Missions is part of Smoke Rise’s DNA
From day one, Smoke Rise has been deeply committed to missions. Today, our missions program exemplifies just how integral missions is to our congregation.
Each mission partner, whether local, national, or international, has a dedicated Smoke Rise champion who carries the torch for the partnership and provides leadership to the teams. Furthermore, we consistently provide annual financial support to our mission partners and create opportunities for Smoke Rise members to serve on-site. Short-term missions at Smoke Rise flourish because our volunteers are eager to be involved. Smoke Rise is known for its generosity and love in action.
Our Missions Committee plays a vital role in leading our missions program. This committee is elected by the church and is responsible for distributing the budget to our mission partnerships.
Mission Trip Registration and Announcements
Mission Sunday
October 20 | Help us raise $50,000 for CBF’s Offering for Global Missions!
A Smoke Rise Thanksgiving
After a season of collecting food, we will gather on November 24th at 6:00 PM to enjoy thanksgiving dinner as a church family, and put together baskets of food for our mission partners.
Mission Partners
Local Partners
Lilburn Co-op
Location: Lilburn
Champion: Mike & Martha Holt
As a longtime partner, the Lilburn Co-op serves the areas near our church, offering essential social ministries to the underserved, homeless, and food insecure. Through this ministry, hundreds of families and individuals receive not only material assistance but also encouragement and hope. This partnership is an expression of Christ’s hospitality, meeting both the food and financial needs of Lilburn residents. Our church contributes pantry items every other month, collects school supplies in the fall, and provides Thanksgiving baskets, and have many volunteers providing regular support. This mission allows us to share God’s love in our local community, bringing practical support and spiritual care to those in need.
NETWorks Co-op
Location: Tucker
Champion: Mike & Martha Holt
NETWorks is a ministry designed to respond with the hospitality of Christ to the food and financial needs of residents in their community, while partnering with the residents to find long-term solutions to poverty. Primarily serving the Tucker and East Dekalb area, NETWorks recently relocated to larger facilities, allowing each neighbor served to make their own food choices. Alongside food services, NETWorks provides financial assistance, counseling, and special back-to-school drives for children’s needs. Our church donated pantry items every other month, school supplies are collected in the fall, and baskets of food are given at Thanksgiving.
Friends of Refugees
Location: Clarkston
Champion: Rudy & Mary Wilson
Friends of Refugees (FOR) is dedicated to empowering refugees through opportunities that enhance their well-being, education, and employment. Their mission is to help new arrivals make a comfortable adjustment to their new home and experience abundant life in flourishing communities. Through programs that teach hundreds of moms and kids English together, welcome healthy newborns, provide fresh produce from garden plots, and support both new and existing entrepreneurs, FOR offers a wide range of services. These include housing, transportation, job opportunities, and healthcare advice, ensuring refugees have the resources they need to build a strong foundation in their new environment.
Edgewood Church
Location: Atlanta
Champion: Colin Harris and Charlie Scott
This vibrant ministry serves an ethnically diverse communities in and around Memorial Drive. With the help and support of SRBC and many other churches and groups, Edgewood Church is now a self-supporting church.
Family Heritage Foundation
Location: Clarkston
The Family Heritage Foundation serves children and adults primarily in the Clarkston area through a variety of programs aimed at helping families flourish. For children, they provide after-school tutoring, snacks, recreation, weekly Bible studies, and summer camps, while supporting adults with English as a second language (ESL) classes. Additionally, the foundation offers a food pantry, diaper bank, apartment outreach events, and home visits, all with a strong emphasis on discipleship and community engagement.
Developmental Disabilities Ministries
Serving the needs of the developmentally disabled adults, this vital ministry serves those in need all over Geogia. With 18 homes serving 70 residents, SRBC has partnered with Developmental Disabilities Ministries (DDM) with pride. Recently, in addition to our regular annual gifts, we provided a gift to their capital campaign for improvement of all their facilities. Tentatively scheduled, members of SRBC will help with renovation efforts.
Domestic Partners
God's Appalachian Partnership
Location: McDowell, KY
Champion: Bill Blanton
GAP is located in McDowell, KY, ministers to residents in Floyd Co., KY, one of the poorest counties in the nation. In 2023, almost 30% of the population were living under the poverty rate. Unemployment also was twice the rate of that in KY in general.
For 25 years, GAP has supplied food, clothing, training, spiritual counseling, financial assistance and friendship to hundreds. Smoke Rise has been a solid partner over the years and has given both financial and leadership support. Recently several members of the Missions Committee joined GAP for their 25th Anniversary, and the celebration of the beginning of their new distribution/ministry center.
The men of our church annually make two trips to complete home improvement projects in the county. The women’s trip provides personal care, spiritual guidance and prayer as they listen to the women in the area. They also visit the local retirement center and lead the women in crafts and games
Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries
Location: New York City
Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries addresses both the physical and spiritual needs of inner-city children and the homeless. Through various social ministries, they provide food, shelter, rooftop gardens, and a teen center, offering vital support to the community.
