Episode 6 Transcription- Dee

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And now for the next episode of Letters From Home, sending encouragement to your doorstep by capturing the heartbeat of God’s people. One story at a time. Today’s guest is Grace Nelson. She’s 89 years young and listen. Everett, Washington She spent 40 years is a single woman in the country of Gabon, helping to translate the Bible into the new language. To quote grace, living among the Gabon people was the dream of her life. In her story, she shares her call to the mission field, her broken engagement, her rocky start, what her 40 year dream was like. The beauty, hardship, miracles, translation work in completion, then her difficult transition back to the US today. And the faithful God who waas and is by her side, Grace Nelson. Thank you so much for letting me interview today. I’m so excited to share your story. My daughter Eden Glessner is here today and she’s joining us

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in the conversation. Hi. It’s so nice to see this years. Yeah,

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Grace, I’m so thankful that what about 13 years ago I was seven months pregnant with her. Eight kids are passed cross. We were both at North Seattle Alliance Church together. And from the time I met you, I felt so humbled and blessed to know you remember we had you over for dinner at our house because I wanted all eight of our Children Teoh here you share your story because you were a missionary, Gabon and through the Alliance for 40 years. I’m so excited for us to all here some of the great things God did through you and in Gabon tell us a little bit about your upbringing.

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I came up in a very good Christian home. My grand parents came from the old country and my dad was a very strict, quiet man. My mother was a very, very into everything. And so we had a fun family. There were two brothers and me, and we were right down there by the Oak Lake Tabernacle, which was long 100th and over at that time. Oh, we had missionaries because that was Grandma’s church. Grandmother was the Christian missionary and science lady. So we always went to the missionary conferences. And that’s where I met this first lady from Africa. And she asked us who of us were according to grow up and tell those people about Jesus. Because if we didn’t grow up and do it, nobody would tell them,

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Huh? And that was You heard that it? An alliance church When you were a little girl,

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10 years old,

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10 years old. Where did your faith story begin?

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My father was a very godly man. He would never allow us to take medicine in those days. And I remember that being this year conflict with my mom and dad because that would say no. We’ll pray and he would pray, and we’d get well, so we had to have somebody taking care of us. That was more than my dad or my mom. It was God, and he had a plan.

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And as a little girl, there was something in you that realized that,

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yeah, I think we realized it. There was about my father. Quiet. But he was what we always had family devotions. We all got down on our knees and we kissed each other good night and went to

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bed. Do you think that was, like, different for you growing up, having your dad be someone who prayed for things and it happened,

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I’m sure. Did his emphasis on the word of God. We memorize Scripture versus We had a lady that was junior and people’s later and she had us not only school, memorize scriptures, but hymns so that we would have those songs going through her head.

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That’s great. I learned a lot of the old hymns. They still go through my head. Such a blessing. What was it like for you? Through your 15 years,

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I was always telling

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everybody that I was going to be a missionary, Really? So they had this feeling that she was kind of different. In fact, when I came home and was retired, I met somebody that had been in grade school with me.

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I asked him what he did. He said he’d been in the Navy and he asked me what I did.

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And I said I had been the mission. He said, Well, that figures. We sure heard

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enough about it. So

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you’re a teenager, which is pretty neat with the desire for the Mission field, and how did you get from there to come on?

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I went to the Simpson Bible Institute, now called Simpson College. As soon as I could, I had the money to do that. That was a three year course, and then,

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and that was in the Seattle area,

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Yes, down my would apartment. From there we were required to do some kind of job that the Lions would be watching us for two years to see if we we’re going to be missionary material. And I

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passed that. Then

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I had an engagement, and that engagement broke because the fellow that I was engaged to city, that we could serve the Lord as acceptably here in America as we could in any other land. And so I took off my ring and gave it back to him. And so I had a few years there of having problems with the alliance because I had a pirate. A single girl, then isn’t have a to be married woman and then as a single person, and they saw this is an emotional instability and they just decided that it would no longer use me as a missionary. So I had probably two years of just wondering what would happen. I just couldn’t be. The Lord would drop me and he didn’t.

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That must have been

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so hard because you had such a desire for that. But Maybe it was part of him preparing you to go.

