We just heard yesterday of the passing of one of our long-standing supporters. We are fortunate/blessed (choose your terminology) to have truly amazing people standing with us, and Elizabeth definitely ranks among the heroes of the faith.
I’m not sure exactly when Elizabeth was born, but it was a long time ago(!). As a young woman she felt called to mission in Latin America, and so after delaying a couple of years to look after a sick family member (parent I think), she applied to a mission organisation. Said organisation turned her down on the grounds that at twenty five she was now too old to be considered for “the mission field”. (Which rather makes one wonder, how much of what we consider to be perfectly sensible today will cause future generations to raise their eyebrows in disbelief?) So she stayed in the UK, and followed her career as a librarian, supporting Latin American mission in every way that she possibly could, also becoming rather a historian, giving historical presentations as well as preaching on the Methodist circuit.
She wrote to me a few years ago saying that she had given up preaching despite still being in possession of more critical faculties than many people half her age, because as she said, “I would hate to get to the point where I should have given up but everyone was too polite to tell me”.
We will especially remember and miss Elizabeth as a stalwart prayer warrior, (on one of the occasions when we were tardy in sending out our prayer letter, she contacted the Latin Link office to ask if we were OK!), and the maker of a fantastic fruit loaf.