Testimony of Former Roman Catholic Nun Pauline English

Sunday 4th November, 2007, at Cookstown Independent Methodist Church.

Good evening everyone, it's lovely to be with you again - you can tell from my accent I'm not from your neck of the woods but I came over from Scotland this morning, had the 10 o'clock crossing from Stanraer. Yesterday I drove up to Glasgow for a wedding that I was asked to and I'm over here for a month so it's just lovely to begin a ministry in a lovely warm fellowship, especially having been in the little room at the back, you know, where two or three are gathered together in His name, He's there in the midst. So before the meeting we've been with the Lord -and that's just one of the treasures of knowing Him, who to know, is life eternal. I do thank you for the warm invitation and it is warm in your church here to-night, which is lovely and I would like to share this testimony with you as your minister said, but prior to that I would just like to read a few verses from scripture which really says it all, because I could be here and talk to you for an hour to-night but unless it's saturated in the word of God it would be of little avail to you - so please look at second Corinthians, chapter 4 , verses 1 to 7.

II Corinthians 4: 1-7 God's word says "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the faith of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." May the Lord bless to us His precious and holy word.

The Bible says that "if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, should shine unto them".

The story is told of two little boys walking along the road - one is about ten and the other maybe about five - and the ten year old was breaking his heart crying. A policeman on the other side of the road crossed over and he asked the wee boy why he was crying so hard and the little boy couldn't tell - he kept sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. The policeman said 'come on now, you tell me what's wrong and I'll help you'. The little boy, through his tears, looked up and said 'sir, I'm lost' and he started to weep again and the policeman said 'look, don't worry' and he said 'you tell me your name and where you live and I'll make sure that I'll take you home'. And the little boy continued to sob and sob and sob and then the policeman said 'listen son, the little boy beside you isn't crying' and looking up the boy said 'sir, he's not crying because he doesn't know he's lost'.

Perhaps, here in our church to-night there's someone like I was who didn't know that they were lost. And yet the Bible says that if this Gospel, this good news, is hid it is hid to them that are lost. And that's why the command of the Lord Jesus is to go into all the world and to preach the Gospel, share this good news, tell others. It's the only reason that I am really here this evening.

I was brought up in a very devout Roman Catholic home in the north west of England - a little place called Manchester, I'm sure you've heard of it, mainly because of the football team, or the two football teams - into a family of nine children. My eldest sister was born first and then there were six boys - they didn't all come at once but the six boys came along - and to the horror of my brothers that were looking for a seven-a-side football team, I arrived, but obviously to the delight of my elder sister - and then two years later my youngest sister. My memory of my father was just tiny - he was already in the Royal Navy, he was a commander - and my three older brothers were also in the Royal Navy at that time. My father never came home - the ship was torpedoed - so my mother was left a widow with five of us at school age. Every single night my mother would open her little New Testament and read to us the stories of Jesus. So from being a little girl at my mother's knee, I grew up knowing all about Jesus. I loved the stories of His life, how He had left His home in heaven and how He was born in a manger in Bethlehem. I knew about His life and public ministry. I loved the stories of the miracles and the parables. I grew up educated in convent school as well, knowing all about these things. I knew that Jesus had died on the cross at Calvary and I even knew that one day He was coming back again. I knew He had risen from the dead, I knew that one day He was coming back again. So I grew up knowing all about Him.

Do you know, isn't it a true saying that you don't really know anyone until you live with them. Is that true? Yes! So growing up, thinking I knew all about Jesus and being educated in a convent school at primary and at high school. It was really in high school, when many of the missionary priests and nuns would come home to our school and give an account of their ministries and works that they were in, - I am sure I was coming into my early teens - that the only thing that I really wanted to be was a missionary. Now, I had brothers who said 'look you're going to waste your time, you should go to college and university and go and be a teacher, be a doctor, a nurse, anything you like, but get this nonsense of missionary stuff out of your head, you are too young to make a decision'. But you know Someone had a design on my life which I didn't really know about until later on, but growing up I wanted to be a missionary. So when I left school at seventeen, I entered the convent.

