongoing re-imagining of ministry throughout the town of Ahoskie. Woody and Bev recently attended a training program through The Christian Job Corps. As they continue the work to become site coordinators and program leaders, they will envision ways that the mentoring program can work in the community of Ahoskie. Partnering men who need a mentor with Christians who to seek to walk alongside those who are living on the margins of life. The program has worked well for women, and it is the hope and dream that one day soon, men will also be able to have access to the mentoring.

The philosophy of “a hand up, not a handout,” is ongoing help for people who need a major reset in their lives through jobs, family reconnections, housing opportunities and much more.

The Christian Women’s Job Corps has been successful with this philosophy. Meanwhile, our dream of walking alongside those living in poverty is ongoing. We now have so much help that we didn’t know we needed nor could have imagined possible. There is someone to dream alongside us, someone to carry on the work of connecting with those in the community. Like Woody finding Rev. Faison, who wants to start a non-profit to train chaplains to serve in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the community. Rev. Faison has an office in the former First Presbyterian Church, now called The Gathering Place, where he and Woody have become friends, prayer supporters and encouragers to one another.

Beverly has found connections with a community of those desiring to learn to speak English. People who have made their home and their work in an unfamiliar land. Beverly is partnering with the local elementary school to help tutor children, pray for them and learn how she might be able to help their families.

We didn’t know what to expect with the Global Service Corps opportunity that we found ourselves connecting with on a personal level with the Bakers. But we are so glad they have come to join us on this mission field that has been a part of our work for many years. To see the work expanding and dreams continue to grow and flourish is amazing. It’s further affirmation that God is not finished with any of us; He is still calling us-maybe even back to our hometowns where it all got started.

Anna Anderson is a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel living and serving in Northeastern, North Carolina with her husband LaCount. They are working with Together for Hope, CBF’s rural development coalition, focusing on providing poverty relief and finding more sustainable solutions to systemic poverty. You can help support their ministry here.