Remembered by many for her tough-talking, missions-focused rappin’ grandma character in numerous promotional videos for the International Mission Board, those who worked closely with Eloise Dieker also recall her servant heart.
Dieker, an IMB staff member for 44 years, died Nov. 11 at age 87. During her stint with the video segment “Words from Eloise” in the late ’90s to mid-2000s, Dieker’s character was part of “The Task” video series that promoted missions among thousands of high school and college students.
During a chapel service Nov. 12, Clyde Meador, IMB’s executive adviser to the president, said Dieker “always looked for new challenges even agreeing to be part of a video series that made her into a celebrity. Eloise always rose to the task.”
Among the one- to three-minute segments, her character — with the help of much editing and a few stunt doubles — was filmed hang gliding, dunking a basketball, riding the rapids in a kayak, lifting weights on a bench press and jumping on a boardroom table to fire Donald Trump during a spoof of “The Apprentice” TV show. All of it was used as a tool to help point a younger audience to a Christ-filled life and missions involvement. The segments also promoted giving through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
“Time is a comin’ so don’t be buggin, so Co-op with the Program. Ya dig?” she said in a segment about the Cooperative Program funding channel central to Southern Baptist missions and ministries. “The cheddar you drop in the plate can help more hear about J.C. So clean it up, fly right before J.C. is in the house! Give J.C. a dollar or I’ll give you a holler.”
In another segment she said, “Yield to God’s plan. Come share Christ in a foreign land. Because when it’s all said and done we’re gonna be hangin’ with the G-man and singin’ praises to the Son.”
David LaMar, a former senior video producer with IMB, pitched the idea of doing the segments to Dieker and fondly recalled working with her on nearly all of the video shoots.
“I’ve been directing music videos and doing videos my entire career and that is probably the one thing that people go, ‘What? You did Words from Eloise’? That is so cool!'” said LaMar, who continues to freelance for IMB. “Not the Mercy Me music video. Not Michael W. Smith. No. It’s Words from Eloise. I’ll take that because she was so sweet.”
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SOURCE: Baptist Press
Shawn Hendricks
