IMG_0631 Seven years ago I retired from a long teaching career. At about the same time I attended a day-long seminar at Western Seminary. One of the workshops was led by Heather Thomas, a wonderful speaker who talked about our stories and how important it is to tell them. She spoke of the power of redemptive words, honest words, forgiving words.

My friend Debby Edwards was with me and we met another woman who encouraged us to try Oregon Christian Writers. They would help us tell our stories. And so I thought, I wonder if I could get something published in my retirement years?” I just might like this writing thing.

Sure enough I did and I have. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen writing out devotional thoughts and parenting tips. Over the seven years I’ve also finally completed the draft of a story of historical India. It’s about a young girl who eventually becomes a Bible Woman.

During our travels in India I’ve been able to interview a group of six or seven Bible Women who still serve the church in the same capacity the old Bible Women did. They work with women and children, telling them Bible stories, teaching songs, giving medical advice and care, and praying for needs. The Bible Women could enter the heart of village life, the homes where women and children lived. Missionary men certainly could not.

It’s an important story, this history of missions and how the unsung heroines, the Bible Women, laid the foundation of Christianity in India and one I’ve felt compelled to tell even when I knew my fiction writing skills were lacking. So I’m plugging on–ready to show the draft to anyone who will read it, but also ready to self-publish it. Then I can tell the Lord I’ve obeyed Him. I told the story.