PAUL BRAND'S MISSIONARY MOTHER
Dr. Paul Brand, a well known doctor and author, was raised in India. His parents were missionaries there. In his book, titled "In His Image," he writes about his mother. It is one of the most touching stories I’ve ever read.
He writes that when his mother was 75 years old, she was still walking miles every day, visiting the villages in the southern part of India, teaching the people about Jesus.
One day, at age 75, she was traveling alone and fell and broke her hip. After two days of just lying there in pain, some workers found her and put her on a makeshift cot and loaded her into their jeep and drove 150 miles over deep rutted roads to find a doctor who could set the broken bones. But the very bumpy ride damaged her bones so badly that her hip never completely healed.
He said, "I visited my mother in her mud covered hut several weeks after all of this happened. I watched as she took two bamboo crutches that she had made herself, and moved from one place to another with her feet just dragging behind because she had lost all feeling in them."
He said, "At age 75, with a broken hip, unable to stand on her own two legs, I thought that I made a pretty intelligent suggestion. I suggested that she retire. She turned around and looked at me and said, "Of what value is that? If we try to preserve this body just a few more years and it is not being used for God, of what value is that?"
So she kept on working. She kept on riding her donkey to villages until she was 93 years old. At age 93 she couldn’t stay on her donkey anymore. She kept falling off. But she didn’t stop teaching. Indian men would carry her in hammocks from one village to another. And she continued to tell people about Jesus until she died at age 95.
Paul writes, "My most vivid memory of my mother is of her propped up against a stone wall as people are coming to her
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