BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (BP)–Marie Blocher Carter, a Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionary in Argentina, died March 23 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was 59.
Carter, from Lee’s Summit, Mo., became ill March 13 with flu-like symptoms. She was admitted to British Hospital in Buenos Aires March 19 with a lung infection. Doctors later diagnosed her with blood poisoning, and her condition deteriorated rapidly despite treatment, said missionary Clayton Rock, strategy coordinator for IMB missionaries in Argentina.
Carter and her husband, Richard, were appointed IMB missionaries in 1986. They first directed a student home in Buenos Aires. Most recently the couple worked in the Baptist mission office, where she was part-time receptionist. Her husband is the mission’s assistant treasurer/bookkeeper.
The Carters served as mission host and hostess, providing hospitality to volunteers and other Southern Baptist visitors and managing guest apartments. “She and Rich had met many, many Southern Baptists, as evidenced by the amount of e-mail we’ve received here since she became ill,” said Rock’s wife, Charolette. “She was a friend to everyone. And she was always willing to do whatever anyone asked of her.”
The Carters led discipleship training at Villa Centenario Baptist Church in Buenos Aires and volunteered at the church’s Sidney Sowell School. She served as a counselor to the school’s teachers and taught classes in Baptist churches on using crafts in evangelism.
“Marie had a beautiful sense of humor that helped with the adjustments of coming to the field at their age,” said IMB missionary Ted Stanton, who now directs the Baptist Spanish Publishing House in El Paso, Texas. “They made up for any language deficiency they had with an exemplary love for the people. And they were always willing to try anything new.”
Born in Adrian, Mo., Carter felt God’s call to missions at age 18. But it was 30 years later before she became a missionary. During most of those years she worked alongside her husband, who served in student ministry in Missouri and on church staffs in Missouri and Louisiana. She also taught public school.
Carter earned a bachelor of science in education degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia and a master of science in education degree from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg. During college she was a summer missionary in Colorado and New Mexico.
Besides her husband, Carter is survived by a son, Jeffrey Carter of Lawrence, Kan.; two daughters, Karen Riffle of Holden, Mo., and Elizabeth Myers of Lee’s Summit; her mother, Ruth Blocher of Adrian; a brother, Edwin Blocher Jr., of Birmingham, Ala.; and three grandchildren.
Memorial services in Argentina were scheduled for March 23 and 24. Stateside funeral services were scheduled for March 28 at First Baptist Church, Lee’s Summit.
Memorial contributions can be made for the work of Villa Centenario church and the Sidney Sowell School, c/o the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, P.O. Box 6767, Richmond, VA. 23230-0767.
