February 5, 2013

My dear mother-in-law, Clelia Eugenia Sweeney, would have been 100 years old today. She slipped into the Lord’s presence 16 years ago, but I still miss her a lot. She accepted me (at age 17) the first day I met her. She prayed for me, she cooked wonderful meals for me and she entrusted her youngest daughter to me. She loved me like a son.

Not only was she a loving and encouraging mother-in-law,

she was a strong influence for world evangelism. I admire her for that. As a pastor’s wife, she regularly opened her home to visiting missionaries, taught often about missionaries’ lives in her Children’s Church meetings, and prayed faithfully for missionaries.

Even though she missed her grandchildren, daughter and son-in-law, she was overjoyed that we were serving the Lord as missionaries. In her old age she visited us in the Philippines and was thrilled about our ministry there.

Coincidentally, today’s daily reading in my prayer book is a plea to send missionaries to go unto the “whitened fields” (Matthew 9:38). She would have loved it.

Will you join me in that prayer? Would you pray particularly that the LORD of the harvest would send many Ukrainians to the whitened fields? Help us continue Clelia Sweeney’s legacy.

Thanks
Rich Strahm