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I don’t think there’s any mistakes in our lives. I think everything that happens, it may not seem like it’s going to be useful. But it ISS is part of the

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plan. Yes, what were those two

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years like waiting to get I kept trying to do. I did go down to the University of Oklahoma and took the Wickliffe courses thinking that maybe they would accept me and I did very well there. And I sent my grade cards, too headquarters and said they were missing a good missionary and they should reconsider. And they did. But I had another year.

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You took the classes and then you’re back here. Back in Seattle area,

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I worked at the Simpson Bible Institute, where they were watching me

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always watching. How did you end up going to Gabon like

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paid at my How did

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the decision process go for where you were to be

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placed? Or is it only said I was

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accepted. They gave me my first appointment to South America, and I had been gathering the outfit that was necessary to go to South America, and I got this letter saying there was a single lady that needed someone to live with her. And so what? I changed fields and go to Gabon. Now. I had growing up with a missionary kid in my junior year in high school. She had been home on furlough and her parents were missionaries in Gabon. So I was if I was familiar with country and it was a good basis for me, and so I went to Come on.

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Can you take us from what it was like? So how many bags you had packed up? You arrive there. What was on your heart going there? You know what struck you when you got there?

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We

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in those days packed in big drums. My family and friends help may pack those drugs. They didn’t get there as soon as I did, but I moved in with this lady who was considerably older than me. She was a nurse and was down to the dispensary quite a bit. And I just went right toe work. Fortunately, we could have had taught us how to alert. Learn a language? There were, I think, six or eight language lessons for this language called the IPU. No, I don’t grade in because of my training. I kept working on things that they had said were important and just learned the language like that dough. Some missionaries first went to France because it’s a French country, a former French colony and some missionaries. But I was asked to go quickly because this lady was having headaches and she they thought it was because she was lonely. And so I learn Depot No, without intermediate language because they didn’t speak any English, of course. And I’m sure here again is what God had planned because at that point I didn’t ever dream that my work would be translating the Bible.

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Well, so you got there and you’re doing all these language lessons. What was it like being there? Have you lived in a house for the house you showed me with the lady there? Was there a church or can you give us a

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position station? That was the old way of doing missions house for the missionaries, a school, a dispensary and a church. And that’s the what I came into. This was before the country was nationalized. And so the missionaries were in charge. Africans weren’t And then I began teaching school. There was this big chart and you’d go mob teach these little kids and one of the little kid we’re just giggle and giggle and giggle. And when he when I got so I could

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talk, I said to him, When I first came here, why did you giggle so much? He said, What? You’re so tall and your smoke So tuck so funny, Just like a little kid you’re like, well, back to the books can keep working on the language. So I lived there in that

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until my first furlough. I came home. It would be less than wise, just not let on that I was a little disturbed. It seemed that everybody came to the mission and they wanted to school or medicine, and I didn’t see this as what I had thought missions were going to be. I thought I would be living among the people and we would find a way to love each other, and I would have the opportunity of telling them about Jesus. So when I got home here, I had some doubts. I just thought, I don’t know.

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I don’t have that been for years And then I was at a

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meeting, and the man that had first told me that they could not use me because I was the high strung, nervous individual that would hardly do well in time of crisis. This was over my book and engagement. He said, You know, I want to tell you, Grace, I misjudged you. And this was just one of those confirmation Is that maybe it was okay to keep at it. So I went back, and shortly after that, I spent another term learning the language better. And then my third term, I moved into an African village and had the light dream of my life.

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Oh, praise the Lord. So how long have you been there? At that point?

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Eight years. This is one of the night they moved in. A little house that we use is a passenger house, cause get the one mission station to another. You had to spend the night somewhere, and there was dirt floors. That truth no screens on the window. It was rather interesting. And this is a bad bug place. Very bad bugs.

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So you could spend the night there, like between missionary logical

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station nations And that is where I lived. And little by little, I got a first thing I did was a cement floor. And then, unfortunately I did. Screen is next and then unfortunately took the thatch off and got a metal roof. And that was a mistake. The thatch had so many things that would when the wind would blow down through all this stuff. But the metal roof was

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hot. You were just really cooking, cooking in

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size, a very hot country. There was just three years of dries of three months of dry season. And those three months probably doesn’t ever get more than 70. And then we had very high temperature. People came and went this. They wanted to come. You always opened your door, and from then on people could come and go, and that was what you wanted to have happened.

