Former missionary returns to pastoring where it all began in Warner Robins

WARNER ROBINS -- Bob and Babs Dilks will have strawberries Christmas morning.

It's tradition.

The Warner Robins couple took to eating strawberries at Christmas because the people of Kobe, Japan, enjoyed the flavorful, bright red fruit so much. The Dilks lived in Kobe for 14 years during the 1980s-1990s while serving as missionaries.

Bob Dilks said he and Babs also will have cinnamon rolls.

"Cinnamon rolls were impossible to find in Kobe, so Babs started making homemade cinnamon rolls as a special Christmas treat to have with our strawberries," he said.

It became his family's unique Christmas custom, one they shared with Asian friends.

"The Japanese enjoy Christmas, but of course not like we or our two children, Bethany and Bryan, did," Dilks said. "People there are very interested in Christmas and love Christmas music. A lot of classical music was written as church music and the Japanese love it. People would come from all around to hear our Christmas music at church, music like Handel's Messiah, and they'd read the colorful banners we put out on the streets telling the Christmas story."

Dilks said while members of the small congregation he pastored enjoyed many traditional aspects of the holiday, families in the culture at large did little more to celebrate than buy a Christmas cake on the way home from work to have with their evening meal.

Dilks is a hometown Warner Robins boy -- or very close to it. He said he was raised in a military family and lived in 10 states before moving to Warner Robins. He entered Warner Robins High School as a sophomore and went on to play in the band, work on the annual staff and was elected senior class president before graduating in 1971.

But he was even more involved in his church: Central Baptist Church. Dilks said the people there helped launch him in ministry to the world and then brought him home. In 2013, he resigned after almost 31 years with the Southern Baptist's International Mission Board and became associate pastor of pastoral ministry at the church.

"I discerned I was called to Christian ministry by age 14," he said. "When we came to Central, I got involved in the youth group and took advantage of ministry opportunities. I was licensed to gospel ministry at Central in 1971 and ordained there in 1979."

During the 1970s, Dilks graduated from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he also met Babs. He entered seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth in 1975 and as a student served ministry roles yet was unsure whether he was to be a hospital chaplain, pastor or military chaplain.

By his final semester in 1978, he knew he was called to overseas missions. But that required he first pastor for three years in the U.S. He took a church in Alabama, the First Baptist Church of Lillian.

It was there he and his wife became sure they were called to Japan.

"We went to Japan as church planters and to pastor," he said. "We loved the city and the people. We went there in 1981 and lived through the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 that killed about 4,600 people. It was the second-deadliest earthquake in Japan in the 20th century. We spent 13 years in Kobe strengthening local churches and starting a new one."

Dilks said in his 14th and final year based in Japan, he became pastoral care provider to new field missionaries in five East Asian countries.

Then, for health reasons, a trip back to the U.S. was required when Dilks had to undergo surgery to receive a mechanical heart valve. That led to him to resigning field service but opened a new chapter as a personnel selection consultant with the mission board.

His family moved back to the U.S. to Richmond, Virginia.

"I served in that capacity for 16 years, interviewing and processing potential personnel for long and short-term missionary service," he said. "I traveled internationally to visit them on-site. It was a thrill to help 579 adults enter long-term missions and 400-plus young adults become two-year workers."

And then in 2013, he was asked to come back to Central.

"I'm delighted to be back at my home church, serving alongside our senior pastor, Owen Bozeman," he said. "I'm once again worshiping with my parents who remained in Warner Robins after my dad retired."

Dilks said he feels like a traveler still, though his miles are local.

"I drive an average of 1,200 miles a month doing hospital, nursing home, hospice and home visitation," he said. "I'm reaching out, doing member care with our 1,600-plus member congregation in a variety of ways. I miss Japan and the people we grew to love so much, but I find great joy and fulfillment at Central. It's been my homeport church for 46 years and I still love it."

And he loves Christmas, but not just for the strawberries and cinnamon rolls.

"I especially love the passage in the New Testament, in Luke chapter two, that says Mary pondered things about Jesus in her heart. That had to include reflecting on the depth of God's love for each and every one of us. That love brought Jesus to be born in a stable to be God with us, bringing us hope and salvation. That love is what sent our family around the world to tell the good news. That's the story those banners told on the streets of Kobe. That's why we celebrate."

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.

This story was originally published January 5, 2016 at 12:50 PM with the headline "Former missionary returns to pastoring where it all began in Warner Robins ."