I left home for the very first time and entered the convent and I was there for two months -and at a school for the blind partially sighted children in Liverpool - living with the sisters, having my prayers with them and my meals with them, helping in the school, going up to Alderhay children's hospital in the afternoon to visit the sick children there and to them I was dressed just like Maria in the film the musical, my black dress and all! That was a time of preparation and application to the community. And if after two months they thought I was a good enough candidate, they would send me to the Novitia, but also it was up to me too. If I really thought this was God's call on my life to go to the Seminary and the Novitia, then obviously I could say 'yes' or I could say 'no'. They could also say 'yes' or 'no' to me. Well, I wanted to stay and they wanted to keep me so I was sent off to London.

My day began - I no longer looked like Maria! How many of you have not seen the film 'The Sound of Music'? Well, I no longer looked like Maria, I looked like the novices in the black habits with the white veils - and our day began at four every morning for prayer and meditation until seven. Folks, when was the last time that you were up at four o'clock, or five o'clock or six or seven for prayer? Throughout the day we had times of prayer, we had times of study, studying the scriptures, especially the New Testament, studying the doctrines and dogmas of our faith, believing that we were the one true catholic and apostolic church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ and so we were convinced that our calling and our roll in life now was to be able to lead others into this one true church.

And so I studied the doctrines and dogmas to the end of our Novitiate of one year, but apart from that we had lots of jobs to do around the commons of course during the day - we weren't just praying and reading the scriptures all day, it would have been good if we were, probably - but we had lots of jobs to do. So from the painting and the decorating to the working in the gardens, the cutting of the lawns, going down to the food orchards to lift the apples from the trees or working in the laundry or the kitchen, as some would say rather a preparation. Never a time that one could say 'I don't fancy doing that to-day' - a list was put up, your name was beside it and then you went to that job. And I didn't mind any of the jobs really - you know when you have got lots of energy at seventeen I was quite happy to be scrubbing floors or painting walls. But there's this one thing on that list which I hoped I would never have to go to. It's called 'the sewing room'. I said, 'what would I do in the sewing room for three hours in the afternoon'?

I'd been three months in the Seminary when one day the list came up - 'Sister English, sewing room' and off I went! Well, we had these sewing machines that you treadle, not electric ones, and you treadle away and I thought 'the faster you go the more you get done'. Well I spent more time ripping than I did sewing because the sewing was just like this (speaker motions zig zag, zig zag). However the three hours were up and I thought this was great, that's me finished now for at least another three months. I went back the next day, looked at the list and it said again 'Sister English, sewing room' and I felt 'it's a mistake; I'll just wait for a moment and see if somebody comes and changes it'. Well, the novice mistress - that's the top one, in charge of the novices - came along and 'said what are you doing'? And I said 'I'm just waiting on the new list, Sister'. She said 'oh, you've seen it, that's to-days list'! I said, 'well, I was in the sewing room yesterday'. And she said 'yes and to-day and to-morrow and every day, Monday to Friday for the next nine months!' Well, I thought two things happened that day, I'd made such a brilliant job or I did such rubbish that they decided to keep me there! But it taught me two things. It taught me obedience to go and do what I was asked to do without questioning and it also taught me 'stickability' - staying at the job, cost what it may.

Then in the Noviate I went over to Paris and it was there, on my nineteenth birthday that I left off the habit of the novice and put on the habit of the professed Sister, coming back then, eventually, to London. It was in London that I received my first appointment within the community and that was to bonnie Scotland to start my nurse training. I didn't choose to be a nurse, I wasn't even asked if I would like to be a nurse, I was told that I was going to be nursing - start my nursing - in Scotland. I did my four years of training and it was now time to make my final profession - that's when you take your final vows - and I was getting ready to totally separate, dedicate, consecrate my mind within the community and eventually missionary service in Africa, - on the 15th of August of that year.

