First Baptist Church

St. Paul, Minnesota

Yesterday, I spent most of the day on highways driving to and from airports, sitting in airports waiting for flights, and in the air flying from Syracuse to Chicago and Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul.  I am in St. Paul for the first of several visits to American Baptist congregations that have, like Tabernacle, welcomed Karen refugees.  

First Baptist Church - St. Paul, MN

First Baptist Church - St. Paul is an appropriate place to begin these visits. First Baptist has been at this ministry for over fifteen years. In the fall of 1999, when the first Karen family arrived in Utica and walked through Tabernacle's doors one Sunday morning, I reached out to a national denominational leader for resources to understand who the Karen people are. He referred me to Rev. Bill Englund, First Baptist's pastor, the only ABC pastor he knew of doing ministry with Karen people from Burma. Bill quickly became a trusted colleague, advisor, and friend.  St. Paul also boast the largest concentration of Karen people in one urban area in the U.S. - approximately 7000.  In many ways, St. Paul, MN is the Karen capital of the U.S. and First Baptist Church is the mother church.

This morning Pastor Bill invited me to attend a 10:00 a.m. new members class.  Bill was joined by a couple of the congregation's lay leaders and a Karen interpreter.  The students consisted of 25 Karen adults and one transplanted Euro-American from Texas.  When asked, "how long have you been in the United States?" Many students replied that they have been in the country three to five years.  However, a couple had come from a refugee camp in Thailand within the month!

As the class began, I instantly recognized the bright orange cover of the Scriptographic Booklet, About Being Baptist.  We use this same resource for new members at Tabernacle!  However, it was what was passed out next that surprised me: the Karen translation of About Being Baptist.  I will return to Utica with a new resource!

About Being Baptist and the Karen translation

Pastor Bill shared a couple of stories with the class that I found particularly meaningful.  

He told the story of Harriet Bishop who as a young girl in Vermont had read the letters of Ann Judson that were reprinted in a popular magazine. These letters, describing the beginnings of Baptist mission in Burma, so moved and inspired Harriet that she dedicated her life to following in Ann Judson's footsteps. This sense of call eventually led her to travel to Minnesota as a teacher.  She not only taught her students "the three R's," but organized a Sunday School for them.  That Sunday School grew into First Baptist Church of St. Paul.  

Front Door - First Baptist Church

Front Door Detail
Harriet Bishop Teaching Sunday School

Pastor Bill also shared some of his personal journey.  His pastor when he was growing up was a former American Baptist missionary to Burma.  When in the 1960's foreign missionaries were asked to leave the country, he returned to U.S. to become the pastor of a local church in Minnesota.  Bill recalled that he grew up frequently hearing stories about Burma in church.  In fact, he was baptized by a pastor who had also baptized believers in Burma.

Rev. Bill Englund holding the portrait of
Harriet Biship

In these stories I heard again the notes of a familiar theme. In the providence of God, even our small and seemingly insignificant acts of faith can be used by God in ways that we could never imagine.  A letter from the mission field of Burma inspires a young woman who begins a Sunday School on the American frontier. That humble Sunday School grows into a church that one hundred fifty years later opens its doors to the spiritual great, great, great grandchildren of that pioneering missionary to Burma.  And, those Baptist brothers and sisters from Burma are welcomed by a pastor who whose own spiritual formation was shaped by a pastor who followed in the footsteps of Ann and Adoniram Judson to serve as a missionary to Burma.