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One of the ways I

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80 people,

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they just come in and sit. No, my next term I brought those indoor outdoor squares to put on my cement floor, and the little old ladies then didn’t have to sit on chairs. They didn’t want to sit on chairs. They weren’t to sit down where they were. That’s when I began. There were two women that came from Are you Lake? A station to live in their village. And they had come to the Lord but were very baby Christians. And they would come and those ladies would memorize whole chapters of the bio. That was what I realized that the only way that I’d really, really make connections with them

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How do you feel? Like God equipped. See,

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during that time for the ministry you’re doing? When I got out of the truck when I landed on the mission field when I left Seattle airport, the Simpson quite a bunch of Simpson people where they’re singing God will take care of you. And when I landed on the lake s station, the nationals were singing God will take care of you in that native tongue. And I just that was the thing. And that was the feeling that would come back to my heart every time a little woman would come up. You know, these This was a polygamous society. So some of them were wise to and three gliders together and with one man, and it was just such a different thing. And there were jealousies when wives and as they came to know, Christ, this was the thing that the Lord worked on. There was one little lady when I started having when medias for women, she got up and she said,

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I’m going to

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pray And so we said, All right, go ahead and pray and she

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said, Well, God, before I became one of these Children of yours. When I got mad, I smoked my pipe. But now you’re going to have to be my pipe because I don’t smoke my pipe. I actually opened my eyes to look

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at her and just she was making up a story here, you

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know? What is this woman doing? Which was honest. This is what

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she was asking the Lord to do to substitute be a substitute

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for her pipe.

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At that time, you said at one point you were translating, helping translate the Bible. So when I

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first thing, I started right away. When we got the house up there on the hill, livable, I mean, we could sit in the house and the translator lived in a African house just down the hill from me, and he at that time just had one child, and by the time the soul thing was finished, he

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had by. So I live pretty

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much as a part of their family as well as part of the women’s families. One of our dearest Christian women. Her daughter was my house girl. The mission required that we have house help because we were to get full time to our work. And of course, our clothes had to be taken to the river to be washed and they had to be ironed because of all the disease. You had to keep the this rule. So I had that girl for my house girl for 12 years there at Natalie. Her mother was the wife of which Dr and she had these four Children and Rose was my e banga and Rosie. And she had two more. One died through all that death of a child and for living in that atmosphere. This woman was just a godly Condi woman and her kids decided this was the way to go. And now she was one of those encouraged women.

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Do you still keep in contact with?

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I keep in contact. In fact, just recently, I got a long email from Roj. That’s the son. Ma v obeys his African name, and he told me where all five of his girls were. Two of them are in Europe or number. The men is in some other African country, and they’re all coming home for Christmas.

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If we could talk a little more about the full translation process like, what was your role in helping with the translation? How long did the process take in total and like what language? It’s available

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27 years total. The way we began was I had the translator and he had enough French so that he could read the text and French and I had the books that I had been given at work there. So we would just We just started in the New Testament, Matthew Right on through. I would write it down that night. I would type it all up the next day. We would read that and make corrections, and then what we did was I had an old mini A graph and was no longer possible to get the two mr with ink in him. So I would have to draw in kind of these new things and put it in the thing that fit them in me a graph. And then we would run off with space and 1/2 between so that we the we put these out for the African pastors, they would read them, bring I would bring them all back, and we would make another copy. So we go through that whole process all over, get send them out. And then when the New Testament was just about finished, the Bible sets, society took interest in it and they sent a representative from England and they decided to print force. So then I used a little Tandy 100 I had to go to some place where there was electricity because I never had electricity at that place and do these little tapes send the tapes in, and then they would send manuscripts back. And then we would correct from there.

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And what’s the language?

