Missionaries

WE HAVE all known women like them. They have kind, open faces and generous spirits. They appear to be very simple, but they are not. They are missionaries, and I admit that I have a soft spot for them.So as five middle-aged American Catholic nuns were brutally slain in the Liberian civil war this week, the deaths should perhaps register just a little more than all the impersonal statistics of slaughter we receive every day.Even their names imply the healthy simplicity of their fresh, makeup-less faces: Sister Barbara Ann Muttra, 69; Sister Joel Kolmer, 58; her cousin, Sister Shirley Kolmer, 61; Sister Kathleen McGuire, 54; and Sister Agnes Mueller, 62. They were sisters of ** the Adorers of the Blood of Christ order in Red Bud, Ill., and had served in Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, for many years.

Carolyn P.G. King, the state director of Children's Bible Ministries of Maryland, died of a stroke Oct. 6 at her Elkridge home. She was 73. Born Carolyn Patricia Grace Byers in Front Royal, Va., she was the daughter of an Army instructor who also sold fabrics and sewing machines. Her mother was a homemaker. Mrs. King attended Dundalk High School. She was a 1980 graduate from the Baltimore School of the Bible. She became active in Catonsville Baptist Church and had been a member of the Faith Bible Church in Elkridge for the past 35 years.

Although their eyes burned constantly from pollution and antiquated accommodations frequently tried their souls, the warm reception from the Russian people elated the missionaries from Westminster."

The Rev. Gerald "Gerry" Vincent Lardner, a Sulpician priest who taught preaching and later served as a missionary in Africa, died of cancer June 18 at Mercy Medical Center. He was 70 and lived in North Baltimore. Born in Baltimore and raised on Malbrook Road in the Westown section of Catonsville, he attended St. Agnes School. He followed an uncle, the leader of the Sulpician Fathers, in pursuing a religious life. He entered the old St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville as a 13-year-old high school student.

Spying Rick Lee in his bright orange "Jews for Jesus" T-shirt, Leigh Resnick crossed over Calvert Street to introduce herself. The 20-year-old Philadelphian, who is Jewish, had never heard of the missionary group. But she wanted a leaflet. "I had to get one for my mom," she said. "I like to show her things she won't like." Through their first week in Baltimore, the volunteer missionaries of Jews for Jesus have encountered warmth and hostility, curiosity and indifference. In Pikesville, members say, they ran into a group of youths this week who threw golf balls at them.

SPREADING THE WORD about missionaries who serve in the world's challenging areas was one theme of the musical "Prayerworks," sung by the Kid's Choir on Sunday at North Carroll Assembly of God church in Manchester.The 28-member choir of boys and girls, ages 3 through 11, were directed by Cindy Myers, former vocal music teacher at North Carroll Middle School.The children's performance was part of a two-day mission-awareness convention coinciding with a visit from the Rev. Gary Dickinson and his family, who serve as missionaries in the Congo.

When she was 6 years old, Sarah Selvaggi remembers, she wanted to sponsor one of the poor children she would see on television commercials.Now, at age 15, she will spend her second summer as a missionary for children through the Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland where she will teach songs and memory verses, and, she hopes, lead children to Christ."

ONE HUNDRED AND sixty members of Grace Bible Church in Manchester caught a glimpse of the life of missionaries in Botswana and France Sunday evening.Bob and Esther Genheimer serve in Botswana, and Steve and Beth Coffey serve in France. The couples gave language lessons and short talks about life in two countries on two diverse continents. Botswana is in southern Africa.The experience became a theatrical treat. Church members turned the gymnasium into an African restaurant, a French cafe and a rural Botswana home.

When 12 missionaries from Carroll Community Church flew to Haiti to do mission work two weeks ago, their entire congregation of 270 gave them wings."I am convinced we would not have been as successful without the help from home," said the Rev. Joe Duke, pastor of the Eldersburg church and leader of the missionary group."

