from Doug Perry
August 2026
About My Mom
Nancy Whitlow knew when she was about twelve years old that she was supposed to be a missionary in Mexico. Very specifically. I’m not sure how she knew, but she did. She took all the Spanish classes she could in high school. She went on mission trips to Mexico in the summers. She went to college at Southwest Missouri State to get a secondary education degree with emphasis on Spanish. She met a young man named Bob Perry her freshman year and they fell in love. He was a Math major.
The women at church told her that he was wrong for her, that he didn’t even have a call to ministry, that she was throwing away her calling in Christ. She was sure it was OK and that he was the one. They got married after their freshman year. He was 17 and had to get permission from his dad to marry. She was 18.
She prayed. He got a call from the Lord to full-time ministry. She prayed. He started preaching. She prayed. He enrolled in seminary – rushing to Kansas City to start the day after I was born in August of 1967. He got called to pastor a little church while in seminary. Then a bigger one after seminary. Still, he had no passion or calling to missions.
She prayed. Five years later he felt an unmistakable call from God to be a missionary in Mexico. She never pestered. Never brought it up. She just prayed.
So off they went to Mexico. I was six. My little brother, David, was two. A year of language study in Guadalajara. Eight months mentoring pastors in Oaxaca. The rest in Mexico City as pastor of the only English speaking Baptist church in a city of 23 million. The mission board only really thinks of the man as the missionary. The wife is either bonus – or baggage. But Nancy started women’s Bible studies, had birthday parties for the neighborhood kids, had visitors from the States bring suitcases full of clothes and things to donate, and leave full of souvenirs.
After four years there was a year of furlough – a constant schedule of slide shows to raise money for missions. And she release her book, “Missionaries Are Human, Too” – which you can download HERE for free. Then three more years in Mexico City until David got pleurisy (Black Lung) from the smog in Mexico City and the decision was made to come home.
We came back to Excelsior Springs in January of 1980. Within a couple of years, Mom found a scary mole on her leg, went to the doctor and the biopsy said Melanoma. That began a decade long fight with cancer that she lost in 1993. In 1984 Dad became the Director of Missions (area director) for the Clay-Platte Baptist Association in the North side of Kansas City. He really flourished in a role as an administrator and mentor to pastors, more than as a pastor himself. Every Sunday they would visit one of the 50 or so congregations in the Association. Nancy was beloved.
In 1988 Bob became the Director of Missions of the Mount Vernon Baptist Association in Northern Virginia. Mom was still fighting the cancer off and on. By 1992 she was on experimental treatments and had long outlived the doctors’ estimates. Undeterred and unafraid, she read children’s books onto cassettes for the grandkids she’d never meet. Bought toys and dolls and labelled them, “For the first boy when he’s four” on a train set and “For the first girl when she’s five” on a tea set from Mexico. She started a non-profit called “Good Gifts Ministry” from her hospital bed to create jobs for undocumented Hispanic women making handcrafts – that were then sold at bazaars at the rich Baptists churches of Annandale and McLean to the wives of Republican Congressmen and Generals. She made a list of the top ten women Dad should marry after she was gone. (He married #2 on the list a few months later – and they are still together, retired in Springfield, Missouri.)
Weeks ahead of time she planned her funeral. Picked out her casket. She arranged plane tickets for the casket so she could be buried in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. She wrote out the program for the memorial in Virginia and the funeral in Excelsior Springs. She picked out the songs she wanted. She wanted to make sure the Gospel was presented at her funeral and an invitation given. She was beloved.
She wanted to unite everybody, so she asked that each of the 110 or so congregations in the Mount Vernon Association would send two choir members to sing at her memorial. In the robes from their own congregation. When it was finally time, it was like a Skittles bag exploded at the altar. I would say it was a rainbow, but it wasn’t nearly that well organized. And the people were just about as much a range of color as the robes were.
It was beautiful and I still remember all the people commenting to me about how much they loved her and the things she’d done for them. I don’t have pictures of the actual event, but I asked A.I. to draw it as I remember it. I think there were a lot more in the choir. There were over 800 in attendance. Many high ranking military and congressmen and their wives.
It was a beautiful unity event. I mean, yeah, they’re all Baptists, how hard could it be? But you’d be surprised. A WHOLE bunch of the folks that came to that funeral had never set foot in fancy, rich white church before and would normally occur to them. And probably haven’t since. A whole bunch of people in that choir never got together to sing again after that.
When I asked the computer to draw me this picture, what caught my attention was that the ONLY writing in the picture is there on the altar – “This Do In Remembrance Of Me.” Naturally, we’ve all seen that, and it’s about communion – but is it really? If Jesus had to choose between us having communion and remembering Him – or coming together despite all our difference to worship Him and celebrate a life well lived, which would He rather have? As someone that is constantly praying to see through His eyes and have His heart – I can tell you – the most beautiful thing here is the PEOPLE leaving everything outside and praising HIM all together with love in their hearts.
I didn’t originally draw this picture to write an article. I just wanted to see if A.I. could capture a moment in time that I still remember fondly as a pure moment of unity and love and harmony in Christ. But then it turned into this article.
It occurs to me that He inhabits the praises of His people – not their arguments. He doesn’t inhabit our debates or disagreements. Mostly that just grieves His heart (Proverbs 6:16-19?). Plenty of verses say how much He hates division amongst brethren. So I drew this picture.
It occurred to me that lots of people loved my Mom. And my Dad. And when they were hurting, all these people came together to comfort Dad, to honor Mom, to say a kind word to my brother and I that came in from out of town. They laid down whatever differences and for that moment in time were really ONE and just focused on Jesus and mortality and love – and a life well-lived.
But there was another person whose last dying wish was unity. I mean, my Mom was great, but this guy was loved all over the world. My Mom did stuff for a lot of people, but this guy took on the sins of everybody for all time, took them to hell, dumped them there, rose again and gives eternal life! This is a guy so powerful that he can raise HIMSELF from the dead! A guy we claim is GOD and promise to make Him Lord of our lives. (John 17:20-23)
My Mom just thought it would be a nice thing.
But Jesus sweat blood and agonized that we would be ONE as He and the Father are one.
And we’re about as far from One as you can get.
Is my Mom more beloved than Jesus is? That would suck. She would hate that idea.
Maybe we could just hug and sing and stop trying to be more RIGHT than the other Christians. Maybe we could try a little harder to make Him smile on us.
