Dr. Virginia Connally, M.D. of Abilene, Texas, will receive the first Global Impact Award presented by Mission to Unreached Peoples, an evangelical mission-sending agency located in Plano, Texas. The award will be conferred during M.U.P.’s inaugural Vision and Award banquet at Plano’s Marriott Hotel Thursday, January 19.

The award is bestowed on a Christ-follower who has enhanced the spread of the Gospel, especially among people groups who have little or no access to it. Dr. Connally is known for her consistent lifetime support of mission efforts, missionaries and their children, and International students. In recent years she has embraced and supported cutting-edge technology and strategies. Her financial investments have greatly impacted global mission efforts.

According to Dr. S. Kent Parks, President and CEO of M.U.P., “Dr. Connally’s global impact for missions has included many decades of prayer, encouragement, vision and support. She and her late husband, Ed Connally, donated the full salary of missionaries for years beginning the in the 1950s. She has consistently championed missions.”

In celebration of their strategy to see thousands of Church Planting Movements among all 6,000+ remaining least-evangelized people groups worldwide, M.U.P. inaugurated the Global Impact Award. Recently relocated from Seattle, Washington, to Plano, the 30-year-old organization includes missionaries serving from Europe to Southeast Asia. It helps churches send mission innovators to initiate these movements among Unreached People Groups.

Well known as a pioneering physician and woman of faith, Dr. Connally was the first female physician in Abilene, Texas, opening her practice there in 1940. She was the first female president of the Taylor-Jones County Medical Society in 1948, chairman of staff at St. Ann Hospital in 1958, chief of staff of Hendricks Memorial Hospital in 1960.

Dr. Connally has made generous investments in Christian education, charitable work and mission efforts. Among her many contributions is the Connally Missions Center she donated to her alma mater, Hardin-Simmons University, in Abilene, to keep university students aware of a world needing the Gospel.

“Even today, she continues her efforts,” declares Dr. Parks, who with his wife Erika, is a twenty year veteran of work among Unreached Peoples in Asia. “Virginia is a constant encourager and supporter.” Dr. Connally recently gave the first major donation to M.U.P.’s program for training missionaries to facilitate rapidly-multiplying church planting movements. This initiative has already resulted in new churches in eight unreached people groups in eight different countries in the first year alone.

“Dr. Connally’s continued unflagging devotion to the Lord’s work is a model for many.” Dr. Parks adds. “Mission to Unreached Peoples is pleased to award her with its first ever Global Impact Award in recognition of a significant life resulting in eternal blessings for hundreds of thousands of people.”

Dr. Wayne Shuffield, Director of Texas Baptists’ Mission and Evangelism Center, is Chair of the M.U.P. board and Dr. Jerry Carlisle, Pastor of First Baptist Church, Plano, and current President of Texas Baptists, is vice-chair. First Baptist Church Plano also housed the organization’s interim offices for over three years during its transition from Seattle.