By Norm Miller, LC News
PINEVILLE – Louisiana College trustees voted unanimously in their October 30 meeting to offer free tuition to the dependents of missionaries serving the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board.
“We are honored to assist our IMB families who make such a sacrifice for the sake of the gospel around the world,” said trustee chairman Randy Harper, pastor of Bellaire Baptist Church in Bossier City. “Though the eternal rewards of such servants are in heaven, we all have a responsibility to help meet the temporal needs of those who leave the familiarity of home to brave the foreign fields of ministry.”
Harper said the decision “continues the consecutive string of unanimous votes” among LC’s trustees since March 2015, when Rick Brewer was elected president.
“The addition of missionaries’ dependents to our student body will enrich our campus culture and literally ‘flesh-out’ the reality of what it means to be on mission with God,” Brewer said.
“For those students who have never served on an overseas or stateside mission trip, the concept of missions is just that: conceptual. But with the children of missionaries among our student body, missionary service becomes much more tangible,” Brewer noted.
“I am so thankful for Louisiana Baptists and specifically Louisiana College,” said David Platt, president of the IMB. “At the International Mission Board, we seriously consider the support we provide to Southern Baptists who take the gospel to unreached people and places around the world. Part of that support includes the care of our missionaries’ children — the ‘third culture kids’ (or TCKs) who live out ministry with their parents in other nations.”
Platt said that just one week ago IMB staff prayed “specifically for the college-age TCKs who will spend the upcoming holidays away from their families and their adopted homes overseas. Needless to say, then, I was thrilled when I heard that Louisiana College made this decision to help provide for the higher education needs of Southern Baptist missionary families.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Louisiana Baptists and Louisiana College, for providing this option of a strong Christian college education alongside financial provision to make that education possible,” Platt said.
“Our Southern Baptist Convention was founded in 1845 for the cause of missions,” Brewer said. “Louisiana College wants to do its part in not only training students to become missionaries, but to support the families who already are. Far beyond being an obligation, this is a privilege and a joy.”
