Thank you, North Carolina Baptists, for your continued support of the annual Mother’s Day Offering benefiting patients of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Each year, this offering provides financial support to individuals who stand on the brink of financial ruin due to their medical bills.
COVID-19 prevented many churches from gathering in person in May 2020, so their traditional promotion of the Mother’s Day Offering was hampered. In light of these challenges, I am most thankful for those congregations that made the extra effort to promote and receive this offering this year.
Ordinarily, we provide a report regarding the offering to the Convention Relations Committee and the Board of Directors during the September meeting of the board. However, the board conducted a shortened meeting in September, understandably so. Due to COVID-19, therefore, this report was neither provided to the committee nor the board. In addition, a fuller report is usually provided to the messengers during the annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSC), but that report has also been removed from the agenda for the upcoming meeting in Charlotte. Therefore, we appreciate the Biblical Recorder allowing me to share this brief update.
To date, the 2020 Mother’s Day Offering has received just over $42,000. This total includes those gifts sent from churches through the BSC and those that send their gifts directly to the hospital. In recent years, the offering totaled closer to $500,000 at this time of year.
We understand that the pandemic has impacted not only the ability of churches to receive an offering of this nature, but that the pandemic has also prevented church members from supporting this offering due to their loss of income. With so many individuals enduring loss of work, furloughs and even complete loss of jobs during the pandemic, we anticipate an increased number of patients will stand in need of the financial assistance that the Mother’s Day Offering provides.
The ability to relieve a portion of the financial burden from patients benefits them on several levels. First, the ability to pay the final portion of what appeared at first to be an insurmountable medical bill provides the patient the ability to then purchase much needed medications, food, and pay other basic bills that are essential to their well being.
Second, the emotional and mental stress that is relieved by the Mother’s Day Offering reduces anxiety and that in itself has proven critical to aid in the continual healing that follows hospitalization.
Third, and most importantly, the communication that my office has with patients that benefit from the Mother’s Day Offering stresses that compassionate and caring followers of Jesus Christ want recipients to know that God has seen their need and met it through the generous gifts of His people. Year after year, we hear from recipients whose medical crisis has caused them to question if God is aware, or even cares, about their plight; but your gifts have communicated clearly that He is and He does.
We remind North Carolina Baptists that churches are free to make contributions to the Mother’s Day Offering at any time during the year. If your congregation was unable to receive the offering in May 2020, we are glad to help you do so at any other time; please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide information about the offering, as well as promotional materials. I can be reached at: [email protected] or by calling 336-413-9297.
Thank you for your continued support of the Mother’s Day Offering.
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Brian Davis serves as liaison between the Faith Health division of Wake Forest Baptist Health and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.)
