InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has conducted 21 Urbana student mission conferences since 1946. American Baptist keynote speakers at past Urbana conferences have included Eugene Nida (1951, 1961), Samuel Escobar (1970, 1973, 1981, 2003), Bill Thomas (1973), Ray Bakke (1984, 2006), Tony Campolo (1987), and Ken Fong (2000). Many American Baptists, including IM missionaries and staff, have benefited from such conferences.

Before Urbana, the Student Volunteer Movement (1866-1940) conducted conferences that fulfilled a similar role for earlier generations of students. The SVM was formed to promote mission and to recruit college and university students for missionary service. Among the American Baptist missionaries who sensed their call through the efforts of SVM was George Henry Jackson.

As a 23 year old student, Jackson committed himself to missionary service in Congo at a conference in Oberlin, Ohio. He prepared for that ministry by serving a local church pastorate and completing degrees at Shaw University, Hamilton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School and Yale Medical School. The American Baptist Missionary Union (now IM) sent Dr. Jackson and his wife Grace to Congo in 1892, where the news of his arrival brought large crowds to the mission clinic. Soon thereafter, Dr. Jackson’s brother, Stephen, was sent as a missionary mechanic to the same location in Congo.

Many Congolese became followers of Christ as a result of the work of the Jacksons. The response of one woman, Kumazu, was representative of the mission’s impact. Four days after Dr. Jackson performed an operation on her, she committed herself to Christ and was often heard telling others, “surely these are the people of God.”

After missionary service in Congo, Dr. Jackson lectured at Yale and then served as the American consul to France. Pray with me that today’s generation of young adults will likewise respond to God’s call to serve in mission and to make a difference in the world.

Reid Trulson