A memorial service will be held at Spring Creek Baptist Church, 11701 N. MacArthur Blvd. at 2:00 p.m., Thursday, March 12th, 2015. Visitation with family will follow the memorial service in the Fellowship Hall of the church. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the church in his memory.

James F. Kirkendall was born July 26th, 1923 the son of Dale and Jessie Kirkendall in Birch Tree, MO. He married Elizabeth Pittman in November 1946. James and Elizabeth graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University. James also received two graduate degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His wife and their four children survive James. They are Elizabeth Ann Stewart and husband Floyd, CH (LTC), James II and wife Jo, Col. Thomas and wife Nancy, Jonathan and partner Scott Perkins. He is also survived by a sister, Helen Grabiel of Birch Tree, MO, numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren as well as a host of friends from around the world. Both parents preceded him in death, as have his sister, Hazel Duman and his brother Mac. James was a WWII veteran serving in the Army in the Western Pacific. He later served as pastor of churches in Indiana, Mississippi and Missouri until he and his wife were appointed missionaries by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) in 1962. He served as pastor of an English speaking church in Beirut, Lebanon and as an itinerant minister of English speaking people on parts of the Arabian Peninsula. They moved to Tehran, Iran where James was Field Representative for Southern Baptist missionaries in Iran, India and Bangladesh. Forced to leave Iran during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, they went to Brussels, Belgium where he pastored the International Baptist Church, a congregation of 25 different nationalities. They ended their foreign service in Tangier, Morocco as pastor of the American Church. They retired in Oklahoma City in 1989.