Like many girls who came up as a GA in a Southern Baptist church, Rebekah Naylor was inspired by stories of missionaries who lived in faraway lands, God's ambassadors who served impoverished people while sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
Naylor shared her story at the South Carolina Baptist Convention's 2004 Senior Adult Convention, held March 29-31 at Myrtle Beach Community Church.
She was saved as a child at First Baptist Church, Columbia, where her father, the late Robert Naylor, was pastor from 1947-1952. He was named president of Southwestern Baptist Seminary, and the Naylors moved to Texas.
At age 13, when two missionary couples visited her church to speak during a Lottie Moon offering emphasis, she felt God's call to become a medical missionary. Today, some 47 years later, it is a call she has spent her life answering.
In 1973, exactly 100 years after the appointment of her "heroine," Lottie Moon, Naylor was appointed to serve as a surgeon and Southern Baptist missionary at the newly constructed Bangalore Baptist Hospital in India.
For 29 years, she used her "access and credibility" as a doctor to share Christ with the people of India. "It was possible to talk with patients and pray with them before every surgery," she said. "Even the anesthesia person came to expect it.
"They were ready to hear whatever I said. People in India are not different from American families. The usual response is to listen; sometimes that's all, but sometimes they ask questions."
In addition to her responsibilities as a doctor, Naylor led Bible studies and Christian worship services for patients because she said it is important to "integrate your profession and your witness."
Today, the petite Naylor is serving stateside as an International Mission Board church planting and strategy coordinator for the work that continues in Bangalore. Living in Fort Worth, Tex., she is caring for her 95-year-old mother, Goldia Naylor, while teaching classes at Southwestern Seminary and Southwestern Medical School (affiliated with the University of Texas).
She does not know if God's providence will allow her to return to India (officially, she is on a leave of absence), but she remains optimistic about the potential for Christian witness in India and other South Asian countries. With her South Carolina roots, she is excited about the South Asia missions partnership recently adopted by South Carolina Baptists.
Naylor cites sobering statistics regarding South Asia: There are 1.4 billion people, most of whom are lost; there are 1 billion people in India, less than 2 percent of whom claim to be Christian; South Asia is home to one in every four lost persons in the world; there are more Muslims in South Asia than in all of the Middle East and North Africa combined.
Nevertheless, she is quick to add that Southern Baptists must not be pessimistic. "We have to pray intensively," she said. "There's too much work to be done to sit around thinking about this."
In addition to reaching the lost, she hopes South Carolina's South Asia partnership will result in more prayer, knowledge, financial support and volunteerism among South Carolina Baptists. "Hopefully, in the context of all that, God will call out many, perhaps from South Carolina, to become missionaries in South Asia," she said.
Naylor, who as a child enjoyed reading biographies of missionaries, fears Southern Baptists may be "losing our emphasis" on missions education, that young people are "becoming more ignorant, not growing up sensitive to God's call, and to going."
"What is our passion? What is it that's worth the sacrifice?"
"How many more souls must die without Jesus?" she said, quoting her role model, Lottie Moon.
Naylor believes the Holy Spirit can reawaken a passion for missions.
"I guess that's part of my job," she said, ever the missionary. "I can't reach a billion people, but maybe I can impact a few."