I took these vows knowing jolly well that in our vows of 'poverty', although we only had two of anything, nothing was mine in community, it was ours. So even the very pen in our pocket was ours, it wasn't mine. If someone came along and said they needed a pen, I would have handed it over because it was our pen, it wasn't mine. And the idea of the vow was that we would recognise the poverty of the Lord Jesus, He had nothing and He gave His all and we were to be willing to give our all - poverty.

Chastity - the vow of 'chastity' wasn't simply that very fact we had given up the privilege of marriage and having a family of our own. The vow of chastity was the undivided heart, the separated heart into God's service. The vow of 'obedience', being willing to go wherever, whenever, the community wanted me to move on. I couldn't say 'now I've trained as a nurse, I'll stay in a hospital working away'. If they had come and said tomorrow you're going to another convent and you'll be the kitchen Sister there I couldn't have turned round and said 'well, why did you train me'? I would have gone in obedience to the will of my superiors.

And then there was 'service of the poorest in Christ in all with whom we serve'. Every morning at our convent back door there would be at least forty or fifty down and out men and women that would come to that six o'clock mug of tea and four of us would go down and we would serve them. We didn't go down and hand it to them at a distance, although sometimes you wish you could have done as there was a lot of abuse sometimes from them. But we were assisting Christ in all with whom we serve.

So I took these vows, on 15th August, I'm going back now to 1961, and volunteered for mission. I was accepted to go after more post-graduation nursing, to Africa, to a hospital that was newly founded by the king of Ethiopia in Lagos. But the night before I was to come back to Scotland, because then they were sending me to Cork to do further post-grad work, I had a pain in my side. I was rushed off to a clinic - you know what that means - I got my appendix out. Unfortunately I was sixteen weeks in the clinic with septicaemia and twice almost dying, my family were all sent for, I had the last rights of the church - that's the last blessing you can have before you die - twice, but God had other plans. Instead of now going over to Cork as I wasn't well enough, I came back up to Scotland and it was there that my superiors decided to send me out to a secular hospital in Edinburgh to do my post-grad work. This was wonderful, because it was there that I met a group of Christian nurses!

And I am here to-night because of the testimony and the sharing and caring of these Christian nurses. They asked me what it was like being a nun. This is called 'friendship evangelism'. Do you know about that? It's just 'getting alongside someone' and hearing them first - don't bombard them, hear where they are - and that's what they did for me. They asked me 'what it was like being a nun' and 'where are you going to go after you finish your training'. I told them I was going to Africa and I hoped I would stay out there for ever. And this was all very much part and parcel of what was in my mind and I felt the dedication, consecration and separation that God had for me. But one morning, over coffee - we were all round this little table together - and one of the nurses asked me could she ask two questions. And I believe that these two questions are very important - and you'll hear in a few moments why and I hope that they may be important to someone here to-night too.

The first question she asked me was 'are you a Christian, Sister'? How many of you would ask a separated, dedicated, consecrated nun, who was going out very soon to the mission fields, 'excuse me Sister, are you a Christian'?!! And I was kind of taken aback and I thought surely, you know, my life should show that I am a Christian. All I wanted was to be a missionary and to serve God in Africa. Then she said, 'well Sister, you seem to say all the right things, you certainly have got all the right intentions, are you an 'inside, outside' Christian'? I didn't really know what she meant by that one, but I agreed to it anyway and said 'oh I am sure I am'. Question number two, 'do you believe the Bible to be the Word of God'? and I said 'yes, I do believe the Bible is the word of God'. The she said 'do you read it, you really believe it'? and I said 'yes, I do'. And then I felt a little bit guilty and you know why? I'd never ever had a Bible in my hand before. You see when I entered the convent we had a list of books - 'Imitation of Christ' by Thomas A Kempis, our New Testament was there, and lots of other books that would help us into this spiritual realm of a closer relationship with God. And so when she had said 'do you believe it, do you read it', I had to be honest - and I hope you will be as honest to-night as I had to be - I said to her 'to be honest, I don't have a Bible but I do believe it's God's word, I do read my New Testament'.

