Dr. Gary Anderson Retires: End of an Era, Birth of a Legacy

This week our family is in Ohio, attending the Annual Conference of Baptist Mid-Missions, the mission agency it is our privilege to serve. The highlight of this years conference has been the passing of the baton from outgoing president Gary Anderson to incoming president Vernon Rosenau.

Dr. Anderson is the only president I have known since my association with BMM began roughly 23 years ago. I can remember, as a young man of 21, standing with Dr. Anderson in the lobby of the Cleveland home office and talking with him about the part of Brazil to which I would be going in a few months. I wondered if the intimate knowledge he was demonstrating of the Cariri Valley extended to all the other fields where BMM missionaries serve around the world.

The answer to that question is yes. Over the course of the last two decades I discovered, repeatedly, that Dr. Anderson made it a point to know well the missionares of Baptist Mid-Missions, and the fields where they served. And this was not merely the result of a prodigious memory, rather it was evidence of his deep care for the success of our ministries.

Over the past several years, sister missions agencies and institutions have passed through perilous waters, and some no longer exist. Yet Dr. Anderson’s steady hand guided BMM safely through.

I would like to add my relatively insignificant voice to the chorus of people who stood last night to say that it was an honor to have served with him, and we are looking forward to working with the man who he left in his place. May God bless the Anderson family as they move into this new and exciting phase of their lives.

Photo: Dr. Anderson speaking at the Cariri Baptist Seminary, sometime during the ’80s.