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A memorial service for Cecil Carroll Cole is scheduled at 2 p.m., Sunday, June 28 at Marietta's First Baptist Church. Mr. Cole died Monday, February 23, 2015.
Cecil Carroll Cole was born on September 27, 1936 in the small town of Granbury, Texas. Times were hard during these great depression days and his father moved the family often while looking for work. Cecil's family eventually settled in Las Cruces, New Mexico and it was there that he grew up, excelling in baseball and journalism in high school.
In 1955, after watching the movie star Jimmy Stewart in the film "Strategic Air Command," he joined the Air Force and was sent to photography school at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. Later that year, he was assigned to Ardmore Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
One evening, he was tasked with taking pictures at the servicemen's center, where a trio of beautiful ladies, the Belletone Trio, was performing. He was smitten immediately with one of them, whose name was Joan, and within a few days had figured out a way to meet her again - by taking photos to her from the event. Cecil asked Joan for a date, and she obliged, but only if that date was going to church for Wednesday night prayer meeting!
Cecil had not only found his true love and lifelong partner, but he also found peace as he heard of the love of Jesus Christ and committed his life to serving Christ. On December 23, 1956, Cecil and Joan Gilcrease were married at the First Baptist Church of Marietta.
The year 1957 found Cecil as base photographer in Bermuda, an assignment he referred to as "working a couple of days a week and walking the beaches with Joan the rest." It was there on that island that the seed of missionary service was planted through their small church. And it was also there that they lay to rest their first child, Cathy, who was stillborn.
After returning to the States, and with those seeds of missions growing deeper, Cecil attended Wayland Baptist College in Plainview, Texas, and it was there that Curt, their first son, was born in 1960. In 1964, their second son, Chris, was born as Cecil was finishing his degree at New Mexico State University. The following summer of 1965, Cecil received his commission as an officer in returning to the United States Air Force.
The years in the military were good years, although it meant moving a lot, to places like Syracuse, New York and even a tour in Thule, Greenland without his family. While in Thule during the dark, long arctic winter nights, Cecil took on the radio personality of Stu Whittier on a live Armed Forces Radio show that encouraged troops around the world.
The next and final stop in Cecil's Air Force career was Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, where the Cole family also found a church home at Galilee Baptist Church. It was there that Cecil and Joan felt God leading them into full-time missionary work, which meant trading active military duty for theological studies at Denver Seminary. In 1972, they were commissioned as full-time missionaries with the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, and after a year of raising their financial support in Northeastern United States and a year of French language school in Switzerland, they arrived in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, West Africa in 1974.
Cecil worked at a media center, training young Ivorian adults in photography and journalism skills, so literature about Jesus could be produced and distributed in their own language, throughout Ivory Coast. Later, he and Joan served churches in the northern part of Ivory Coast, assisting and helping train church leaders as they made their home in the small town of Dabakala. They grew to love the amazing people of West Africa.
After leaving Ivory Coast, Cecil became the Public Relations director for Western Bible College in Denver and also served as International Communications Director for World Relief in Wheaton, Illinois. He traveled the world taking pictures and telling stories which were used in World Relief's publications, as they worked through the Church, in war torn and famine areas, bringing relief with the hope of Christ. He continued this ministry in consulting roles with mission organizations like SIM and the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
At age 65, Cecil retired...sort of. Never one to sit still for long, he and Joan took a two year assignment as dorm parents/teachers at Mountainview International School in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia in 2001. This turned into 14 years of service which included public relations/photography for the school and teaching journalism and other courses at Mountainview. Most recently he taught conversational English at a small Indonesian school to enable university students, businessmen, and others from different cultural backgrounds and nationalities to gain proficiency in speaking English. He wrote wonderful stories that taught these English skills and the love of Jesus. He and Joan lived in a Muslim neighborhood and said that the calls to worship, early in the morning, woke them up so they could pray as well.
On February 6th, 2015, Cecil was medically evacuated from Indonesia to Singapore after a short illness. After a diagnosis of inoperable advanced pancreatic cancer, he was able to make one final plane trip with Joan and his two sons, on February 14th, from Singapore to Chiang Mai, Thailand. On Monday, February 23rd, as the sun was rising on Asia, he peacefully left this world and entered heaven.
It is fitting and even appropriate that Cecil spent his final days in Asia. He and Joan had grown deeply in love with the people of Indonesia, and they loved their "retired" years of serving people there.
Cecil was at heart an adventurer for God, visiting over half the countries in the world, well over 100. From dodging massive mudholes on rough roads in Ivory Coast to dodging rebels in Mozambique, his adventures were many and legendary. He once landed in Amsterdam and helped drive a Land Cruiser with supplies across Central and Eastern Europe, then Turkey, eventually arriving in northern Iraq to help with relief efforts for Kurdish refugees. He believed that all people, no matter what religion, should hear the good news of Jesus.
Cecil was also a man deeply committed to his family and spent hours planning special family times together. A skilled writer and photographer, he used those for family memories and wonderful, unforgettable experiences with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It is amazing how many family pictures he is not in - because he was the one always taking the pictures.
Cecil is survived by his loving wife of 58 years, Joan, sons Curt and Chris and their wives Karen and Kellie, grandchildren Carissa, Brandon, Bryan, Jessica, Cameron and Cory and great-grandchildren Brecklyn and Finley. He is also survived by brother Harold and his sisters Oleta, Carolyn, and Donna.
These verses taken from Philippians 3:8-14 are a picture of the commitment that Cecil made in his lifelong pursuit of following Christ: "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my lord...the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings... Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ."
This obituary included a photo
of Mr. Cole.
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