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R. Keith Parks, a long-serving missionary and leader in international missions for the Southern Baptist Convention, has died. He was 97.

The SBC's International Mission Board, the successor organization to the global missions body that Parks oversaw, announced Wednesday that he had passed away on Tuesday.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 69 years, Helen Jean, and his daughter, Eloise, who both died in 2021. He is survived by three sons, three daughters-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

IMB President Paul Chitwood noted in the announcement that Parks and his wife had given “decades of their lives to serving Southern Baptists in our cooperative mission work to get the gospel to the nations.”

“While Keith served as president during a complicated time in S

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