Michael Stuart Pineda

Michael Stuart Pineda died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday morning, February 14, at his home in Lenoir, NC. He was 65 years old.

Mike is survived by his wife, Julie, of nearly 38 years, his sons, Sam, Ben and Caleb, their wives Teeny, Christina and Hannah, his 4 grandchildren, Harper, Weezy, Levi and Lukas, and his sister, Mona. He was born in Nashville, TN and raised in Atlanta, GA by the late Henry Stuart Pineda and Shirley McElroy Pineda.

Mike was a 1976 graduate of Avondale HS in Avondale Estates, GA, a 1980 graduate of Carson Newman College and a 1983 graduate of the University of Tennessee School of Law.  After practicing law for nearly 20 years in Chattanooga, Mike and Julie answered the Lord’s call on their lives and led their family to serve on the mission field. They were appointed as career missionaries with the International Mission Board, SBC, in 2002 and served in Greece, the UK, and Uganda, before moving back to the States in 2020 where he began working at Samaritan’s Purse in the HR department. He was a member of Hudson First Baptist Church in Hudson, North Carolina.

While many would say he made sacrifices in moving overseas, Mike was the first to tell you the adventure God called him to far outweighed anything missed back home. Instead of spending his days in a courtroom, he coached baseball in Greece, Austria and Bulgaria, mentored new believers and young missionaries around the world and hiked through Kenya’s tea fields and the Swiss Alps. Confident that the call to the mission field was for his entire family, one of the great joy’s of his life was leading and serving alongside Julie and the boys in pursuit of the Great Commission.

In August of 2007, after dropping Sam off at college, Mike began sending morning devotional emails each day to stay connected and continue discipling his sons. Over the past 15+ years, the list of recipients grew to over 200 people, but he never missed a day. No matter where he was in the world, his family knew he was in God’s Word and praying for them. On Tuesday morning, February 14, 2023, our first sign that something was wrong was that, for the first time in over a decade and a half, no email came through.

Mike would often ponder and speak about the end of his life and what things he would remember and cherish most. It wasn’t awards or titles, but rather it was slow Saturdays eating chili and watching football with family, evening walks with Julie on the golf course looking for golf balls, sitting on the back porch reading a good book in his rocking chair, camping and hiking in the Smokies or chasing and playing with his grandchildren.

His faith in God not only shaped his life, it was the driving force. He cherished time with his family and his life’s impact cannot be measured this side of heaven. We will miss him every day but his legacy lives on through each of us.

A service to celebrate his legacy will be held at 2pm on Sunday, February 19, at Stuart Heights Baptist Church (Chattanooga Campus) 3208 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN with a time of visitation and fellowship to immediately follow.

In lieu of flowers, and because of his passion for mission work around the world, consider a donation to Africa Inland Mission (c/o Ben and Christina Pineda), Teach Beyond (c/o Caleb and Hannah Pineda) or the International Mission Board/SBC.

Online condolences may be sent to www.evansfuneralservice.com

Evans Funeral Service & Crematory is serving the family.