Portrait of Nancy Lee Bridges. IMB Photo
Nancy Lee Bridges, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in the Philippines and Brazil, died April 21, 2025, in Clinton, Iowa. She was 88.
Nancy was born June 19, 1936, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the late Robert and Neoma (Foor) Bridges. She graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa and received the Bachelor of Science from University of Oklahoma in Norman, the Master of Religious Education from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (now Gateway Seminary) in Mill Valley, California, and the Doctor of Philosophy from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.
In the fall of 1947, when Nancy was 11 years old, a friend invited her to Sunday School and church, and she began to attend regularly. Soon, Nancy became aware of her need for a Saviour and committed her life to Christ. During the following year, both her father and brother came to faith in Christ, and their family life began to revolve around church activities. During her senior year of college, Nancy recalled, she began to think about her future in terms of what God wanted her to do with her life. She applied and was accepted by the Tentmaker program, supporting herself while doing missions work. In January 1959, she secured a position as a teacher in Anchorage, Alaska and was transferred there by the Tentmaker program.
While seeking missionary appointment she wrote, “While I was teaching a foreign mission study to the Y.W.A.’s (Young Women’s Auxiliary sponsored by Woman’s Missionary Union) there, the Lord began to impress upon me that he wanted me to serve as a foreign missionary. After several months of thinking and praying about this, I surrendered my life to be a foreign missionary.” At the end of the school term, she resigned her position to enter seminary.
After graduation in 1962, she accepted the call to a local church to serve as youth director and educational secretary. The following year, she moved to Oklahoma and began serving as state Young Woman’s Auxiliary director.
In 1966, the International Mission Board appointed Nancy missionary to the Philippines. She served as a Woman’s Missionary Union worker in Manila until 1979. She transferred to Brazil in 1980, where she was the WMU representative for northeast Brazil through 1997 and helped to establish a master’s degree in religious education at a local seminary.
She is survived by one brother, Robert E. Bridges (Kathy) of Savanna, Illinois; one nephew, Nathan Bridges (Brittany) of Phoenix, Arizona; five nieces, Terri Mahon of Peoria, Illinois, Tracy Callicoat of Tulsa, Tosha Coffman of Tulsa, Heidi Folmer (Brian) of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and Kristin Rauch (David) of Warrenville Illinois; 17 great nieces and nephews; and six great-great nieces and nephews.
A funeral service was held April 25 at Lemke Funeral Homes – South Chapel in Clinton, with burial in Clinton Lawn Cemetery.
Read an obituary here.