Thank you for giving to the Lord

Submitted by Lauren…

Two weeks ago we celebrated Grandma Bessie’s 100^th birthday at Crown Bay nursing home. We first met Grandma Bessie Porteous about 1 year ago when we started elderly care ministry. Grandma Bessie was born in 1909 in Olympia WA. At the age of 23, a young single woman, she committed her life and joined Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Missions as a missionary. She served in China for 17 years until they were captured by the Communists in 1949 and forced to leave. After she returned to the US, she continued in ministry with her husband. At 100 years old, she thanks God that He has preserved her eyes so she can still read her Bible, which she still reads everyday. She stands out clearly from the rest of the other residents in her grateful and bright countenance. Though she’s suffered from 2 falls this past year, she never complains about her pains and suffering, but is so cheerful and joyful every time we visit her.

Whenever we visit Crown Bay nursing home with a different college ministry groups, I always introduce our college students to Grandma Bessie and tell her they are Chinese students, to which she would open her eyes wide and smile and say, “I love the Chinese people.” She shared with me that she is so thankful to see many Chinese young people coming to Crown Bay to share the gospel. She says that this nursing home is as much a mission field as China was. Sometimes she feels discouraged knowing that Satan is at work in the suffering and loneliness of the elderly in the nursing home, but she is so grateful that we, and several other churches, come to share the gospel with them. One time after our worship service, she looked very down. She told me that she’s concerned people nowadays go to church, but they don’t really know God. They say they believe in God, but their lives never change. She asked us to share the gospel and teach people to obey God so that they would truly be saved. I was so challenged that at age 100, she is still so concerned about peoples’ true spiritual condition, not being satisfied that people simply go to church. I assured her that we would not dilute the gospel, but be faithful to live it out and pass it on. Inwardly, I was so challenged I wanted to cry. We prayed together and I committed my life again to preserving the good deposit of the gospel that was entrusted to me, to live it out faithfully as I have been taught. Every time I talk to Grandma Bessie, she tells me she is praying for us to continue to do the work that we’re doing. When I ask her for her prayer request, she asks me to pray for the people living at Crown Bay.

The week before we celebrated her birthday, I asked the coordinator and nurse if there was anything Grandma Bessie needed that we can buy for her. They asked Grandma Bessie what she would like and she said she would like a house dress or a sweater. Then she told them to be sure to tell me that I can find these items at the Salvation Army store. This really captures Grandma Bessie’s humility and gratitude. She has lived a simple life with little luxury. Today, I am so burdened with many worries about my health, family, job, finances, social status, and many other fears and insecurities. But Grandma Bessie inspires and challenges me so much in that she is not worried about many things in this earthly life. Instead, she has spent her life selflessly loving others and being concerned over other peoples’ salvation. Grandma Bessie is among the great cloud of witnesses that urge and inspire me to also live a simple life, surrendering the many options and worries modern day life presents, so that I too may be faithful to carry on the example that she has set forth.

My paternal grandparents first heard the gospel and were saved by British and American missionaries who sacrificed comfortable lives and endured much suffering to bring the gospel to China in the 1800s and 1900s. I also heard from other Chinese and Korean members of our church that their grandparents also became Christians through the loving sacrifice of western missionaries. As I think about the kinds of obstacles and fears these early missionaries had to overcome in order to leave the comforts of their homes and families, to travel to a faraway country like China or Korea, to learn a different language and culture, all so that they could share the love of God, I am humbled and so grateful that my ancestors have been the recipients of such amazing love and sacrifice. Thank you, Grandma Bessie, for giving to the Lord. I am a life that has been eternally changed.