The Contributions Of Christian Women To The Pastoral Care And Counseling Ministry Of The Church – Part Five (Final)

Women Of The Azusa Street Revival:

1. Jennie Evans Moore (1883 – 19360

She was the first woman baptized in the spirit at Bonnie Brae Street through Lucy Farrow’s ministry. She married William Seymour on May 13, 1908, and became the Azusa Mission’s pastor after her husband’s death in 1922 until she died in 1936.

2. The Seven Women Elders

William J. Seymour formed a board of elders to guide the affairs of the Azusa Mission; he chose seven women and four other men. The women included Jennie Evans Moore, Sister Price, Mrs. G. W. Evans, Clara Lum, Phoebe Sargent, Rachel Sizelove, and Florence Crawford. Clara Lum was the editor of the Apostolic Faith paper, and she spread the exciting news of the outpouring far and wide. Florence Crawford (1872 – 1936) was anointed to preach. It was made evident by the tremendous response to meetings she conducted in the NorthWest, the United States, and Canada between August and December 1906. With Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Clara Lum, she left Azusa for Portland, where she established the Apostolic Faith Church in the NorthWest

 Women In Africa:

1. Mary Slessor (1848 – 1915)

In Mary Slessor’s words, her life is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer. She was an example of “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5: 17). Her Christian influence was seen in the lives of the natives of West Africa called ‘White Ma.’ Mary was a missionary to Nigeria. She was gentle, sensitive, loving, and a friend of the little children, the weak, and the oppressed. In 1876, under the direction of the United Presbyterian Church, she worked in Calabar, the present Cross River State in Nigeria. She was in Calabar for thirty-eight years until her death in 1915.

Mary aimed to win Africans for Christ and did this by prayerfully caring for their physical and spiritual needs. She counseled the natives on the barbaric act of killing their twins. She helped to rid the taboo regarding twins as evil and brought into her house to live, many sets of twins, caring for them as their mother. Mary’s religion (Christianity) was a matter of the heart, and her communion with her heavenly father was natural and childlike. Mary Slessor was regarded as “a living Saint” before her death.

2. Pastor Bimbo Odukoya (September 12, 1960 – December 10, 2005)

Pastor Bimbo, as she was fondly called, was the best-known woman evangelist in recent day Nigeria. She was an associate Pastor at the Fountain of Life Church, an organization she ran with her husband during her lifetime. She ministered to spinsters, bachelors, and middle-aged couples whose marriages were floundering. Her regular T.V. program “Single and Married” won national acclaim in Nigeria as it championed her drive to raise moral standards in a decadent society.

She was seen as a role model to millions worldwide due to her ministry’s positive influence on their relationships. Pastor Bimbo’s emphasis was on old-fashioned marital fidelity. She counseled the Single and regularly married on print media with a regular column in Punch Newspaper. She also used television and the internet to communicate her message to the target audience. She died in a Sosoliso air crash on December 10, 2005, while on her way to a Christian crusade.

 

Other Celebrated Christian Women:

1. Lindsay Freda (born 1914)

She was a wife to Gordon Lindsay. She preached along with her husband until he died in 1973. Afterward, she edited the Voice of Healing Magazine and headed the Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas.

2. Kuhlman Kathryn (1907 – 1976)

Her tremendous healing crusades filled the largest arenas in the land, especially after 1965. Kathryn had become a national celebrity by 1975. She was one of the most extraordinary Christian mystics, clairvoyants, and charismatic healers. In her word, Kathryn said I carry a water bucket for the Lord. She denied being a preacher or a healer; in her words, I don’t know what I am other than just somebody who loves people and wants to try to help everybody more than I can. I’m not a faith healer because I’ve never healed anyone. It’s just the mercy of God. She was also a writer; she wrote the book ‘I believe in Miracles’ in which she explained, Many have been the times when I have felt like taking the shoes from off my feet, knowing that the ground on which I stood was Holy Ground. Many times, the Power of the Holy Ghost is so present in my body that I have to struggle to remain on my feet. Many times, His very Presence healed sick bodies before my eyes. She had a worldwide interdenominational following of millions.

3. Sister Gwen Shaw (born 1924)

She was the founder of End-Time Handmaidens and servants (est. 1973) and the first woman to speak in the famous Baptist Church in Moscow in 1966. Sister Gwen was a Canadian-born, birthright Mennonite who experienced Pentecost in 1942. God called her to China while she was a young student at Eastern Pentecostal Bible College Toronto, Canada, in January 1944. By 1947, she was ministering in inner Mongolia to the Chinese people. After barely escaping the advancing Communist forces of the revolution, Gwen continued to minister in the Orient for twenty-three years from her base in Hong Kong. God used this humble yet distinguished woman of faith and compassion to light revival fires.

4.      Barton, Clarissa Harlowe  

Known better than Clara Barton, she founded the American Red Cross and cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the conflict during the Civil War. After the war, she established a missing soldier’s bureau in Washington, D.C., which helped gather identification records for the missing and the dead. Her office was recently discovered in a building scheduled for demolition, and efforts are now underway to preserve this historical find.

