Mentors

Mentors in our lives are great gifts from God, especially when we are in the "infant stage!" The Lord sent three women into my life in the early phase of my walk with Him. I was 22 years old when I got saved and I needed mentors! I didn't know to call these women that, but I definitely knew they had a profound impact on my life.
I had love and respect for a woman in 1960 named Rev. Iva Berry. Yes, her title was reverend! From the early days in the Nazarene church, women were ordained. Many single women were missionaries to places around the world. Sister Berry was a prayer warrior and I knew that's the way I wanted to pray. Things happened around her, good things! Because of constraints, Sister Berry dressed in the holiness look for women, but the joy of the Lord kept bubbling out of her, even in long dresses! She was probably the most thankful person I've ever met.
Everyone in Alaska knew me by my nickname, Marlee. Sister Berry was from the state of Maine and she couldn't pronounce her r's, so my name came out "Molly." She would say, "Molly, you have to give that one to the Lord," or, "we're going to pray about this Molly." She would take me, children and all, and we would spend many afternoons praying. That's how my first three kids learned to pray. Soon, we would have our own time of prayer in our home. This is training up our children in the way they should go and they will not depart from it.
Sister Berry was a shouter in church and now I am too. We have MUCH to be thankful for! In those days and today, we have plenty to shout about. There was fire, zeal for the Lord that touched hundreds of military lives in the first three years we were in this church. Wednesdays and Sundays the altar area was full of people getting saved and comitting their lives to Jesus.
There was just something about Sister Berry that drew people to her. She wasn't the kind of
Christian that had the attitude that went along with her old-fashioned dress, she positively glowed with the love of Jesus in her face and in her life. She had a soft look about her, with a loud voice.
We didn't talk about our power and authority we had through the Holy Spirit, but Sister Berry knew exactly what she had been given by God. She was a prayer warrior alright. She prayed for deliverence for the native peoples in Alaska; many were addicted to alcohol. Her target was not the person, but the source of the problem, "get to the root of the problem, Molly!" Downtown Anchorage was famous for its bars, one after another. She would pray that God would deliver the alcoholic from sin and rid Anchorage of the blight of these bars, always reminding me to ask God to spare people. She knew God would answer that prayer one day, and she lived to hear about it in Maine. March, 1964 an 8.6 (some say higher) earthquake hit the southern part of Alaska and downtown Anchorage fell 12' into the ground. Every bar was destroyed and not one life was lost. The bars that had been there for decades have never been replaced. She came back to Alaska and when we talked, there was no arrogance in her about having this prayer answered, but she was thankful that no one was killed there.
One of Sister Berry's favorite scriptures was 1Peter 1:8 "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." We all knew when Sister Berry was in the house, she was teaching all of us to be thankful and to be people of expectations. She was teaching even when we wern't having a personal time.
Now she is experiencing that joy unspeakable for eternity, she who had not seen Jesus, now sees! Halelujah!! That's what Sister Berry would say, and I say it too. Jesus is worthy.
Two more mentors; Helen Carlquist and Helen Bolton, soon.