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E piu know why I p you and you could you speak like a sentence in it? Brian

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Zombie. I’m a big morning, Andy. Oh, I’m around about They go for the board, but not a moment to remember to boot that strong. 3 16

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How would you say they really got to know you directly. I

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believe it was by helping them in what they did for their lives. When they had their babies, they sat around the fire until the baby came. And then, um, we would all sit there while the woman in those days would go out and dig your own hole and put the person in it. And that was one of the changes that I made. I was very careful not to make the make changes. And then the next thing would be if a animal was killed, such as an elephant or a big gazelle or Big dear, I would go to the edge of the forest and they would put the meat in the back of the truck and then they wouldn’t have to carry that in. And that was another way. And then on the other side, I expect them to come into my house. They weren’t comfortable at first, but they would. My food for them was to help the memorize. They had never learned to read and write, and so we would go through versus and then chapters. And it was amazing how quick their mind would grasp. I tried sewing, but their eyes were so bad they couldn’t hardly even through the needle. So then they had to bring the kids to thread the needles for them, and we didn’t get too far. And then I would go down and just sit at their fires when they were telling their news. And another thing that we all did was if somebody died, the women sat around the corpse, the body would be put in, and then anything that they had, this debt had to be settled as we were sitting around that body, because once the lead was on the coffin, no more debts could be collected.

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What, what did that mean exactly? That they paid off their debts or

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they cleared out one of the women’s kitchens, and they put a mat that they had woven. The body was put on that, and they usually had bathed the body. And then we would all sit around that body on the floor. No, it’s the aim over by Dignity wouldn’t let me do this, but they would take orange blossoms or orange leaves and stick him in their noses so they would smell that. But there was something about that that I never could quite do, so I just suffered.

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It seems so

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disrespectful for me to sit there with, or Julie’s and my It was just one of those crazy things that you don’t have any explanation for, but I couldn’t do, and then we would sit around the body. Then when the hole was dug, then we’d all go up with They would put the lid on the coffin once all the debts were cleared and then we would go out to the whole. And then we’d stand there while they put all the dirt back in and in the heat. It was thinking, and that is one thing that was very hard for me at first to sit there with those dead bodies, the olders, the pain that there was a So they sat there with someone they had lost. This was a polygamist society, so a man would sometimes have four or five wives, so they was directly now early on, um, they would roll in the dust and the dirt to show how sorry they were because they didn’t want to be accused of I the other people that they had eaten the spirit of this person that had died. But we were able to learn to sing hymns around the body and do those kind of things Where Brock which brought the atmosphere of Jesus Christ into that death

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Would there be like a meal kind of finger with People retreat to a different area and talk about their anyway

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because they have,

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ah, about Bono have oh, uh, custom that women go into it would. And so they this woman has they have cleaned out the place, and she has to sit in that until according to their custom, um, the witch doctors have paid the reduce that remove the curse. This took a while for get to drop away because they still wanted to be sure that they weren’t being blamed for that death. There’s no natural desk. Some spirit had cause that

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and the community you were in it sounds like they had a lot

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of different cultural traditions with a certain religious background or even always, which doctors that came. If any one thing went wrong and they would put strings up in the village so that that evil spirits couldn’t get in and they would pay great sums of money like a cow Or, you know, I mean, like a sheep or gold. And this would just break my heart when I think what they were doing to try to be okay. When I had Jesus to give him,

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you were saying earlier that also away that you helped was with birth. What did that look like?

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The debt. The birth of a child is very interesting. There’s an old woman in the village. That is what they call the child there. And she comes in and she could. Has the woman that’s giving birth clean her toe and then she wraps it with a dirty old rag and she sticks that in the vagina. And when there’s a contraction, there’s someone sitting behind her and they pull the shoulders. And that woman, that first birth,

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I think I I almost lost my eyes. You know, I absolutely couldn’t believe this was going on. And then

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when the when the baby comes out, there’s an old cloth that they wrapped that baby in. And then that woman, until we change that custom, went out and dug the hole, put the percent in and came back in and put the child to the breath.

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What was like the health care

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system like? Eventually there did. There was a government dispensary in nationality, but these nurses were not. They were males, and they were not well trained, so they mostly help people with snake bite. They didn’t introduce malaria prophylactic so that the people wouldn’t have malaria. Gabon is a country full of Phil area, and that’s this worm that’s in your body. It’s the same merman that is in dogs that hook warm things. And that’s what caused elfin Titus, those big legs in these people because that gets in the limp blimp roads and their legs swell. So there was a lot of that, and

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then the Peace

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Corps came in and they did a wonderful job. They were able to well before the Peace Corps came, the Nestle milk people came in, and they persuaded the women not to breastfeed but to use Nestle’s milk. So then the woman would go off to the forest and made one of the younger Children with this baby, and then the younger child would eat milk and the babies were just getting off condition. Then the Peace Corps came in and they were able to introduce away for these women to understand what the milk was doing. It was ruining the Children’s teeth and it was just disaster. So, little by little, this whole thing grew. There were government hospitals, but they were pretty dirty.

