Longtime missionaries discover new mission field as houseparents

Jay and Kim Smith spent 26 years sharing the Gospel as missionaries in West Africa.

Today, the couple continues to share Christ’s love in their new role as Baptist Children’s Homes’ (BCH) cottage parents where they care for as many as 12 girls at Mills Home in Thomasville.

“It’s still a mission field but a different mission field,” Kim explains.

Her husband agrees. “We love these girls with the love of God just as we loved the people in West Africa.”

Before the couple met, God impressed on each of them a desire to be involved with foreign missions. Not long after they married, they contacted the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board, known today as the International Mission Board (IMB), to discuss their desire to serve as international missionaries.

“It was now about finding the right job match,” Kim says. “Jay received his degree in agricultural education, and we were looking for something in that field.”

In October 1990, with their second child on the way, the couple received the IMB assignment for which they had been waiting. They arrived in West Africa three months later.