North American Missions

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To learn more about the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering visit www.anniearmstrong.com.

History

Annie Armstrong was the founder of the modern Woman’s Missionary Union and served as its first Corresponding Secretary. To understand Annie Armstrong is to understand the zeal for missions that has characterized the wMu organization since it’s founding in 1888.

Immediately after the organization of wMu in 1888, Miss Armstrong was asked to work on getting a missionary to relieve Lottie Moon in China. She had worked for 13 years without furlough. Miss Moon had written many letters urging the organization of Southern Baptist Women.

The home mission offering became an annual event. The (then) Home Mission Board requested Miss Armstrong work to send boxes to missionaries on the western frontier and to missionaries in Cuba. A week was set aside to pray for this effort in the early spring of 1892. The first “Week of Self Denial for Home Missions” was in 1895, over one hundred years ago. In 1934, the name of the week of prayer and offering was changed to the Annie Armstrong Offering for Home Missions which has gone to support the missionaries of our own country and the needs that they and their families have.

In 1997 the mission-sending agency for home missions re-organized and changed its name to the North American Mission Board. The Season of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is emphasized around Easter every year.