Joyce McCauley may not have been missionary material at the beginning, but that didn’t deter her from following a calling that would take her life in a radically different direction.

The mother, wife and businesswoman decided to enter the foreign mission field with her husband, Don, in the early 1990s. She never looked back.

“It was only because of her that we went,” Don McCauley said. “She’s the one who got the (International Mission) Board to relax the rules for us to be there.”

The couple went to Romania in 1992 and stayed there for 20 years, evangelizing and building churches in small towns, he said. They later continued their work in the Dominican Republic.

“She made sure that, no matter what we were doing, we always kept our focus on the Lord,” he said.

Joyce Faye (Eisaman) McCauley of Greensburg died Monday, May 6, 2019. She was 73.

Born in Greensburg on Jan. 19, 1946, she was the daughter of the late Frank and Dorothy Eisaman. She graduated from Hempfield High School in 1963.

She worked as a paralegal for the U.S. Justice Department and then became co-owner, with her husband, of MAC Masonry in Gaithersburg, Md. It was while attending a Baptist church in Gaithersburg that the couple learned about an opportunity with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Our pastor asked us if we would consider going to Romania. I said no; she said yes,” Don McCauley said.

While in Romania, the couple learned the language and was involved with the building of 130 churches, he said. They hosted short-term American mission teams to help with the building construction and evangelistic work.

The couple formed a nonprofit organization, the Chapel Project, to continue the work independent of the International Mission Board in 2001, he said. In 2012, they started working in the Dominican Republic, where they built 27 churches in five years, he said.

“We did what God called us to do. He’ll have to be the judge of the success,” her husband said.

“She had a kindness and love for everyone she met,” said her daughter-in-law, Joy McCauley. “She had this amazing ability to make everyone feel loved.”

“Never once in my whole life … did I hear her say a bad word to anybody,” Don McCauley said. “Her last words to me were, ‘Follow the Lord.’ ”

Mrs. McCauley is survived by her husband of 55 years, Donald McCauley Sr.; two sons, Chip McCauley and his wife, Beverley, and Lance McCauley and his wife, Joy; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Friends may call from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Barnhart Funeral Home, 505 E. Pittsburgh St., Greensburg. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the funeral home. Interment will follow in St. Clair Cemetery, Greensburg.

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