Veteran missionaries share vision through missions fair

Is he dressed like Zorro?”
   
“What’s that fruit she is handing out?”
   
“Wow — look at his hat!”
   
The last comment was directed at Don Reece of First Baptist Church, Boaz, who smiled broadly and introduced the passersby — who had just encountered Spain and the Philippines — to Nigeria.
   
For Reece, getting to share with others his love for the Nigerian people is “like eating the ice cream” of missions work. He said he wants people to know about the wonderful life God gave him and his wife, Gwen, as missionaries among the people of the African nation for 35 years. 
   
That’s why the couple — dressed in flamboyant African garb — was right in the thick of the people streaming through the missions fair held just before the International Mission Board (IMB) appointment service Nov. 15.
   
“For people to get engaged with missions, the personal touch is important,” he said.
   
More than 30 other Alabama missionaries felt the same way, setting up posters and memorabilia from the countries they have served and sharing stories with the hundreds who floated from table to table.
   
And with the exception of a handful of current missionaries on stateside assignment, the crowd of seasoned “goers” were inspiring from a different perspective than the 87 new appointees preparing that night to give their lives to full-time missions work.
   
They had all already gone — and lived to tell about it.
   
Robert Crider, pastor of Brent Baptist Church, and his wife, Barbara, served in Spain for 26 years. Hal and Carol Jacks of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, spent 23 years in Indonesia and 10 in Sri Lanka. Some were in Manila for 21 years, Vietnam for 12, Brazil for more than 30. They covered nations all the way from the Dominican Republic to the Czech Republic, most of them for at least a quarter century.
   
“Our prayer is that through this — through hearing their stories — God will call out people and that we will see an impact on individuals’ lives,” said Reggie Quimby, director of the office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
   
Ken Turbeville, minister of education and youth at First Baptist Church, Phil Campbell, said he and his wife, Jennifer, brought their three young children to the fair and service to get “missions exposure.”
   
“We have a heart for missions,” Jennifer Turbeville said. “We wanted our children to experience the service and meet the missionaries so they could also grasp that heart.”