She’s a woman who’s been places – 130 countries, to be precise – and China, Iran, Yemen, Algeria and Afghanistan take top spots in her list of the most intriguing.

Standing in a pot luck line next to Bobbye Simmons Rankin recently, I was pretty intrigued myself, especially when I found out that this former first lady of international missions knew exactly where I was talking about when I mentioned I lived in Wesson. By the time we reached the dessert table of pound cakes and pralines I learned, to my even greater surprise, that Rankin herself had grown up in Lincoln County, where her father served a long tenure as superintendent of the schools at Fair Oak Springs.

Tall and striking, with a quick smile that’s stayed true to her Southern roots, Rankin says it was during Girls’ Auxilliary in that rural setting seven miles west of Brookhaven she first heard that “countless people grope in darkness”.

“I couldn’t really understand it, but the words tugged at my heart,” she says, pointing to those early years at Fair River Baptist Church as an important step in a journey that eventually led to her spending 23 years as a full-time missionary beside her husband, Jerry. Jerry would later go on to take the reins as president of the International Mission Board (the missionary-sending agency of Southern Baptists), overseeing the work of more than 5,000 missionaries worldwide.

For Bobbye, raising two children on foreign soil was part of the package.

“There were advantages to being overseas,” she says of that season of life. “They [daughter, Lori, and son, Russell] grew up with an appreciation of other cultures, food and languages. We were able to enjoy quality family time without the distractions of the busy American lifestyle.” So much so that both children, along with their spouses, were appointed as missionaries themselves in the late 1990s.

Still, there were hard times. In 1972 the family was adjusting to their new life in Indonesia when Bobbye’s father was killed in a car accident. That tragedy brought Bobbye and the children back to the United States for a few weeks.

Speaking before a group of pastors’ wives at a conference in Orlando many years later, Rankin spoke of that difficult period in her life, describing what it felt like as she kneeled at the bedside of her mother, who had been critically injured as a result of the same wreck that took her father’s life. “I considered that a bitter time,” she told the audience, “but even so, I was overwhelmed with God’s presence and comfort.”

Rankin’s mother lived to be 88, and enjoyed the occasional trips the couple and their children made back home. “As often as our furloughs allowed it,” they explain of that aspect of missionary life. Bobbye’s sister, Bettye Douglas, still lives in Enterprise – the same sister who claims responsibility for her sibling’s unusual name.

“The story goes that Bettye walked into our mother’s hospital room after I was born and asked, ‘Where’s my little brother, Bobby?'” she laughs.

Today, the Rankins are enjoying retired life in Clinton, where he has taught at Mississippi College, and they both manage calendars highlighted with speaking engagements. Hers includes a special one on April 14.

“My Lincoln County roots were formative in shaping my life values,” Bobbye acknowledges. “I’m looking forward to sharing there this spring.”

Bobbye Rankin is scheduled to speak at the Lincoln Baptist Association Ladies’ Luncheon at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church on April 14 at 11 a.m.. For more information, call the Lincoln Baptist Association at 833-8111.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.