Portrait of Rachel DuBard-Hays. IMB Photo

Rachel DuBard-Hays, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, died March 29, 2025. She was 91.  

Rachel was born May 15, 1933, in Carroll County, Mississippi, to the late Silas and Daisy Hanks DuBard. She graduated from J. Z. George High School in North Carrollton and received the Bachelor of Arts from Mississippi College, Clinton, and the Master of Religious Education from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisiana.  

During a summer church revival in 1946, she accepted Christ as her Savior. While seeking missionary appointment she wrote, “Even though my church had no missions organizations when I was growing up, I had an aunt who would bring us her old Royal Service and Commission magazines (both missions magazines). My first interest in missions began as a result of reading these.” 

Upon graduation from college, Rachel became a schoolteacher. While seeking appointment she recalled how the early 1970s brought many changes to her family, including the death of her mother and her father’s remarriage two years later. She wrote, “Now I felt perfectly free to do what God was calling me to do. There have been so many things which God has done that have opened the way for me to follow His call. … In 1971, there seemed to have been an unusual amount of mission emphasis in my association, and I began to feel the call to serve God as a foreign missionary. I made this decision public to my church in February 1972.” 

In 1973, the International Mission Board appointed Rachel missionary to Liberia. She also later served in Côte d’Ivoire.  

Rachel was preceded in death by her husband of 10 years, Preston Oliver Hays. 

She is survived by her two sisters-in-law, Yandel DuBard and Glenda DuBard, and her many nieces and nephews. 

A funeral service was held April 2 at Liberty Baptist Church in Carrollton, Mississippi, with burial in the Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery.  

Read an obituary here.