Carl Lewis Henderson was born in Artesia New Mexico on July 7th 1928, and died January 23rd 2013 at Pleasant Valley Health Care Center in Muskogee Oklahoma.

Carl moved with his parents and four (soon to be five) younger siblings to California as a teenager, learned to fly and got his pilot’s license as soon as he could at age 16, years before he learned to drive. He joined the Marine Corps just before the end of WWII and married Jacqueline Esther Wade in 1947. He finished his Marine Corps service as an aerial photographer just before the Korean War, and started a printed circuit company called Circuitronics, and made printed circuits for many early computers and satellites. He moved his young family to Oregon in 1958, where he eventually joined a team of missionaries for the Church of Christ heading to Brazil. After arrival in Belo Horizonte with his family in August 1967, he served the Belo Horizonte and São Paulo mission teams as photographer and pilot for many years. After moving back to the US in the 1980s he lived in California until he moved once again, to Muskogee Oklahoma with his new wife Betty, where he settled down happily for the last years of his life.

He was loved by people all over the world, and will be missed by his three children, Lyle Henderson of Los Angeles California, Leonard Henderson of Mesa Arizona and Carla Prater of Bryan Texas.

He is survived by nine grandchildren: Neil Henderson, Carrie Swanson and Laura Henderson of California; Rebekah Hamilton, Megan Henderson, Sam Henderson and Max Henderson of Arizona; and Carlo Prater of Brasília, Brazil and Monica Prater of Austin Texas. He is also survived by three younger brothers (James, Lawrence and Sam Henderson), one of his younger sisters (Darla Hoodenpyle), and many cousins, spread across the western United States.

Carl’s lifelong passion was flying; the most useful of his many skills was photography. His love for the Lord was deep and he was a member of the Muskogee Church of Christ, where a memorial service will be held on Monday, the 28th of January 2013. The family requests donations to the Great Cities Missions be made in lieu of flowers.