I looked at my watch and it was, I thought, about time to get back and I was getting a bit hot under the collar at these questions coming as they were. I really was very unsure of myself and so I said, 'really, we must get back on the wards'. The nurse said, 'Sister, we've still got four minutes, can I just ask you one more question'? (And I think I have got a bit more than four minutes, haven't I pastor?!!) The third question was this - and I'm going to ask each one of you to-night this question - 'if you die right now, will you go to heaven'? And she said 'Sister, if you die right now will you go to heaven'? I said 'if I died right now would I go to Heaven'? She said 'yes Sister, would you'? And I looked at her, straight in the eye, and I said 'Louise, how on earth, really, can anyone really know that they are going to Heaven'? You see I would have hoped with the hope of my whole heart that because of my separated, dedicated, consecrated life - you see what I'm saying - going out soon as a missionary to Africa, surely God in His love and His mercy would allow me, one day, into Heaven, because of all that I was doing for Him - wouldn't you have thought so? How do you know? - She kind of shook her head a little bit and I said 'what's wrong Louise'? She said 'do you know that you are going into Heaven if you die'? and I said 'no,' but I said, 'I hope I will'.

You see, in my church I was taught that there was a Heaven and I was also taught that there was a Hell and I certainly didn't want to go to Hell - eternal separation. I wanted one day to go to Heaven - eternal life. But only the saints go to Heaven, do you know that, and in my church the saints I believed were the canonised saints who had led wonderful lives, many of them, but they said they were the ones that went to Heaven but the rest of us would go to a place called purgatory, a cleansing place, and at least if you got to purgatory you're half way to Heaven. So I would have got to purgatory - I never questioned it, I never even discussed it with anyone, I just accepted it. And you know why? Because no one ever, ever, knocked on our doors and told us otherwise, no one ever gave us a Gospel tract, no one, so you believe what you have been brought up in and you accept it. So here I was now, being asked if I died right now would I go to Heaven.

I had to be honest - now are you honest to-night, can you say 'yes I will go' or 'no, I'm not sure either'? So I'm not going to leave you in the dark. I'm going to tell you what she said to me now. I looked at her and I said 'Louise, how on earth can anyone go to heaven'? And then I thought, 'my turn'! I knew it was time to go back to the wards, so walking along the corridor - there were four corridors for our particular ward - and I turned round and I said 'Louise, tell me, do you know if you're going to Heaven'? Do you know what she said? What do you think she said? She said 'Sister, I know I am going to Heaven.' Well, I would have been a dumb nun if I didn't ask the next question, so what did I ask? Any suggestion? Of course! 'Louise, how do you know that you're going to Heaven'? She didn't stand tall and say because I go to the Baptist church, or the Methodist church or the Church of England or the Catholic Church, she said 'I'm going to Heaven because I believe and have accepted the promises in God's word. Sister, what do you think of John 3: 16'? Well, I never knew my chapters and verses because I was never in Sunday School and I said 'John 3: 16' - I remember I bowed my head a little bit and my veil and then scratching my brow and I kind of looked and she saw my obvious embarrassment - and she took from her pocket two little white New Testaments. Who had been in the hospital six weeks before giving these out to doctors, nurses and patients? It was Gideons, Christian businessmen. And evidently, she told me afterwards, that when they were giving them out, she asked for two and the brother said 'why do you want two'? She said I am going to pray in the days ahead that the Lord will lead me to someone that I can give this to and share with and she said that from the moment that I began that post-grad course she started to pray. Isn't that wonderful? She's only nineteen but she began praying for this moment that the opportunity to bring the glorious Gospel of light to that person would be shared.

