In memoriam: Emeritus missionary Laura Frances Snow Lagos, 95

Laura Lagos

Laura Frances Snow Lagos, an emeritus International Mission Board missionary who shared the gospel among American Affinity Peoples in Chile, died Jan. 24, 2020. She was 95.

Lagos was born Nov. 10, 1924, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to the late Pastor James Snow and Nannie Joyner Snow. As a child, Lagos began participating in Woman’s Missionary Union organizations now called Mission Friends and Girls in Action. When seeking missionary appointment, she wrote, “Through these organizations and through my training at home I was becoming conscious of boys and girls around the world. Often, I pictured myself as a great, heroic missionary facing perils and dangers to carry the story of Jesus.”

She continued her involvement in missions organizations while attending Lowell (N.C.) High School and Meredith College, Raleigh, and made public a decision to be involved in full-time Christian service while in college.

Lagos received the Bachelor of Arts from Meredith College and the Master of Religious Education from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

After college Lagos worked two summers traveling across North Carolina with Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina. After seminary, she spent two years doing the same work before moving to Tennessee where she directed work among young people for the state WMU.

She found the work thrilling, she wrote, “but frequently as I read or taught about mission needs and as I heard missionaries speak, I wondered if the work I was doing was just preparation for another task God had for me.”

She was appointed a missionary in May 1955 to serve as WMU youth secretary for Chile, a role she held until 1977, when she became executive secretary of the Chilean Woman’s Missionary Union.

Living in Santiago, Lagos also taught missionary education and literacy methods in the Chilean Baptist Theological Seminary and was a counselor for Young Woman’s Auxiliary in the local Baptist association, a Sunday School superintendent for youth, and an evangelistic worker with a local church. From 1991 until her retirement in 1996, Lagos continued working with WMU, carrying out office and field activities in the area of planning and promoting organizations for women, preparing materials and training leaders.

After retirement, she moved to Asheville, North Carolina, and married Felix Lagos a long-time friend and retired teacher from Chile. She was a member of First Baptist Church of Asheville and was associated with Faith Baptist Spanish Church of Asheville.

Lagos is survived by her husband, Felix; nephew, John Joyner Snow Jr. (Sheila); several great nieces and nephews and great great nieces and nephews.

A funeral service was held Jan. 27, 2020, in the Chapel of West Funeral Home, Weaverville, North Carolina.

Read an obituary here.