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You had been there 10 years. So your next 20 or so years spent all this time getting to know the people and their customs and their traditions. What do you love about the people? Like what? How did they impact you personally?

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I guess their generosity. You never go to an African village without coming back with a gift, whether it’s been Anna’s or eggs. And if you’re really good guest, you get a gold.

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I have two votes in my Oh, is this what

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they They have goats or everywhere? Goats with the enemy. They call him sheep if the tail goes down and gold if the detail goes up. But these air there, well, you know, you’d have to be somebody pretty amazing. The medical

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Amazing Grace. I think it was just that I was called there. I was to be

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part of that scene, and I don’t I know my family that I would never make it because I was such a

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clean nick. I would change my dress when I was a little kid again and again because I

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didn’t want it to be dirty. And they they just couldn’t imagine that this would work for me.

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What was your family thinking while you were there? You so you you didn’t see them very often every four years or so on your brothers and your parents. How did they feel about you serving?

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Well, I think my older

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brother just saw, you know, something you gotta do. My younger brother was sympathetic. It was a very hard of my mother and dad just happy that God gave him a missionary daughter.

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That sweet. What? They write you letters?

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Yeah, but you know, those air forms and they would take months to come. And then there was one time we had six months without any mail. That was when there was a French to do it in France. And they weren’t putting mayo through, but

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you. You know, it’s so hard

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for anybody that hasn’t been there. If

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you become

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a part of this, you aren’t even thinking a lot of all this other stuff it’s going on.

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You’re just immersed and enjoying. Yeah, we’re the Lord house.

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Yeah, it was very mine

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consuming to be sure that you were getting this translation. I

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mean, it was

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Biff was a frightening thing to me. What if we get something that that isn’t right? Especially in the early days, even you would get to a place and the translator. I was living with their lives. He had trouble with other women and she would have hurt problems. There were tensions there that you wouldn’t have ever felt here, but they were really. But God was enough. The country was under the control of the French government and they did a very good job of educating Japanese in that small country. There’s at least 11 language groups. And there, of course, some that are more important than others. The language groups that were more important became then politically correct for the country. They had their first gained independence, and then they I voted for their first president. And that president lasted until I came home on my next to last furlough. And then he chose the next president and so the one party kind of went through. But that did provide the villages out in either the north or the south. And I was in the South, some government official coming to see what was going on in the village. Fortunately, the Catholics had been there before the alliance had been there, and the Catholic Church had probably more favor of the government than the Protestant. But I never in all those years of sitting there had any trouble with persecution from the people. But the priests would sometimes be not very kind. Then they had some conclave in Rome and they were to be nice, and it did change things. So while

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you were there, Gabon got its independence.

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It really didn’t

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affect me at all. I was always greeted by the official, and I was always very careful to do everything I was supposed to. They always come late. So you were supposed to stand there in the sun and wait for their been so high manage to do that. They were polite, of course, that they spoke French. And before I went back for my second term, I spent a year in France and studied French so that I wouldn’t embarrass the people

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your last 15 years of the eighties and you came home in 94. So

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they don’t just want so

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rapidly. Because by then we had the final manuscript of the Bible, and now we were waiting for the Bible Society to have funds to print it. And so it was pretty exciting. I actually had to go back for the dedication of the Bible because the funds that was when we were having trouble with the evangelists that were not living right and money’s weren’t coming into these groups the last years I spent at the alley. Then, when the Bible was finished, I was moved Tofu Gamo, which was he shared tribe, not the bono, and the languages were similar. But the interesting thing was now the pastor there, the young new pastor was had a wife of my of your house girl. There we were equals working together on food. Um, what could be better than to be part of instead of she under me and and all the rest? Because that was showing what was happening to the country. Admissions in the government and everything. Things were changing. Three years there, and then the very last year, I was asked to take the mission office in league reveal in the capital. And there I got people off. The plane’s got their baggage in and all of that kind of thing. There was a guesthouse. I don’t think I realized that year that I was there, how awful it was going to be when it was over, which was a good thing because you were so busy entertaining and getting through the customs and all the rest that your life was just it was over. And then I came home, and I did two years of going from church to church. You were cited by the New York office at that time, and I spent it on the East Coast, in south in the south of the country and in other places, telling what God had done. So I did two years,

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and the next

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two years were awful because here I had had this wonderful life and build it up and talk how wonderful it was that it wasn’t wonderful for me for two years. It took me two years, and that’s when I think I really know you folks. I was going through that stage of my life.

