Nearly 1,000 years of sacrifice and hard work were recognized as 60 retiring Southern Baptist missionaries were honored May 19 at the International Mission Board’s Missionary Learning Center near Richmond, Va.
“You have seen colleagues come and go, yet you have preserved,” IMB President Jerry Rankin told the retiring missionaries. “It hasn’t necessarily been because you have been healthier and stronger. It hasn’t been because you are deeper spiritually or more culturally adept to survive.
“You have served to retirement because God’s hand has been upon you. He had a task for you to accomplish, and His grace has enabled you to stay the course.”
Don Dolifka, who served with his wife, Mary, in Kenya for 34 years, echoed Rankin’s comment, saying that without God’s many blessings, their work would not have been possible.
“Truly God can make a way,” he said, “and when God makes a way it’s worth waiting for.”
Rankin noted that the retiring missionaries now have an equally important task here in the United States.
(IMB)
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