June 18, 2001
Dying missionary pleads for others to go
___By Shawn Hendricks
___Missouri Word & Way
___NEW ORLEANS--Dying of lung cancer, missionary Charles Beaty limped onto the stage of the Southern Baptist Convention June 12 to urge Baptists to share the gospel throughout the world.
___His challenge climaxed the International Mission Board's annual report.
___"It has to be us," said Beaty, who recently traveled with his wife, Christy, on a mission trip to North Africa after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. "If we don't go, whom will we send and who will go for us?"
CHARLES BEATY (left) and his wife, Christy, are introduced by Jerry Rankin, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, during the annual IMB report to messengers. The Beatys, originally from Overland Park, Kan., were missionaries in North Africa when Charles, during a 1998 U.S. furlough, was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the lung, "a very hardy cancer," he said. Despite two years of treatment, the cancer returned in November 2000, and doctors told Beaty nothing more could be done; he could die this summer. His wife is expecting their fourth child, already named Abigail, in July. (Photo by Gibbs Frazeur)
___Beaty was one of several IMB representatives who shared testimonies of lives changed on the mission field. Baptists held hands and prayed for Beaty before he left the stage.
___IMB President Jerry Rankin said more Baptists must follow Beaty's example."What about you?" Rankin asked. "The urgency of reaching a lost world has led many others to respond."
___Last year, 879 new missionaries were sent out by the IMB, Rankin reported.
___"Many going to places we would have never imagined," he said. "The uttermost is being reached as the number of people groups and strategic population segments being impacted by your missionaries has almost tripled to more than a thousand in just the last three years. Southern Baptists are not only going to places all across the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, they are going in record numbers."
___Baptists must continue to commit to the mission field, Rankin said.
___
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