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Really? So So you’re saying your 1st 2 years back here in the States were just awful,

spk_3: 33:18
but here again, this was part of it. I mean, we are told we won’t suffer, and suffering is part of living for Christ. I mean, good night. What did he do? Came from heaven. Fortunately, the church at that time was quite healthy. And I remember somebody saying, I guess it was our greatest said to me. Well, Ruth corn adjusted. Well, I said, Well,

spk_2: 33:41
I’m not.

spk_1: 33:43
What was hard for you, Grace? Was it that you wanted to just be there and you couldn’t

spk_2: 33:49
stop? It just It just seemed like

spk_3: 33:51
America was living. So how shall I put it

spk_2: 33:58
however you want? Yeah, it was your commission commitment

spk_3: 34:04
to Christ. It was playing church. We did parties. We did this. We did that. And the whole

spk_2: 34:10
thing of seeing I mean, just think of the years essay that we didn’t have

spk_3: 34:16
souls accepting in the Sunday school of the youth group, and this was very distressing to me. So

spk_2: 34:22
what is this all about? And that that was very hard

spk_1: 34:26
for me. What helped you through That

spk_2: 34:28
just said to the Lord I couldn’t

spk_3: 34:30
really believe that he would have forsaken me because that’s how I felt because I didn’t fit. I didn’t fit in social life. I didn’t fit in. Uh, what was going on in the church? It just was. So our possibility to this is how I’m gonna have to live the rest of my life, you know? Well, then I got a job at a chess was a nursing home. And there I was able to talk to people about Jesus. Several came to the Lord and one of the most precious things. This one woman said, Don’t let that woman that religious woman come in here And they said, No, no, she won’t. Well, here she was sitting out in the hall, and this will cheer, but I didn’t know she. And so I said I might Name is Grace. What’s your name? And she said, It’s Dorothy. And I said, Well, could I roll into the

spk_2: 35:23
dining room when we have a little chat? You said yes. Well, then she saw my pastor sign, aren’t you? Oh, it’s you. Yeah, it is me and I’m sorry.

spk_3: 35:32
They told me you didn’t want it in this religious stunk, so I’ll just roll you right out in the hall. And I am sorry.

spk_2: 35:39
Well, she said we could talk a little bit. You know, it took

spk_3: 35:44
her five years to come to the Lord and her daughter came to the Lord at her memorial service. Well, that’s so when I began to, you know, in, unless you were

spk_2: 35:56
and you were ministering

spk_3: 35:57
to Christians at a church, the youth and the Children, that was a little different. But, you know, that was adults have been sitting on most people’s for a long time.

spk_1: 36:08
Yes, and grace. When I came on here last month, you were so sweet. You had tea and coffee set out for me, and you have made cinnamon rolls, and you really blessed me. And you introduced me to some of your neighbors here in this complex. And I know the Lord’s totally provided this just amazing place because you didn’t have you didn’t have anything coming back being on the mission field and God has given you. And now you said you have been able to drive for two years. But he’s given you this little community here in like, a little. It’s called Ancora right here in Everett and Everett, Washington, and he’s giving you a little ministry here hot. How is this stage of life for?

spk_3: 37:01
I’m just thankful that I have what I need to live. And then some. And, um, I set up for the evening the Thursday night prayer meeting and get speakers and people for that. And then

spk_1: 37:16
where is that? I see all these little individual drillings, but there’s Juli. Meet

spk_3: 37:20
community rooms. There’s one up here and when below the one. But always more for for socials. And this one’s for other meetings.

spk_1: 37:27
And you have a permitting there.

