Sue Poss, ending service to CBFSC after 25 years. She has lived in North Myrtle Beach for the past six years after spending most of her career in Greenville.

Thank you, Sue!

By Jay Kieve

For more than 25 years, Sue Harper Poss has been CBFSC’s newsletter editor and communications helper.

More than anyone else, Sue has helped tell the stories of CBFSC’s missions engagements and church partnerships. Sue has been our repository of who’s who and what’s been done because she’s written or read about nearly every CBFSC church, pastor, or mission project.

You’ve probably met Sue at a General Assembly or on a work day…and if you did, she probably asked you for pictures!

Sue retires today, Sept. 30, 2021, from her work with CBFSC. Thank you, Sue, for your friendship and faithfulness, for your care-filled telling of the CBFSC story, and for your communications guidance through the years.

We will miss you and wish you the very best in retirement. 

Letting go

and putting faith and trust
into something new

By Sue Harper Poss
CBFSC Communications

I’ve been self employed for more than half my working years, doing communications of one kind or another on a contract basis for lots of organizations.

When I closed my business in Greenville and moved to North Myrtle Beach permanently in 2015, I stopped doing work for all of them—except for CBFSC.

I just wasn’t ready to let go of the one group of people I had worked for and with continually and consistently since 1996.

My work with CBFSC began when Beverly Greer was running a fledgling CBFSC from donated office space in Laurens. Our first newsletters were black and white and had to be hand-sorted for mailing.

Then Marion Aldridge became our coordinator and we settled into a routine of eight-page monthly newsletters (that’s a lot of news) and eventually I designed and managed our first website (primitive by today’s standards). The tools we had available improved and so did our communications.

I went to every state and national General Assembly. I was at most of the Coordinating Council meetings. I organized and managed several workdays in Allendale. I took photos and interviewed lots of people, probably annoying them with my questions or with my camera in their faces.

I was in Bucharest, Paris and Brussels on a fact-finding trip in 2004 with Marion, Tony Hopkins and others that was by far the most expansive (and expensive) trip I made on behalf of CBFSC.

Our group of seven saw Global Missions work up close and experienced first-hand the conditions under which our field personnel work.

Under Jay’s leadership, my role was redefined again and so most recently I’ve invested my time in putting more news on Facebook and our website and producing only five four-page printed newsletters a year. What a change from 1996, when the web was still fairly new and Facebook didn’t exist.

I’ve been in your churches physically and virtually and felt a part of your lives through all the stories I’ve heard from you and written about you.

I have 25 years invested in an official capacity with CBFSC, and another five before that as I watched and participated in the organization of CBF and CBFSC.

But now I am letting go. And in going, I—like Beverly and Marion before me—will leave space for something new and somebody new. And all my faith and trust is in seeing only a stronger, brighter, hope-filled future for CBFSC.

Letting go includes looking back

Leaving CBFSC after so many years took me on a stroll down memory lane. I don’t have many of the earliest photos because we didn’t have digital cameras back then and I didn’t do a very good job preserving the photos I did have. The photo above was taken in Bucharest, Romania, Jan 17, 2004, when I traveled with a group of six others to visit our field personnel in Bucharest, Brussels and Paris. Enjoy the memories with me. —Sue

Wayne Patterson, at a work day in Allendale. Wayne’s now our CBFSC Disaster Response Coordinator. Oct. 3, 2008.

Beverly and Joe Greer with Furman Hewitt, May 12, 2007. Beverly was the glue holding CBFSC together in the earliest days. She was later our volunteer mission coordinator and our state missions offering is named for her.

CBF Field Personnel Butch and Nell Green seated next to Evelyn Olievera and Bill Stanfield. Butch and Nell now live in Rock Hill, Evelyn and Bill are still in North Charleston leading our mission partner, Metanoia. May 12, 2007.

Marion Aldridge preached for us many times during his years as CBFSC Coordinator.

Cheryl Adamson preaching at a convocation in 2007. Cheryl now heads our mission partner Palmetto Works.

Tony Hopkins was one of seven from CBFSC who went on a trip to visit CBF field personnel in Europe in early 2004. Tony is pastor of First Baptist Church, Greenwood.

Debbie Haag returning to the CBFSC staff after an absence of several years. Photo taken June 23, 2008.

Former CBFSC associate coordinator Christina Whitehouse-Suggs with Brittany Riddle, then a student at Furman at a national CBF General Assembly Jun 19, 2008. Where are they today?

Beverly Greer and Jay Kieve at First Baptist Church, Greenville, Mar 31, 2017.

Thanks, everyone, for letting me walk with you through these years with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina.