Rose Sherrod “Sherry” McCraw Sims, emeritus International Mission Board missionary who shared the gospel among the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa in Ghana for 26 years, died May 9, 2019. She was 77.

Sims was born Feb. 18, 1942, in Jackson, Miss., to Louis Henry McCraw and Mary Virginia Wells McCraw. She graduated from Murrah High School, Jackson, and received the Bachelor of Arts from University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.

Sims first felt called to missions while in college, and she served as a student summer missionary in Illinois and Ohio. She married Robert W. Sims in 1964. Eight years later, while on a family vacation at Lifeway Conference Center, Ridgecrest, N.C., the Simses learned that businessmen could be used on the mission field and committed to explore a call to missions.

“I continue to marvel that God has called me to be a missionary,” Sims wrote when she applied for missionary service while in New Orleans, where Bob was a student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “I feel that he is using every experience I’m having here and every person I’m meeting to mature me emotionally and spiritually, preparing me for his work on the mission field.”

The Simses were appointed to Ghana in 1973. There Sims raised three children and was involved in ministry in the community, such as teaching women in prison in Accra.

Sims is survived by her husband of 55 years, Robert W. Sims of Spanish Fort, Ala.; three children, Virginia Louise Sims, Dr. Robert Harrison Sims, and Beverly Rose Shoemaker; brother, Louis Henry McCraw Jr.; two grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

Read an obituary here.