Missionary service, courageous views

In testimony to the number of lives he touched, friends and family of Warren Webster filled Wheaton's First Baptist Church this week to Sunday morning capacity.

It was a tribute to a lifetime of missionary service that ended only with Webster's life when he succumbed to cancer last week at 79.

The voice and face of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society for 22 years soon came to life in a videotaped speech he made in Urbana in 1964.

Webster spoke passionately about the evils of race prejudice having no biblical sanction, at a time when segregation was still commonplace.

Once the missionary was asked during his service in Pakistan what he'd do if his daughter married a Pakistani.

"Better a Christian Pakistani than a rich, white American pagan," Webster responded.

Webster's voice and mind was stalled with the onset of Parkinson's disease, but not silenced. Family said Webster's 24-year battle with the condition was never one of self-pity. Rather, he maintained a philosophy of "accommodation but no surrender."

Webster's work ethic was matched only by his thirst for knowledge, colleagues said, leading many of his co-workers to believe Webster was a "near genius" powered by a God-given love for ministry.

That dedication led him to oversee the work of 650 career missionaries, with missionary work on nearly every continent.

In his later years, Webster lived in Wheaton and continued his Christian service through First Baptist Church. It was there that he quickly became a model to Pastor Michael Rowe.

"Jesus was his everything," Rowe said.

Webster leaves his wife, Shirley, daughters Cindy and Debby, his brother Marvin, and four granddaughters.