Harold Hancock — retired missionary to South Korea and missions minister at First Baptist Church Montgomery — died Jan. 8. He was 85.
He and his wife, Helen, served as missionaries in South Korea with the then-Foreign (now International) Mission Board from 1971 until 1980. His background was in music ministry, so he worked as a church music promoter among Korean Baptist churches.
“I look upon it as God let me be a church musician so I could be a missionary,” Hancock told The Alabama Baptist in a past interview. “Missions is my passion.”
During his time in the East Asian country, he also taught George Beverly Shea how to sing “How Great Thou Art” in Korean for a Billy Graham crusade there.
After returning to the U.S., he began serving as missions minister at FBC Montgomery in 1989. He took FBC from sending one missions team per year to sending 40 per year. The church has sent teams to Congo, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Guatemala, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand, South Korea, China, Ukraine, Czech Republic and England, among other places.
“I’ve personally been in 60 countries,” Hancock said at the time of his retirement in 2008. “God has blessed me greatly just to see the world and see the lostness of the world.”
Hancock is preceded in death by his daughter, Lynda. He is survived by his wife; son, Bryan; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
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