RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Southern Baptist missionary Carolyn (Cami) Ramsey died Feb. 12 in Temple, Texas, after suffering a massive stroke two days earlier. She was 64.
Ramsey and her husband of 42 years, John, were appointed missionaries in 1978 by the Foreign (now International) Mission Board. She served in church and home outreach and evangelism in Brazil, Bermuda and Mexico. The Ramseys were on their final U.S. assignment prior to retirement.
In her most recent assignment, she reached out to the working class in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula through music and art. An accomplished musician, she taught one student after another to play the keyboard while her husband trained church leaders. She also taught Mexican youth and the children of other missionaries to do outdoor evangelism through chalk drawing.
Ramsey’s co-workers remember her as a joyful person who loved to laugh.
“She was the kind of person you loved to be around — very transparent, real, honest,” said Homer Hawthorne, who served alongside the Ramseys in Mexico. “It was encouraging and refreshing to be around her. She and John … always sought to do and say what needed to be done out of a motivation of love.”
Hawthorne’s wife, Sharon, remembers Ramsey as an encourager. “She looked at the positive in things,” Sharon Hawthorne said. “Even our children —- she saw the potential they had and encouraged them.”
Ramsey loved to be among the Mexican people. “She just had a heart for people,” Sharon Hawthorne said.
The Ramseys’ first assignment was in Brazil, where she served as a professor of organ at North Brazil Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1991 they transferred to Bermuda, and in 2000 they began work in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. As part of her witness, Ramsey participated in organ concerts, sang in choirs, gave chalk talks and painted scenery for dramas.
Ramsey, the former Carolyn Magee, was born Sept. 8, 1940, in Henderson, Texas. She received a bachelor of arts degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She also attended American University in Washington D.C., and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
She worked as a Home (now North American) Mission Board summer missionary in New York City and as a teacher in Texas. In Washington D.C., she served as church pianist and assistant organist.
Ramsey is survived by her husband, of Henderson; a son, Phillip Ramsey, of Pompano Beach, Fla.; a son and daughter-in-law, Charles and Brooke Ramsey, who live in South Asia; and two grandchildren.
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