Two dear friends have died. It has been a sad time but also good to remember them and the friendship we enjoyed. Both were Christians – disciples of Jesus – and had enjoyed long and active lives. It is a great blessing to have good friends and to be able to encourage one another through all the twists and turns of life.

Olive was a single lady and had served as a missionary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her ministry was to train and encourage school teachers who play such a vital role in the education and formation of children. Teachers are role models for the children they teach. Irene was married to Joe and they had two children and also grandchildren. They served as missionaries in Brazil. Joe was involved in training church leaders and Irene trained women, especially those who were married to church leaders. Joe and Irene committed their lives to serving their Lord.

Olive was in DR Congo in 1964 at the time of the Simba rebellion. It was a terrible time when many people were killed including 13 missionaries and 6 children. Olive was captured and kept under house arrest at Banalia. One morning the rebels took the missionaries and their children to the nearby river where they shot them and threw their bodies into the river. As Olive and another lady were on their way to the river suddenly one of the rebels stopped them and told them to go back to the house. Their lives were spared but they heard the shots that killed their friends. There are mysteries in God’s providence. Olive lived for more than another 60 years serving her Lord. She returned to DR Congo for a few years and continued to be in contact with her friends there all her life.

When Irene and her husband were nearing retirement, they decided to return to England with their son Nigel for whom they cared. They had no house in England and no money to buy one. They wondered where they would live. A short time before they left Brazil, they received a letter from a solicitor in England telling them that a furnished bungalow, near to where their daughter and her family live, had been left to them by a single Christian lady. The lady had lived with her sister, who had died previously, and they had agreed that, when the second one of them died, the bungalow should be left to Joe and Irene. So, God provided for Irene and Nigel, as he did for Olive, but now, even more wonderfully, they have an eternal home in heaven with their Lord, Jesus, who loved them and gave himself for them.