Mary's House

Impacting Lives At Home And Abroad

Missionaries sent stateside have an interesting journey. While we would call it “coming home,” missionaries on the field, whose calling is to faraway places, probably feel more like they are visiting a strange new land.

How can WMU of Texas help those stateside assignments be more manageable?

We do what we do best by providing a warm and inviting home for those who are serving and ministering abroad and come to the United States every few years to minister here. While missionaries returning are certainly encouraged to use the time for rest and refreshment, the stress of finding a suitable place to temporarily plant a family can be a challenge.

Through a partnership with the World Missions Center (WMC) on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological

Seminary, WMU of Texas has found a way to provide a beautiful temporary home for missionaries serving stateside.

In 2019, the late Dr. Brent Ray, Director of the WMC, approached WMU of Texas with a vision. Take the abandoned dwelling at the corner of Broaddus and Stanley on campus and let God use it. The most recent assignment for the vacant space had been home to the late E. Earl Ellis Research Library. Yet in 2019, the building stood empty, in disrepair, and in desperate need of a purpose.

Add four years, an abundance of gifted visionaries and workers, funds from the Mary Hill Davis Offering® for Texas Missions, and generous contributions through an online gift registry from the WMU of Texas family across the state, and the project is complete. Both of the units in the duplex have been remodeled, having taken the structure down to the studs. The units are fully furnished with new appliances, beautiful décor, wonderful closet space, and 106 household items from the gift registry.

Mary’s House, a gift from WMU of Texas and the Mary Hill Davis Offering, provides all the comforts we statesiders enjoy with the added bonus of being on a seminary campus housing lots of students who can be mentored and encouraged by real-live missionaries living among them.

What is intended to be a time for missionaries to refuel and recharge, also provides a great opportunity for these Missionaries-in-Residence to encourage and equip seminary students to be prepared for their missions calling.

A home may seem like an interesting place for lives to be changed. But isn’t family the place where God started changing lives? The opportunities for community, fellowship, discipleship, and encouragement can not only change lives heading back to the foreign field but can encourage and shape the journeys of students right here in our state.