So we opened up together - she wouldn't tell me the number of the page, John 3:16 - we stopped in the corridor and we read it. What does it say? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". And then she said 'Sister just a minute, I'll just read it once more - just look at it'. She read again 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but HOPE they have everlasting life', 'is that what it says'? I said 'read it, it doesn't say that', she said 'what do you mean'? I said 'it says here 'you HAVE everlasting life'. And her reply was 'then, Sister, why don't you have the assurance of everlasting life'? Do you know folks, it was like a dagger going into my heart. I was sincere but sincerely wrong. You see I had a religion but had no relationship and I had rituals that didn't have reality. And it's only when you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in here, 'for God so loved you'. And she says 'Sister Pauline, put your name in there' - and I did 'for God so loved you, Sister Pauline, that he gave his only begotten Son, that if Sister Pauline believes in him she will not perish but she will have everlasting life'.

Wow!! At her recommendation I took the little New Testament - she says 'Sister, read this one, take it and start in the Gospel of John'. And I would say to anyone here to-night, get a New Testament - if you don't have one I am sure your minister here will give you one - and open it up in John's Gospel. And she said, 'and take a pen' - and what else was I to do - 'take a pen and as you're reading the Lord will speak to your heart. Now underline words that He has shown you'. I didn't quite understand that one, but as I was driving back to our convent that night - Sister Clare was with me and she said 'your awfully preoccupied to-night Sister Pauline. What's wrong'? I said 'do you know what this nurse told me to-day' and I explained to her all that had been said. She said 'forget it, she doesn't know either and she's just saying that to you'. I said 'well, I don't know, she was more sure of it than I was'.

So I went back, I said my night prayers, we were in bed at ten, we were up at four - even when we were nursing eight hours in the hospital. But I stayed in the chapel and I took out the little New Testament and I took out 'our' pen and I started "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". And He says to me 'He came unto his own and his own received him not' and that word 'received' seemed to stand out and I started to underline and I went on in John's Gospel. You know I was still in the church - in the chapel - till half past two in the morning, reading through the Gospel of John. You know, it's very thin paper in our Bibles and it was in that little New Testament that the more I underlined, you know, there were more holes in the pages as I finished John's Gospel!

But I read this in John 8: 32, it says "and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free". If the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. But it wasn't until I went into John 14: and in John 14: it says this "Let not your heart be troubled: (put your name in Sister Pauline) ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you (Sister Pauline). And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also". Now Thomas, who was one of the twelve disciples who had walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, had seen the miracles, teaching of the parables, everything, he turned round and said to the Lord 'Lord, we don't know where you are going so how can we know the way'? And Jesus said 'I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father, except through me'.

You see, it says in the Word of God that if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost. The Gospel was hid from me, it was hid in religion, it was hid in ritual, it was even hid in desires that I had to please God. You know, any gifts that we have are God given, we know that. Even our life is God given, but there is something that we have that God wants from us and only we can give it back to Him. Do you know what that is? It's a three letter word, it begins with an S, it's an N at the end and an I in the middle and the Bible says that if we confess our SINs, he is the Lord Jesus Christ, is able and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. The more I read the Word of God, the more I could see from His Word that He is the only way. It's not my religion, it's not my community life, it isn't anything that I could do for Him - it's letting Him do everything for me and it all begins at the cross.

And so I continued to study the Word of God, I was sent out and began to question the teachings of the church, I was sent out to see the Archbishop, who later became Cardinal Gray of Edinburgh, and I was told to go back to my convent and be a good little Sister because I was only looking at one authority of the Word of God. We had three authorities: the authority of the Word, the authority of tradition in the church and the authority of papal infallibility. And he told me these three are equal. I came out with a sadness in my heart because I was beginning to see there is nothing that is on power with the will of God. Anyone who adds to it or subtracts from it, it warns you severely. And so the Lord began to work in my heart and life and to be true to the community, to be true to myself, to be true to what the word of God was now teaching me. I didn't renew my vows that year; I left the community after almost eleven years.

