RICHMOND — While John McCracken prepared his will, he told his wife, Dorothy, “If you can sell the RV, fine. If not, give it to the Baptists.” After John went to be with the Lord two years ago, Dorothy half-heartedly attempted to sell their 2002 Gulf Stream Sun Sport RV with fewer than 15,000 miles on the odometer. The vehicle did not sell, and Dorothy has gifted the coach, valued at $50,000, to Virginia Baptists.
Photo by Jim White
This Gulf Stream RV donated to the VBMB will be clearly identified as a disaster relief vehicle in its new role as an on-site command and control center.
According to Walter Harrow, former president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and current assistant to the BGAV treasurer, the RV is an exceptionally fine vehicle that is fully equipped for travel and ideally suited to the rigors of disaster relief ministry. Having the RV enables Virginia Baptist Mission Board disaster relief leaders to enter a disaster with a completely self-contained unit.
“We will use the RV as a mobile headquarters during the immediate aftermath of a disaster and during the longer, rebuilding and recovery process,” remarked Terry Raines, mobile mission and disaster relief coordinator for the VBMB.
Following John McCracken's retirements from the Coast Guard and a second career with Exxon, he and Dorothy decided in 1992 to answer a call to missions and to help struggling churches wherever the Lord led them.
“We decided to become missionaries,” says Dorothy.
After being commissioned by their church in the Houston area, John and Dorothy traveled to their first assignment in Sioux Falls, S.D. There they did “anything the little church needed done.”
Dorothy vividly recalls providing food for the homeless in the Sioux Falls area, an assignment that was not uneventful. Sitting beside a homeless man, she asked him if he knew the Lord. “No,” he replied. Then, without further conversation, the man stood and said, “I have to go.” He then ran from the room, jumped on a bicycle, and disappeared. A few minutes later the police came in looking for a “criminal” matching his description.
Photo by Jim White
Dorothy McCracken poses before a quilt from 1896 and an article about her grandfather, a missionary to the Wild West.
Ironically, Dorothy's grandfather, C.H. Frady, had served South Dakota and other plains states as a missionary of the American Sunday-School Union in the 1880s before settling into a role as chaplain of the Nebraska legislature. Frady has been credited with starting more than 500 Sunday schools in the badlands of the Wild West.
“I guess missionary work is in my bones,” Dorothy says, while pointing to a framed article about her famous grandfather that hangs in her home. During Dorothy's childhood, her mother also engaged in missionary-type service when she taught a Bible class in Keeler, Calif., in that state's famed Death Valley.
Dorothy's own missionary work has sometimes taken a very direct approach. For instance, Dorothy laughed as she recalled, “John was not a believer when we met. On our honeymoon, I told John, ‘If you want to stay married to me you either need to accept the Lord or go to hell.' ” John accepted the Lord — a decision he never regretted — after a short time of considering his alternatives.
Once their work in South Dakota ended, the McCracken's spent two years in a church in North Pole, Alaska, where John did repair work and provided pastoral care — even for the pastor — and Dorothy served as part-time church secretary. “We also started a visitation program in the church. I didn't care if it was 40 or 50 below zero, we went out visiting prospects one evening every week,” she recalls.
Their missionary journeys also took them to churches in Arizona, Oregon, California, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and British Columbia, Canada.
Photo by Jim White
Terry Raines (left) and Walter Harrow of the VBMB staff chat inside the board's new RV.
“Working in Kentucky topped even Alaska,” said Dorothy incredulously. “Unless you have been to some of those places in the mountains, you couldn't believe it. We were in places where the women took their clothes to the stream to wash them.” Dorothy remembers that they ministered to many people who had turned to drugs and alcohol as antidotes for hopelessness. Among other assignments, the McCracken's oversaw the distribution of food and clothing.
Speaking of her gift, McCracken said, “We bought that coach and dedicated it to the Lord. We said, ‘If anything happens to either of us and the other can't sell it, we should give it to the state Baptist convention in the state where we were living.”
She struggled to control her emotions as she reflected on the ministry she and her husband had enjoyed. “The Lord provided everything. We never asked for or needed anything from any church or anyone else,” she asserted with genuine appreciation for God's faithfulness. “We're just glad that the RV is going to be used for the Lord's work. I had several people look at it wanting to buy it, but I had no idea how they might use it. I'm glad the Baptists will have it.”
The Gulf Stream she donated to Virginia Baptists was the McCracken's third RV.
The couple moved to Virginia to be near their daughter and her family. They joined Stockton Memorial Baptist Church in Chesterfield, where Dorothy continues to worship and serve.