Maude Cary (1878–1967) was a Christian American missionary to North Africa, specifically Morocco. She was raised knowing she would one day be a missionary because her parents often housed missionaries as they were passing through. Her parents understood the work they were doing as very important and passed this belief onto their daughter. As soon as she was eighteen, Maude signed herself up for an American missionary training school, Avant Ministries (GMU). After completing this schooling and doing some missions work within American inner cities, Maude was accepted to travel with the GMU to serve alongside a few struggling Christian missionaries in Morocco. For the next fifty years of her life Maude Cary would minister to the rich and poor Muslims within Morocco attempting to bring them the Gospel message her school and parents had taught her. A difficult start made Maude question her efffectivness in Morocco but she trusted that there would eventually be conversions from Islam to Christianity and stayed until she was too ill to serve. Becoming very ill she flew back to America for treatment and as soon as possible returned to continue her life living among the Muslims. Through the difficult start and her illness, Maude Cary became a Christian leader within Morocco for the Gospel Mission Union in charge of translation and Bible schools. She eventually became too sick to continue and returned to the United States. Her hard work in Morocco may not have produced many conversions during her stay there, but there were a few conversions which were seen as a success, and continued the Christian influence within the country long after her life. After fifty years of service Maude returned to the United States because of her illness, and died in 1967.
Family
Maude Cary began her life on a Kansas farm in 1878. She was born within a Judeo-Christian family to Jedediah and Sarah Cary who saw an importance in the Christian mission movement. Jedediah, is described as a "gentle, quiet man." He did not have the best of luck as he lost most of the family's money and for the rest of his life raised his family on a poor farm in Kansas. Sarah Cary was said to be "an independent woman, was a talented musician... and an outstanding Bible teacher." Maude's passion for the Christian mission movement was gained through the many traveling missionaries that visited their farm and stayed for a few days. "At age of eighteen she enrolled at the GMU Bible Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, to be trained for a ministry in overseas missions." Maude Cary remained single for her entire life. She was engaged to a missionary in Morocco, George Reed, although he had second thoughts and unofficially called off the engagement by moving to minister to a different tribe and never spoke to Maude again. She did desire to be married but is said to have finally, "accepted her fate of being an 'old maid missionary.'"
Training
While Maude Cary worked through her training at GMU Bible Institute she practiced what was being taught. She was quick to devote herself to practical learning experiences within America. She, along with others, would get up quite early, often missing meals, to spend time in prayer before God for the people around the world that had not heard the Gospel message. They also wanted to ensure that there was nothing between them and God that would hinder the spreading of the message they believed needed to be told around the world . Anticipating her time to leave America and be a Christian missionary abroad she studied different languages and was said to have been a "natural linguist." Because Gospel Missionary Union was training teams to go to Morocco, "in addition to her language study in Arabic, she was studying the language of the Berbers, an ancient tribe that inhabited the area long before the Arabs moved across North Africa." Maude devoted much of her time to studies knowing that one day she would travel to Morocco and anticipated never returning to America. She was ready to take this step with the message her God had given her whenever an organization would accept her.