D. Ray Davis, Richmond Associate
Southern Africa
Purchasing agent & program controller

D. Ray Davis, now the International Mission Board’s Richmond associate for Southern Africa, used his background in purchasing to serve the Lord in Southern Africa. Before becoming a missionary, Davis worked for nine years at Lockheed Aircraft (now Lockheed Martin) as a purchasing agent and program controller monitoring engineering programs.

“As we stepped through the process of appointment we were amazed when a request from the field in Johannesburg, South Africa, came through for a purchasing coordinator to support missionaries in Eastern and Southern Africa,” he said.

Planning to stay

Prior to going to the field, he and his family were very involved in their “missions-minded” church. “God would convict us of our need to be involved financially and in prayer,” he said. “We would often feel the need to go [overseas], but we realized that we were not ‘preacher-types.’”

Reading The Great Omission by Robertson McQuilkin challenged them in their perspective. A quote from George Murray in the book convicted them that they were “willing to go, but planning to stay,” Davis said.

“We recoiled from that statement and in our hearts told the Lord that we REALLY were willing to go. The Lord seemed to remind us about property we were buying and asked us about our plans with that land. We were buying 10 acres of land. We had planned to pay on it for about five years, sell off half of it, and build a home.”

Planning to go

“The Lord clearly showed us that we were ‘planning to stay.’ We made a conscious decision to plan to go, but we were willing to stay,” he said.

“During this time the Lord convicted me through 2 Cor. 5:15: ‘He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf’” (NASB).

“We decided to plan to go, but we were still a bit confused concerning how He would use us.”

“We learned a lot about faith. He led; we followed--He showed us the way! He had been preparing us all those years to use us in ways we could not have imagined.”

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