spk_3: 37:28
Yeah, I’m Thursday nights. The and core. That’s part of this was a Christian organization in the beginning for missionaries and retired pastors and then, you know, has evolved to be something else. I’m perfectly at ease here and well cared for. Recently, the Lord has given me a verse from Matthew Matthew 6 33 in the message Steep your life in God Reality God initiative. God provisions don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday

spk_0: 38:00
human concerns will be met. Amen. Grace. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Here is your P s. Some extras about our guests.

spk_1: 38:13
Are you ready for some questions? Certainly. Who? What African food do you make? Still,

spk_3: 38:20
palm oil gravy is this thick, thick stuff. It’s the palm nuts. And you there You have to put him in the nuts and there and pound him in the mortar and a pestle and then put that oil in there and it comes up this orangey stuff. And I sent me home with high cholesterol. You can buy it now in tin can down in the public market.

spk_1: 38:44
Do you have any pet peeves?

spk_3: 38:46
Dirt. And I lived in them forever, you know? But I am pretty hard on myself. If this house gets messy,

spk_1: 38:53
what is your least favorite household chore?

spk_3: 38:55
Making the bed

spk_2: 38:56
go? But it’s made so nice I saw that It looks pretty

spk_3: 38:59
well, it’s that somehow that gives me a backache.

spk_1: 39:03
Your favorite holiday. Easter. What do you like about

spk_3: 39:06
hymns from the grave Heroes. The Mighty Try and Boris Falls lives a victor. A doctor may

spk_1: 39:13
a modern convenience, you know, love

spk_2: 39:16
a dishwasher. I never thought I’d even hard to use it. But it is so nice, because that was

spk_3: 39:23
something you had to put up with. Because in the rainy season you had rain water for dishes in the dry season. You had water from Dickie, and I always never felt that those dishes were really clean. And then Edmunds, I had a lot of company there. And when I got here, I thought, Oh, but I do with a dishwasher. And there is nothing like taking those glasses and all those dishes up sparkly, clean, and put them in the cupboard. I love that.

spk_1: 39:55
Yes, me too. You never married? No. Was that hard for you?

spk_2: 40:00
I don’t think once

spk_3: 40:01
I’ve just realised this is what God had for me. Sometimes when I was home on furlough and I would see my friends with their Children. And then when they got older and I saw my friends with their grandchildren, I would think it’s kind of a loss. And then I think, Look what he gave me, you know,

spk_1: 40:21
what would you say to somebody who’s single in their twenties and contemplating missions?

spk_3: 40:27
Don’t ever do it in mess goddess culture, because you can’t do it on your single missionaries ca NBI Hindrance rather than help because they are still longing for that part of their life to be fulfilled

spk_1: 40:41
to two great mentors in your life,

spk_3: 40:44
Pastor Mark in Gabon. Diving go there at He was one of those godly men that you just sensed his presence. And he helped me through so many things. In my first term, he would scold May he would praise me and he wouldn’t tell me that I was showing my emotions too much. Have always had a pretty quick anger. And when I would see men abusing their wives and this kind of stuff that would nothing I could do about it, Pastor Mark Mavinga was was a tremendous influence of my life. And probably one of my professors at Simpson was a riel. Help to me, Reverend Hazel,

spk_1: 41:28
Your favorite Bible verse

spk_3: 41:29
in Isaiah. And this was started me in Africa. I will go before you and make the crib places straight. Break down the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. And I will give you the treasures of darkness. Riches hidden in secret places.

spk_1: 41:45
No man with a great first. I’m gonna look that up. Do you know what the references? It’s Isaiah,

spk_3: 41:51
49. Did

spk_1: 41:52
you witness any miracles in Gabon?

spk_3: 41:55
I had a miracle myself. I am got typhus, and it turned into, uh, termer. And they were going to send me home in my second fertile. And they sent me to I didn’t know what I had because they sent me to a friend. Trust what was my third term? I went to this French hospital. This doctor came in. He always talked in French and gets saying t fut food. And finally he brought in an American. That was it. And he said, This lady is an American and she’s had typhus. And I said to him,

spk_2: 42:27
You speak English all this time and I was sick the whole time with typhus in French, I said, But look how much more you know? No.

