By Laura Bramlett

“I will go down into the pit, if you will hold the ropes,” William Carey said to Andrew Fuller in 1793 as he was preparing to move as a missionary to India.   

Known as the father of the modern-day Protestant mission movement, Carey understood the need for believers to go into dark places and share the light of Jesus Christ. Before he ever chose to go himself, he sat before a map of the world while repairing shoes (he was a shoemaker) weeping and praying over the lost of the world. Once Carey surrendered to the call of God to go, he knew how vital it was to have the prayers and support of family, friends and his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.   

Before I moved to South Africa as a Journeyman in 2002, Anne, a very close friend that I served on staff with at Florida GA/Acteens Camp, gave me a piece of belay rope. I was a counselor at that camp for five summers and part of the team that ran the ropes course. Anne was our recreation director when I first started serving at camp. Typically, she placed me as a ground belayer on the last element of the ropes course, so I was the one who belayed the campers back down to the ground once they had completed the course. I held their rope until they were standing on their own two feet again.  

After all the campers had gone in and the ropes course was clean, Anne would always hook onto my belay rope and I would bring her down out of the trees. Countless times I was able to hold her rope. As she handed me that piece of belay rope at the end of the summer in 2002, she told me that it was now her turn to hold the rope for me.  

That rope went with me to South Africa and hung in my bedroom. Every time I saw it, which was daily, I knew Anne (and many others) was holding the rope for me as I obediently served thousands of miles away from home.   

Fast forward about 20 years. A good friend from South Arkansas was preparing to move to South Asia with the International Mission Board. Before I met her for our last lunch together, I asked the Lord what I could give her to encourage her as she went. The black rope immediately came to mind – but I selfishly didn’t want to pass it on. It didn’t take long before I knew, though, that it was time. I would now be holding the rope for her, and I wanted her to have that same visual I had so many years before.  

We currently have over 3.000 NAMB and over 3,000 IMB missionaries serving all around the world. Arkansas Baptists, they are counting on us to hold the ropes for them! How are you doing that? Is your church actively praying for those who are being used by God to push back the darkness?   

Did you know that you can pray by name (or initials if they’re in a secure area) for all of our missionaries on their birthdays? Did you know that many of our missionaries will wait until their birthday to make a major decision or hold a large event because they know Southern Baptists all over the world are praying for them? Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) publishes Missions Mosaic magazine quarterly which lists all of the birthdates, or you can go here for the lists. They will even send you a daily email, if you would prefer that.  

I encourage you to ask yourself how you are holding the ropes for those on the front lines. Does your church need to be more active in supporting our missionaries through prayer? We all play a part in God’s mission. Some go, some hold the ropes.  

Laura Bramlett serves as executive director of the Arkansas Woman's Missionary Union.