Women of Courage

 I take courage from the many missionary wives who have come to the islands of the Pacific with their husbands, sailing away from loved ones across wild and stormy seas—some never to return home. Others courageously faced cannibalistic warriors, lost all their possessions before reaching their destination, or lost babies for lack of medical help.

Edith Carr was the very first missionary woman of my denomination to come with her husband to Papua New Guinea in 1908. She and her husband, Septimus, were offered a small shack beside the beach until they found something more permanent. Weeks passed before they walked and rode horses on rugged paths to the plateau, twenty miles inland, to set up their mission station. Edith worked hard alongside her husband to establish a rubber plantation, teach school, and conduct morning and evening worships. They had to wait five years before they baptized their first convert. Now there are three hundred thousand church members there.

Emily Campbell started mission work with her husband, Alex, in 1926 in the Solomon Islands. She cooked hundreds of meals, sewed, delivered babies, and treated spear wounds. During World War II, enemy soldiers shot at her house. When Alex was doing mission work on another island, Emily had to fly in an old-fashioned plane with her two babies to a distant hospital where one died. Emily became known as “Namba Wan Missus” (Number One Missus).

Mavis Barnard was a quietly courageous woman who lived in Papua New Guinea for most of her life, along with her intrepid nurse-missionary-pilot husband, Len. Their first house was constructed of bamboo poles and grass on the mountainside at Togoba. Here they lived for the first four years with their little girl. One night the house caught fire from the dying embers. Although the family escaped unharmed, Mavis lost everything. Len traversed on foot for thousands of miles before becoming the first missionary pilot in the Pacific Islands. All during those many years, Mavis supported and provided a safe place and home for him.

Let us remember—and be inspired by—these women of courage.

 Joy Marie Butler