spk_3: 42:35
But anyway, I went to the station. They were waiting for permission to send me home. And one night I was staying with a single missioner and she was always having babies at night. That’s what they seem to be born. So I was always very careful in the morning to come out not disturb because she was tired. And I woke up and, you know, we had these skip mosquito nets around this. So you in order to get your flashlight yet? And I thought Good night. I think I’m okay. I put my hand out like that wasn’t shaking. And I thought, Oh, my

spk_2: 43:10
goodness. And I wanted to shout all over the place. I’m healed, I’m sure. But look,

spk_3: 43:17
I have been here.

spk_1: 43:17
Wow. Pressure. You didn’t. You wanted to ask the question about power?

spk_2: 43:26
Oh, yeah. Where have you seen

spk_3: 43:27
God’s power in your life? In the lives of other people that

spk_2: 43:34
I just just a place free. You really just got to

spk_3: 43:38
experience God. Numerous. My most recent with my accident totaled my car. I still don’t know. I was coming out of the spaghetti factory, and the guy in the first plain motioned me to go across, and I went across and I got whacked just like that. And I do not know how I got from that Second, um, laying up into that Bartell Dr it probably not. There I was, and this lady appeared, and of course, there was glass all over me and she says, Are you all right? And I said yes. And she said, Well, she started brushing a glass off And then she called 911 and she just disappeared. I don’t know where she came from. I don’t. She was in a white pickup and she was gone, and nobody in that car was hurt. Nobody. And Michael, I was hurt. My car was totalled. But what’s car? You know. But that had to be somehow because their traffic was coming both ways. You know, why didn’t I get hit by that? The car but traffic coming this way. And then the Christmas that I was took the African kids with her pageant out to the other villages. I was on the long bridge and I Miss Ford of the logs and the car tipped over like this and the gal in the middle was arose. My house girl, seven months pregnant. Somehow those Africans just got in and lifted that car back up and during the car around and then driving back over those logs, just the worst did. Then I go to bed that night and I’m thinking, you see if if you cause somebody an accident that they can call which doctors to curse you. And I thought, What if Rose doesn’t have her baby, you know, or the baby is dead. That night was just unreal. And then the morning here, I see this whole bunch of Africans coming up. And I thought, Oh, dear Father, I’m gonna need an awful lot of help here. And they all have brought me gifts because nobody was killed in that accident. Wow. I had bananas, peanuts, chicken eggs,

spk_2: 46:04
Yum. Any goats? No.

spk_3: 46:08
And then she that three months was I was still nervous.

spk_1: 46:12
Grace, Wet focus has guided your life.

spk_3: 46:15
The word started. Renee was a kid, you know, And it was necessary then so and, of course, working in the word like I did it again. Yes.

spk_2: 46:26
One thing you said earlier was that when you came back, you felt

spk_3: 46:30
like the church they were playing church. Do you still feel that way? I think I’ve learned to that him be the dread. And when people do the fussing about the music and all this, it really disturbs me. Because this is what we’re living in. We don’t have to be a part of that. And It isn’t what I’m going to get my joy from, but somebody else’s. And you youth, that air are coming up now. If you don’t have the word, I don’t know how you’re going to stick it out because it’s getting the wicked and always been working it. But it’s this work. It is a a foreign culture. Now, when you were ready from right down to it, you know, things that are important. And for you kids that are coming up now to have that stability. It’s OK. I’m part of this scene. God has me here now. Not that my mother has her life and my father had his, But I’m part of the scene now. I’m going to be the ones that would lead these people to Christ.

spk_1: 47:36
Amen. Three last questions. Is there anything on your bucket list? Which was perfectly for my next question is what are you most looking forward to about heaven

spk_3: 47:51
seeing Jesus? I can’t id went to Ruths Memorial Service. It hit me again. They say you know you’re going to see your mother, Your father, your sister, your brother wouldn’t have a blob. And I can’t imagine that would even being what we want to see when you get up there just to be in that presence. Yes. See him?

spk_1: 48:13
And then my last question. What is your favorite attributes or name of God,

spk_0: 48:17
Emmanuel God with us, This wraps up another story of how our great God is at work in our hearts and in our world. To find out more about Grace Nelson and this podcast follow letters from home on Instagram. If you could subscriber, follow on whatever venue you’re listening, The next episode will go run into your cube second, Corinthians 33 and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, right? And not with ink but with the spirit of the living god. No, on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.