It wasn't easy, I didn't really want to leave, I loved the community life, I liked being with the twenty eight other Sisters. I really wanted to go to the mission fields, but God had His purpose and His plan and He said to me these words 'your ways are not My ways and your thoughts are not My thoughts' and that's true. And God continued to speak to my heart, but I was still in a spiritual wilderness, I still hadn't made that decision but I knew the search was on and the Lord says 'if you search after Me with all you heart you'll find Me'. But you've got to search and you have to search for Him. He's there. He's ready. He's waiting. And at the request of these nurses I came up to a special mission that was on in Edinburgh - a little place called Gore Bridge - and the pastor of that church was an ex Faith Mission pilgrim, pastor Johnny Hamilton. I believe that just a couple of months ago he went home to be with the Lord. But the mission started on the Tuesday night and I was sure - there were five us, four other nurses and myself - and I was sure that they must have told him all about me, because I came under such conviction of knowing that I was still separated from God, that I left that church that night with a heavy heart. I never said anything to anyone or even said it to the nurses. Just after they asked had I enjoyed the service and I said 'well, I don't say I necessarily enjoyed it but I would go back to-morrow anyway'.

I went to night training. On 22nd November, 1967, 7.30pm we were sitting there, at the Mission, sitting up in front, the whole lot of us and as I was sitting there and as the music started and the pastor came on to the platform, I came under such a conviction of sin in my life and then now knowing that I was separated from God because of sin. All I remember is walking forward and standing in front of the pulpit and the pastor looked down and said 'can I help you'? and I said 'yes, please, I need to get right with God, will you pray with me'. And you know, 'it's nothing in your hand you bring, it's simply to the cross you cling'. It was 22nd November, 7.30pm and I prayed the sinners prayer and I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my whole life, forgive me my sin and - you know we sing a little chorus 'come in to-day, take sin away, come into my heart, Lord Jesus' - and He did just that. And He took that sin away and the Bible says, you know, the old life passes away and we become a new creature, a new creation, God's creation, born again. Well, I didn't know all those evangelical clichés and I didn't even know half what the Word of God says about it - but I knew I had been forgiven. I went out the next day and bought a Bible - I bought quite a big one too, you know 'the big Bible, big roads', for it will only be a big road for God, so go out and buy a big Bible!

Because I then took a job nursing in Edinburgh, instead of Southport where I was, I went to that same little church and always sat on the end of the Sunday school benches, listening to the Bible stories. A few years later I went to the Keswick Convention - I don't know how many years I've been to Keswick since (this is Keswick in England) - and God spoke to my heart. He said 'you're saved Pauline, to serve. How are you going to serve Me'? And when the challenge came to those that were wanting to give their heart afresh to the Lord and come forward and stand up and be counted to serve Him, I went forward with two hundred young people - in the early 1970s. And God keeps you to your promise. I came back (from Keswick) and told the pastor and he said 'well, Pauline, what you need to do is to prepare'. I said, 'I know, but how do I do it'? Already I was starting going to the Bible study and the prayer meetings, every meeting that was on in the church, I was there. And every open air, I was there. And it was only eight miles from our convent gates, but I was there.

And do you know my testimony is that God has forgiven my sin and given me eternal life. And you know there's a lovely hymn that says 'He made a wretch like me His treasure'. Are you God's treasure to-night? Are you His treasure? The Bible says "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven".

As I have said, when I came back (from Keswick) and had shared with the pastor, as the months went on I knew that I had to go and prepare - and I had gone to him and had said 'how do I prepare'? The pastor said 'well, you need to go to Bible College'. I said 'what college'. I didn't know anything about Bible College, nobody had mentioned it, but he had been trained in the Faith Mission so what better college to go to than the Faith Mission. So I went to the Faith Mission College in Edinburgh and then I came back and continued further studies in DTI in Glasgow, which is now ITC and I was still convinced that I would go as a missionary nurse now, to Africa. They needed me; all the missionary societies needed nurses.