Wearing her game-face smile and her Grace & Hope Mission blue blazer, Christine Shiflett forges into the Crystal Show Bar, your run-of-the-mill strip club on The Block. The 42-year-old missionary doesn't preach a peep. She just slips into groups of drinking customers with her donation basket and spiritual pamphlets.She looks like a nun dropping in on a bachelors' party.The bartender deftly stuffs a buck into Miss Shiflett's basket. Patrons stop dead in their drinks, then wave her off. Other stunned customers such as Freddy Kober (visiting from L.A.)

The Rev. John F. Guidera, a Jesuit missionary who lived in India for six decades while retaining close ties with his Maryland benefactors, died of septicemia May 16 in Jamshedpur. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Govans, he was a 1943 Loyola High School graduate. He then entered the Jesuit seminary in Wernersville, Pa., and attended Weston College in Weston, Mass. "It was on a November evening in 1950 that the SS Chusan took him to Bombay harbor ... a young Jesuit far from his home in Baltimore, dispatched as a missionary to work for the rest of his life in the land of the poor, the leprotic, the dying and the hungry," a 1986 Evening Sun column said.

The Rev. Charles E. Cook, an internationally influential Christian leader who had pastored Mountain Christian Church in Joppa for a decade, died Jan. 11 of respiratory failure at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air. He was 84 and lived in Bel Air. "He is highly regarded all over the world as a visionary leader, respected Christian scholar, missions catalyst, and most of all, wise and caring pastor," said the Rev. Ben Cachiaras, who...

The chairs stopped Jean Blosser in her tracks every time she walked to dinner on North Charles Street. Displayed hanging from the walls in storefront near her favorite restaurant, the chairs looked like they were floating, almost other-worldly. Gleaming wood, meticulous inlays, graceful curves. The chairs she saw through the window were more art than seating. "But I never found them open and pretty soon the store disappeared," she said. She'd spent, she said, "I'm not kidding, eight years," looking for the perfect dining room table and chairs.

The doors of the Grace and Hope Mission open five evenings a week. Most nights, depending on the time of the month, about 40 to 60 people will step in from Gay Street, just south of The Block in Baltimore, for a religious service and a free meal. "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus," said Helen Meewes, the mission's superintendent, quoting from the Book of Philippians. Meewes is one of three missionaries, including Karen Harp and Gunhild Carlson, who reside upstairs and staff one of Baltimore's oldest nondenominational, charitable institutions.

Bruce Thomas Hall, a retired utilities engineer and decorated World War II veteran, died of pneumonia Saturday at a Sebring, Fla., hospital. He was 88 and lived in Rodgers Forge. Born in Baltimore and raised on Edgemere Avenue in Park Heights, he was the son of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad engineer and a homemaker. He was a 1940 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and trained as a lineman and installer with the old Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. Mr. Hall was drafted into the Army In September 1942 and took additional training in telecommunication.

The Rev. Robert T. Hurte, who was pastor of Community Baptist Church in Jessup for 40 years, died Oct. 28 of lung cancer at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 78. Dr. Hurte, the son of a sanitarium worker and a homemaker, was born and raised in Crewe, Va. He was a 1950 graduate of Nottoway Training High School in Nottoway County, Va. In 1952, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and saw combat in Korea as a military policeman. After being discharged in 1955, he moved to Baltimore. Dr. Hurte had planned to become a funeral director, but in 1955 went to work for the old Baltimore Transit Co. as a streetcar motorman.

When breaking down racial barriers, meeting people is more effective than just hearing about them."When the kids could see the only real difference that existed was skin color, they could come out and share experiences," said Judy Bixler of her work with an interracial missionary group in South Africa, where segregation was mandated by the government."

As a preacher's kid growing up in rural Virginia, Rob Moor was fascinated by the foreign missionaries who visited his father's church with their stories of exotic lands and harrowing adventures as they risked their lives spreading the Gospel. Now Moor tells his own tales, of aiding Rwandan refugees within earshot of the gunfire of civil war, of living in the African bush with Masai tribesmen in Tanzania. "I have one of the most exciting jobs in the world," said Moor, 47, who, with his wife, Lisa, has served for the past 13 years as a Baptist missionary.