Faithful Women of God

Saturday we had our traditional Mother/Daughter banquet with a twist. To encourage ladies without mothers or daughter to attend we called it our Ladies’ Spring Luncheon. This year’s theme brought “special guests” from three time periods: the Reformation, Victorian England, and the Second World War in full costume including hoop skirts, laced bodices, and straw hats.

Susannah Spurgeon (Victorian England) and Katie Luther (Reformation) greeted the ladies as they entered the multipurpose room. Friendly conversation filled the air as everyone moved into the adjacent room and found a seat. After the announcements and a couple of songs Darlene Diebler (Second World War) came to the podium.

Darlene shared her experience in a Japanese prison camp during WWII where she and her husband along with other missionaries were detained after the Japanese captured New Guinea. It broke our hearts when Darlene shared how her husband died in the prison and her desire to return to the mission field even though her own health was weakened from the mistreatment she endured.

Susannah came to the podium next, sharing how she had misjudged Charles Spurgeon the first time she heard him preach. Two years later the preacher she had judged a country bumpkin became her husband. Susannah also shared how after she became an invalid God still used her in the ministry.

Next we met the dramatic, energetic Gladys Aylward (Second World War) who led more than a hundred orphan children across China during WWII ahead of the Japanese invasion. Gladys shared how she learned to be content with the way God made her. As a young girl she longed to be a 5-foot 7-inch blond and act in pictures. God made her a 4-foot 11-inch burnett and sent her to China as a missionary. Her size and hair color made her fit in perfectly with the Chinese culture. God makes no mistakes.

Katie Luther finished up the program sharing how God helped her work through difficulties. Her mother died when she was very young and her father put her in a convent. Years later Martin Luther helped her and several other nuns escape. They made their way across Germany to Wittenberg in the back of a wagon hidden in wooden barrels that carried food to the convent. After becoming the wife of the great reformer, God taught Katie how to be industrious and creative in the ways she dealt with her husband’s overly generous hospitality and bouts of depression.

The program was followed by a buffet luncheon.

Books about the lives of our “special guests” were used as door prices. A book table was also provided were ladies could check out books from our church library about these and other faithful women of God.

These ladies have all gone on to glory, but for a short time Saturday morning they seemed to walk out of the pages of their books encouraging us to be faithful servants of God after the example they left for us.