Greater Restoration Baptist Church
Location: New York City
Greater Restoration Baptist Church (GRBC) in Brooklyn is a small church with a big heart, primarily serving the Crown Heights area. GRBC meets both the spiritual and physical needs of inner-city children and the homeless, offering support to the community through various social ministries.
International Partners
Centro Shalom
Location: Tijuana, Mexico
Centro Shalom in Tijuana offers a wide range of spiritual and social services. Recently, they installed new leadership and refocused their vision of ministry. Over the years, we have helped purchase the property where the church and ministry center are located and provided scholarship funds for school students. While we are not currently making mission trips to Tijuana, SRBC continues to support Centro Shalom.
African Children's Ministry
Location: Uganda
African Children’s Mission (ACM) serves children by providing nourishing meals, schooling, religious training, and many other ministries that benefit families. Our teams have over the years helped with water projects, home improvement projects, and most recently, girls’ hygiene education and supplies. The trip to Africa is expensive and the team usually goes about every two to three years. Wilson Echols in the Champion for ACM, and currently serves on the board of ACM.
Honduras Outreach International
Honduras Outreach International (HOI) is a long-time partner although because of travel restrictions, we do not travel to Honduras. However, we continue to support their egg project and were the initial church in starting economic development in the Agalta Valley, where the HOI ranch facilities are located. HOI continues to offer medical care and education to the valley, along with home improvement, water projects and spiritual development.
Missionary Partners
Carson and Laura Foushee
Kanazawa, Japan
The Foushees’ ministry focuses primarily on two things: Serving alongside Kanazawa Baptist Church in supporting the physical and spiritual needs of our international neighbors in the area and equipping the Japanese church to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.
Carson writes, “We have actually taken on more roles in our local church than we had expected due to sudden resignation of our pastor over a year ago. This has been a growing and humbling experience, but it has brought us even closer to the church body as we move forward in faith together.”
Carson served as an intern at Smoke Rise while a student at McAfee before he and Laura were commissioned to serve in Japan. We have been supporting Carson and Laura since 2017.
Our support: $2000 annually.
Stella Perrin
Larnaca, Cyprus
Stella was commissioned by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) in June 2023 as one of the new field personnel, arriving in October to her assignment in Cyprus. Stella is from NC and had served on church staff as an associate pastor as well as being a school counselor. Stella’s gifts are being used in Cyprus as she works with and ministers to refugees who are arriving there. She is just beginning her work with unaccompanied minors by teaching ESL and offering pastoral care and counseling. Stella is partnering with a mission organization called All for Aid, whose focus is refugee work and resettlement.
Our support: $2000 annually.
Joshua and Amy Pun
Nepal
We met Joshua and Amy through our own Dr. Jimmy Cobb, retired missionary to Canada. Josh is from Nepal and is active in a local Atlanta church. He, Amy and their three small children (under age five) are called to serve in Nepal to minister to an unreached people group. Their original commitment was for a nine-month tenure, but they may extend their stay.
One of the goals of their service to the villages is to meet health needs and quality of life issues through providing an economical and safe indoor stove. Most homes have open fires with no ventilation. Josh and Amy had a vision of building inexpensive stoves to sell and install.
Sharing the gospel, improving living conditions, and encouraging economic growth has been achieved by a small metal factory Josh and his Nepalese associates have built. The business produces stoves which are sold to local pastors for $7.00 each who in turn sell and install them in homes. This provides a safe home environment and a small income for pastors.
Our support: $5000 (one-time gift).
Rick and Lita Sample
California
The Samples, who live in the Freemont, CA, area, have been CBF field personnel since 2002. Their ministry looks different from typical mission work as they focus on being the presence of Christ through relationship building, church starting, evangelism and outreach. More than 100 different languages are spoken in the San Francisco area where diversity is displayed throughout. The Samples minister holistically to the international community, including immigrants and refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, India, Turkey and other Asian countries. Their outreach is to international students, families resettling in the USA, and others. They offer refugee assistance, tutoring, ESL, citizenship classes, prayer events and hospitality through dinners and holiday events like Easter Egg Hunts to teach cultural practices.
The Samples engage churches in their ministry through prayer, on-site visits, leading outings, ESL, hospitality gatherings, culture outings, etc.
Our support: $2000 annually.
Ahmed & Amira
Real names withheld for security
Kurdistan, Iraq
We became acquainted with this couple through Friends of Refugees, one of our partners in Clarkston. Born in the Midwest, Ahmed received a call to serve in the local church, and later felt called to international missions. He and Amira met in Greece while on mission assignment; both are passionate about their opportunities to serve in Iraq.
After language and cultural training with the Kurdish people, the missionary couple will concentrate on church planting among a people who are mostly Islamic, with only a small percentage of Christians. They have a heart for unreached people groups. Work in Iraq will be tedious and challenging, and our financial and prayer support is essential as they join what God is doing in Iraq.
Our support: $3000 per year for three years.
Other Missional Support
Questions?
We are happy to answer any question you may have. Call us at 770.469.5856 or email us at missions@smokerisebaptist.org.