And then the missionary from Northern Ireland, who was working in South America, came home and stayed as minister in the Baptist church there, the Grove Baptist Church in Belfast. And she brought the challenge of an 85 percent Roman Catholic continent - and what did the Lord do? He pricked my ears up, didn't He. You see, when you have been on one side of the fence and now you're on the other, you know where thoughts are coming from. And there must be a tenderness in our hearts for the lost, no matter which side of the fence you are on. And the Lord continued to give me that tenderness. I believe it was His tenderness and so when I spoke with her afterwards I said, 'you know I would love to pray for you' and she said 'are you interested in South America' - I said 'no, I'm a nurse so I'm going probably to Africa to work there'. I said 'but I'll pray for you' and she said 'well, here's our mission magazine' and she gave me little booklets about the mission and she said 'pray about it'. I said 'is there anyone I can pray with for you'. She said 'there's a Mrs Ella Graham 540 Balmoral Road, and she gives out the mission magazines', so I phoned her up and I said 'Mrs Graham' - I told her how it was - 'can I come up and pray with you'. 'Right, come on a Wednesday afternoon'.

Do you know, I was so amazed, this dear saint of God - I thought she was old, you know, and I was only in my early thirties, but she was probably younger than I am now - but anyway, she took out a Bible and we prayed together. And written at the back of her Bible she had a list of all the missionaries she was praying for and the missionary children. And there are missionary children who need our prayers just as much as you children need your prayers here. And you know I was amazed and I said 'Mrs Graham, how long were you in South America and Chile'? She said, 'I've never been outside of Glasgow'! You see, we are workers together with Him. We're part and parcel of God's church and I believe that the church of Jesus Christ to-day needs to stand up and be counted. I realise that there is a 'togetherness' with the Lord that we have to be involved in His work and praying for the lost. So I was praying for some time with her.

It came to me in my quiet time one night, when I was in Bible College, and it's just that the Lord was saying, you know, 'you tell me your life is on the altar but your profession isn't. There's something keeping you back from going where I want you'. Why was I thinking that way? And then I said 'but Lord, you know I love You, you know I'm in love with You, I love Your Word, I love You and I really and truly love Your work and I love You and I love Your Word'. He said 'but there's still something you're holding back'. Do you know what it was? It was my nursing! I wanted to serve the Lord my way. He wanted me to serve Him His way! There's a difference! We can be very active serving the Lord but if it isn't what He wants you to do His way, serve Him by all means, but serve Him His way. And then I realized what it was and I said 'alright Lord, you've got my life, here's my profession and I'll apply to the Gospel mission in South America to serve you in the land of Chile'. And what did the Lord say to me - 'Do it! Now I will make you a nurse of souls'.

And I make no apologies; I was 21 years in Chile with the Church County Ministry teaching them in our Bible Institute there and also MKRE teacher in the school there for the missionary children. But my main work is evangelism, friendship evangelism; one to one and seeing churches establish working in teams and seeing God work through the preaching of His Word in the presence of His name.

I am so pleased to share with you this evening that God has His plan and His purpose for each one of us and don't ever think that you can be so settled that He won't move you on. If you really love Him you can love His word and if you love His word, it's the only job that you'll never be made redundant to, never. People say to me 'when are you retiring'? Could I ever retire from serving the Lord and sharing the news of the Gospel? I don't think so. We have just celebrated in our mission, on the 3rd of November the birthday of our longest serving missionary,Rev George. He was 100 years of age on the 3rd of November! He e-mails me every second week with all the news of what's going on in the North of Chile. He is a shepherd to the shepherds up there, to the pastors, to the young pastors. He preaches and teaches still. He prays, he is a man of prayer and God has blessed him with a long life. His dear wife went home to be with the Lord seven years ago and they served the Lord together faithfully for over sixty years. And now I can say that as long as the Lord allows me to serve Him with my boots on, He can take me any time. Do you know what that means? Yes, serving to the end. The lord Jesus came to serve, to seek and to save those that are lost. Can there be anything less for you and me to-night if we know the love of the Lord Jesus, and if we're not sure maybe this is the day that the Lord Jesus will say 'will you serve Me? But first of all, do you know me'? But you cannot, you cannot possibly know Him unless you live with Him.

May the Lord bless you.