Last, but not Least

As Women’s History Month draws to a close,  I’d like to finish with the Woman who led me to the Lord.                                                                                                                                                         One of the most significant women in my history is a woman whose name I did not know for over forty years.  She was speaking at an Assemblies of God kids camp when I was ten years  old. “Sister Wise” placed a 24×36 flannel board on an easel behind six hay bales. She used flannel pictures to depict a straight and narrow road leading to a place of light in a beautiful blue sky. Another picture showed a  winding, rocky path leading to a circle of flames. They both originated from a church positioned at the bottom of the board.  I had no problem choosing the straight and narrow.  At a hay bale altar with women I thought were “old”  (probably late thirties), I trusted in Jesus as my Savior.                                                                                                                                 Years later in a book called Like A Prairie Fire by Bob Burke (https://www.amazon.com/Like-Prairie-Fire-Assemblies-Oklahoma/dp/0964132508) I learned that a woman named Katie Wise had been a missionary in China in 1936.  During WWII, she was interned in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines for three years.  She came back to the states and ministered in churches and camps.  In 1962, she spoke at an Oklahoma youth camp. I had always known the woman with the flannel board was named “Sister Wise”.                                                                                                               It would be surprising if any of my  readers had ever heard of Katie Wise. I never saw her again.  She never knew me.  She didn’t know who or what I became. The number of souls saved through her ministry probably number in the hundreds.  She doesn’t remember me, but I remember her.   She holds a place of honor in my history.                                                                                         Was a woman instrumental in your salvation?  Comment on facebook @TonyaAnn,Writer