Story From The Mission Field

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Summer Camp Report from Victor and Susan Bauer
Summer Camp Report from Zhenya (one of camp directors)
22 Jan 2008

A 75-year old woman finds new life on the mission field

January 15, 2008

Hi. My name is Lequita, and I want to tell you how God called me to be a 75-year-old volunteer missionary in Russia.

In the fall of 2000 doctors diagnosed me with a heart condition that is treatable only by a heart transplant. While people of my age—I was 67 years old—usually are not considered for such operations, the Lord was with me. My cardiologist’s friend agreed to do an experimental procedure called an alcohol ablation.

The procedure occurred Tues., Jan. 21, 2001, and went fine. Then Thursday evening I began to lose feeling in my toes. The numbness moved up my body, and the next thing I knew it felt like someone was beating me on the chest with a baseball bat—I had gone into cardiac arrest and was receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). As a result, doctors gave me a temporary pacemaker.

Then on Super Bowl Sunday I was watching football with my husband when I had the same feeling. I calmly told my husband, “I am going,” and quickly prayed to God, “I am in your hands.” According to my husband, I immediately flatlined. This time I came back on my own, but went into cardiac arrest five more times. By this time doctors decided I needed a permanent pacemaker. I was in the intensive care unit for 16 days and left the hospital Feb. 14, 2001.

Through all of this I had a lot of time to reflect on my life and what is really of value, and I realized I was not practicing my own belief that our only important actions are what we do for God.

Almost a year ago at a mission conference in Albuquerque, N.M., I met a man who said he was having a hard time finding people willing to go as a volunteer ministry team to Russia. Immediately I said I would. Then thought I should pray about it, and asked my church to pray with me. I felt God wanted me to go, but was concerned that I might not be able to keep up at the age of 75. God gave me Deuteronomy 31:6 and told me He would take care of me. On Nov. 2, 2007, we departed Albuquerque to facilitate conversational English groups in the Russian cities of Ufa and Ishimbai.

Working with missionaries Chris and Eileen Carr and Victor and Susan Bauer was a great experience. I learned more about missionaries and missions in those two weeks than I had in a lifetime. Interacting with the locals also was wonderful—even though I could not speak the Russian language, most of the people spoke some English. I personally saw no one come to Christ, but we were not there to overtly evangelize—the soil was prepared. Perhaps someone else will water the seeds we planted.*

My prayer is that God will allow me to return and that others also will go. We may retire from our secular jobs, but God says nothing about retiring from His work.

*Several people who participated in these conversational English groups have indicated they are interested in Jesus, evangelical churches in Ufa, further meetings in English and an English-language Bible study. As a direct result of the efforts of Lequita her team, several dozen individuals currently are involved in faith-based English as a Second Language groups.