During their 29 years in Africa, missionaries Doug and Paula Simrell faced many challenges, including a civil war and multiple uprisings. But retirement proved even more difficult in some ways. The Simrells’ official retirement ceremony was delayed for a year while Doug battled cancer and the couple readjusted to Alabama’s comparatively cold temperatures and the differences in culture — a year they spent on stateside service with the International Mission Board (IMB).
Finally recuperated and adjusted, however, they were honored for 30 years with the IMB in a ceremony last fall.
Looking back, both Doug and Paula said they became aware of their calling to the missions field at young ages.
“I felt the call to missions at age 13 to a French-speaking country,” Doug said. “I intended to be a medical missionary but went to seminary because I did not get into medical school.”
Instead of going to medical school later as he had planned, Doug “stopped fighting the call to preach” and accepted a pastorate while enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
Paula also sensed a call to full-time Christian service as a teenager. After obtaining a degree from William Carey College (now William Carey University) in Hattiesburg, Miss., she married Doug and enrolled in seminary with him. Her seminary education was cut short, however, by the impending birth of their first child.
After a second pastorate at New Canaan Baptist Church, Somerville, in Morgan Baptist Association, the Simrells left for the missions field.
After a year of language study in France, they moved to the West African country of Ivory Coast. During most of their years there, the couple lived and worked in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city and former capital. They later moved three hours away to Gagnoa.
The Simrells were involved in setting up the Baptist Institute for Pastoral and Missionary Training, which provides theological education by extension, according to Ebele Adioye.
“It has been valuable in training local pastors and missionaries,” said Adioye, a pastor trained at the institute who now serves as its director.
He pointed out that generally the pastors trained by the institute serve as church planters in Ivory Coast and the missionaries go into Muslim areas in the northern part of the country. Doug also worked as a church planter and helped organize the Union of Missionary Baptist Churches in Ivory Coast. Paula worked as a financial facilitator with local churches and with the treasurer of the Baptist Union.
In 2002, the Simrells’ ministry took a dramatic turn. They traveled from their home in Gagnoa to Abidjan, where they spent the night at a missionary compound.
“We got up the next morning and were leaving for the (doctor’s) appointment when another missionary yelled at us and told us not to leave the compound,” Paula recalled.
There had been an uprising against the government during the night, and the Simrells had failed to hear the shooting in the streets outside the compound. Although the couple had only planned to remain in Abidjan a day or two, it was a full year before they could return to their house in Gagnoa to retrieve their belongings.
Unrest continued, forcing almost all of the missionaries to leave Ivory Coast.
The Simrells, however, remained behind to pack up the belongings of the missionaries who had fled, working in the missions office in Abidjan until they retired.
“There were between 30 and 40 missionaries in Ivory Coast. There were none in Abidjan when we left. We turned out the lights and closed the door,” Doug said.
Within a week of the Simrells’ return to the United States, Doug was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following successful surgery, he continues to do well.
Though the couple, members of Central Baptist Church, Decatur, in Morgan Association, are once again making their home in Alabama, two of their three children are answering the call to missions service.
Daughter Julie is serving with her husband as a missionary in Ecuador. Another daughter, Ruth Ann, will be appointed in January, along with her husband, as a missionary to the Pacific Rim. The Simrells’ son, Rob, lives in Tampa, Fla.
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