We are taught as young children to obey our teachers. But do you still comply with your first-grade teacher’s requests as an adult? Seventy-one-year-old Rebecca Crumpton did and it led to a whole new life for her — a life spent serving others.
It also led to Crumpton being named the 2008 Outstanding Alabama Baptist Missions Volunteer by the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) office of global missions during the state convention annual meeting in Montgomery Nov. 18.
“My first-grade teacher, Nelle Watts, encouraged me to go on a missions trip with her to Nebraska in 1997,” Crumpton said. “I went and was hooked.”
Since that first trip, she has made numerous trips to locations as close as Sand Mountain and as far away as South Africa. Crumpton also has participated in volunteer activities in Double Springs, where she attends First Baptist Church, Double Springs, in Winston Baptist Association.
On the first few missions trips, Crumpton helped with the cooking. A self-described tomboy, she soon decided on making a switch — even though she had no experience with construction.
“I watched the construction crew and thought, ‘I could do that,’” Crumpton recalled. “The good Lord has blessed me with good health to be able to go and do that kind of work and I’m so grateful.”
Since being tutored by George Whitten, one-time pastor of First, Double Springs, she has become adept at hanging Sheetrock, performing the task in at least six states and enjoying every trip.
Working with Winston Association, Crumpton goes on at least one missions trip per year and usually more. While she thinks each year the experiences get better, she described a visit to work on a Haitian church in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1998 as especially meaningful to her.
“Those people were so receptive and humble. A lot of them were recently from Haiti,” Crumpton noted. “They would sing in French Creole, and I thought, ‘This is so neat. We’re speaking English and they are speaking French Creole, and the Lord can just understand all of us.’”
It was during an On-Mission Celebration in 2006 that she felt impressed to branch out beyond the United States.
Duronda Hood, secretary for Winston Association, pointed out that even though Crumpton had never been on a plane for more than two hours, she was obedient and made the 19-hour trip to Lindley and Boklokong, South Africa, that summer and the two following summers.
John Whaley, current pastor of First, Double Springs, said Crumpton’s “bags are always packed and ready to go whenever the need arises.”
But her service does not end with missions trips, said Al Hood, director of missions for Winston Association.
She also works with associational projects such as coat giveaways and food distribution and a local ministry center called Main Street Ministries, which is sponsored by several churches in the area.
One of Crumpton’s favorite projects with Main Street Ministries is working with students who are attempting to earn their GED. The work with students is especially meaningful to her since she taught math at Haleyville High School for four years and Winston County High School in Double Springs for 37 years before retiring in 1998.
“I work with them on math every Monday and Thursday afternoon,” Crumpton related. “Some of them are so far behind that it just takes them longer to catch up.”
As Watts did for her, Crumpton is encouraging the next generation of volunteers. Her 18-year-old granddaughter Rachel has gone on missions trips with her for the last four summers and went to Zimbabwe with her own church in Olive Branch, Miss., as a graduation trip last summer.
“[Rachel’s] my protégé,” Crumpton said. “She’s a pretty good construction worker herself!”
Reggie Quimby, director of the SBOM office of global missions, said, “Becky is the epitome of Acts 1:8 as her missions efforts were in all four areas,” referencing the Scripture reading, “… and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
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