After I started writing a faith blog for a local newspaper, my family returned to a church where I had taught a Sunday school class. Several of my former students still attended, among them Betty Burke. Betty, still actively serving her Lord at eighty-two, had started a Bible study at the retirement complex where she lived. She invited me to speak.
Walkers were parked in the corner of the conference room when I arrived. The table overflowed with Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Pentecostal women. Before I left, I collected fodder for my faith blog.
Betty found salvation in a Baptist church, sitting at her grandmother’s feet. She was active in home missions work when her pastor received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and changed his doctrine. Much to Betty’s dismay, many in the congregation joined the pastor in this new experience. “I was the last one to receive the baptism in the Spirit and speak with other tongues, because I was too busy trying to prove they were wrong,” said Betty.
When Baptist authorities learned of the mission’s departure from their acceptable doctrine, they asked the wayward members to leave. Betty and her friends tried to join the Pentecostals. But the women wore makeup, and the Pentecostals didn’t want them either. Without a home to call its own, the group quickly flourished into an independent church. During this time, Betty became an ordained minister and traveled extensively, preaching the Word of God.
Betty desired to be a missionary, but after her children were grown and she entered her fifties, it appeared the time for missionary work had passed. It hadn’t. When Betty turned sixty, God opened the door for her to preach the gospel in Japan. Her missionary work was cut short when she returned to America and discovered her mother in poor health.
After Betty’s mother went home to be with the Lord, she moved to a retirement complex and joined a church near the apartments. She sought to resume her ministry, but the church did not have a place of service for her. While Betty visited with her friends Bernice and Pauline, the subject of a Bible study to meet the needs of the residents arose. Without knowledge of Betty’s background in ministry, Bernice and Pauline decided Betty should teach.
They initially met in the foyer near Betty’s apartment. Pauline left to live with family shortly after the study began. Betty and Bernice continued the work, which quickly outgrew the tiny foyer, and the small congregation moved to the Community Room. “Many of the residents led productive lives before entering the retirement apartments and wrestled with depression as they adjusted to a new way of life,” said Betty. In addition to teaching, Betty and Bernice cared for their flock by visiting them when they were in the hospital or too ill to leave their apartments.
Betty and Bernice reminded me of Moses and Aaron, who found the fulfillment of their calling in their eighties. No one can accuse God of age discrimination. Whether we are eight or eighty-eight, He has a place of service for everyone with a willing heart.
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