Global Ministries is saddened by the death of Joy Livingston Dodson
Global Ministries is saddened by the death of Joy Livingston Dodson
Joy Livingston Dodson
1927-2014
Global Ministries is saddened to learn of the death of former missionary, Joy Livingston Dodson, on May 31, 2014. Wilma Joy Livingston was born on February 8, 1927 and grew up in San Angelo, Texas, the daughter of Jess and Mamie Livingston. She was an active member of the First Christian Church and an avid tennis player. As a teenager she determined she wanted to be a missionary to Africa. Upon earning her B.A. degree in psychology and religion from Texas Christian University in 1948, Joy received a full scholarship to complete a Master of Science in Nursing at Yale University. While pursuing further studies in mission work, Joy met and married Rev. Dr. James Richard Dodson. Ordained to be a missionary by First Christian Church San Angelo, Reverend Joy Dodson served together with her husband, Dick Dodson, as missionaries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in what today is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1953-1965. Joy gave birth to three children, Janet, David, and Carol, on the equator in the Congo.
The Dodsons were involved with educational ministries in several locations in the Congo, including Bosobele and Lubumbashi. During the revolution leading to Congo independence, Joy took the three young children south across the border into what today is northern Zimbabwe for safety reasons. The Dodsons later were able to return to the Congo finishing the final two years of their missionary term and completing their home assignment in the U.S.
Joy and family then returned to Africa in 1967, spending one year in Tanzania and a year in the Ivory Coast. The family returned to the Congo in 1975, where Joy was a nurse in the American Embassy medical unit.
In 1979, the Dodsons settled on a small farm in Brownsville, Texas, where Joy taught nursing at Texas Southmost College. Joy retired in 1992. At age 66, Joy volunteered with Church World Service to serve as a nurse in Somalia for six months, living in a UNHCR compound. Joy built, staffed, and supplied three village clinics despite frequent outbreaks of violence. At her Yale 50th class reunion in 2001, Joy received a Distinguished Alumna Award.
Preceded in death by her husband in 2010, Joy is survived by her brother James (wife Lynn) Livingston; daughter Janet DuGay; son David Dodson; daughter Carol Richardson; granddaughter Shantala (husband Raghunand) DuGay-Iyengar; granddaughter Christina Richardson; grandson Clint (wife Molly Rothenberg) Richardson; and great-grandson Arka Iyengar.
Condolences may be sent to: Reverend Carol Richardson, P.O.Box 8712, Silver Spring, MD 20907-8712. The family asks that donations in memory of Joy be made to Global Ministries, designated for ministries in the Congo (P.O. Box 1986, Indianapolis IN 46206 or https://donate.globalministries.org/onlinegiving ), Church World Service (P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515), or the Yale School of Nursing Scholarship Fund (Yale University, P.O. Box 2038, New Haven, CT 06521-2038).