Ray Giles – Faithful to the End

Earlier this week, our daily prayer list at Westwood Christian Church referenced the death of veteran missionary Ray Giles. You may not know who he is and may not have realized that, although he has never been to Westwood, he had connections to our congregation.

When Westwood’s minister from 2002 to 2007, Wade Wilson, went to Ethiopia as a missionary in the 1990’s, Ray was one of his mentors. When Ray and his wife, Effie, retired to Johnson City, TN several years ago, they and my mother became friends. During the last two years of my mother’s life as she was in and out of medical facilities, Ray and Effie often visited her in her hospital or assisted living home or nursing home. When I would go to Johnson City to visit Mom, I had several occasions to visit with Ray and came to appreciate his deep faith and his kind, gentle manner.

Ray had ministries in Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina before leaving for the mission field in Ethiopia. He served for thirty-two years with Christian Missionary Fellowship. Most of that time was spent in pioneer evangelism among two tribes of western Ethiopia. During the years Marxism took over the country and the missionaries were forced to leave, he served on the home staff of CMF as Field Director. When the country opened again he returned to work with the churches that had survived the Communist years. On retirement to Johnson City, he continued to be involved in missions as mentor for perspective missionaries. He was an elder and Sunday School teacher at Lone Oak Christian Church in Johnson City.

Those are the facts of his life. Those of us who knew him saw him as a man of deep faith who maintained his positive, loving spirit through his final months of life on this earth as he battled the cancer that invaded his body. My sister kept me updated on his health through emails from his son, and he lived through his cancer the way he had lived through the many challenges of life in the ministry and on the mission field – with a deep, abiding trust in the Lord.

The preacher of the Lone Oak church told about his passing away shortly before midnight last Sunday with “his family by his side, singing and praying with him and for him as the body died...but life, real life, continued. That's probably how Ray would have described it--such was his faith.”

I tell you a little of his story because he is one of the great saints of the church who was faithful to the end. Sometime around midnight last Sunday evening, I expect the Lord met him as he passed from this life to eternity and said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” That is the reward we all seek, so stay faithful.