5.    Blechshmidt, Dorothy Case   

Dorothy, a 1907 graduate of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, practiced medicine in Palestine and later became a leading advocate of women’s health issues in Philadelphia. She also established the Dorothy Case-Blechschmidt Cancer Health Clinic of Doctor’s Hospital there.

6.   Bowes, Margaret     

Margaret immigrated from Scotland with her family to Canada in the mid-1800s. She was later removed to N.Y., where she survived two husbands and became a well-known midwife and surrogate mother of more than 30 homeless or poorly cared for children.

7.    Hales, Matilda   

A devout member of the LDS church, Matilda attended Brigham Young Academy and received her teaching certificate. However, she decided to become a midwife and nurse and never married. Despite her rheumatoid arthritis, she delivered many babies, brought food and other necessities to those in need, and advocated legislation prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors.

8.   Lozier, Charlotte    

Although she lived a short time, Charlotte, like her more famous mother-in-law, Clemence Lozier, was one of the earliest women physicians. Her education opened the way for her lectures and public addresses concerning women’s rights. She became Vice- President of the National Workingwomen’s Association and traveled extensively.

9.    Lozier, Clemence    

She was the founder of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women. Dr. Clemence Sophia Lozier was one of the earliest women who practiced medicine and was thoroughly identified with the cause of medical education for women.

10.   Payne, Jessica   

Although she was not a physician like her mother and grandmother, Jessica nevertheless was aware of the plight of poor, needy women and performed much charity work. She was also a correspondent during World War I in England.

11.   Sands, Sarah Walker   

Sarah was an early settler of Block Island and served as the island’s “surgeon,” ministering to the needs of all on the island. Her home served as a church and hospital and was a haven for any stranger.

12.   Simpson, Cora Eliza  

Cora began life as a child of pioneers, traveling by covered wagon to Oregon. After receiving a public health nursing certificate from Simmons College in Boston, she traveled to China in 1907 as a missionary. There she founded and directed the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing.

13.   Trout, Jennie Kidd   

Jennie was the first woman physician licensed to practice in Canada, passing the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons examinations at the age of 34. on May 13, 1875. Dr. Trout opened the Therapeutic and Electrical Institute, featuring “special facilities for giving treatment to ladies by galvanic baths or electricity.” The Toronto medical college opened on October 1, 1883, and the Kingston Women’s Medical College opened the next day with Jennie Trout as one of the trustees. The two colleges merged as the Ontario Medical College for Women in Toronto in 1894. Jennie, a strong temperance advocate, served as Vice President and President of the Women’s Temperance Union. Also, for a time, she was Vice President of the Association for the Advancement of Women.

14.   Cuillerier, Marie-Anne   

Marie-Anne entered the order of the Nuns Hospitallers of St. Joseph at Montreal in 1694, and from 1725 to 1747, she held the secretary’s office. Her letters and annals contain first-hand information on the difficulties of daily life in New France and the religious mentality of the inhabitants of Canada.  

15.   Dyer, Mary Barrett   

Followers of Anne Hutchinson, Mary, and William Dyer were excommunicated and banished from Boston and followed Anne to Rhode Island, where they were among the founders of Portsmouth. Mary spent several years in England, where she met George Fox, founder of the Quaker religion, and returned to the colonies in time for the new laws which banished Quakers from the M.A. Bay Colony upon pain of death. Imprisoned several times and nearly hanged once alongside two Quakers Friends, Mary returned to Boston one too many times and became the first woman hanged for her Quaker convictions.

16.   Hooton, Elizabeth   

A disciple of George Fox, Elizabeth was one of the first female Quaker preachers imprisoned several times in England and colonial Massachusetts. Twice she was jailed in Boston, then carried two days journey into the forest and left there to starve. Both times she managed to find her way back to Rhode Island, even after one time of having been “whipped through three towns.”

17.  Hutchinson, Anne    

She was a visionary ahead of her time who believed that women were equally capable of interpreting the Bible without intervention from church elders; Anne Hutchinson advocated religious freedom and toleration and was banished from Boston for her “radical” ideas. Anne and her followers went to Rhode Island, where they founded the first civil government in America, the colony of Portsmouth.

18.   Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland   

Wife of King Malcolm III of Scotland, Margaret helped civilize and refine her husband and her adopted country. She devoted time and money to works of charity, assisting the poor, the aged, the orphans, and the sick. Margaret re-founded the monastery on the Island of Iona and built a church at Dunfermline. She was the mother of four Scot kings and mother-in-law of England’s King Henry I.

19.   Starbuck, Mary Coffin   

Reverend Mary was one of the first Quaker leaders in Nantucket, MA, who held meetings at her house until a proper Meeting House could be built. She catered to her members’ well-being and was also a good counselor.

20.  Wilkinson, Jemima   

Jemima, also known as the “Universal Publik Friend” or “The Friend,” was a descendant of Rhode Island Quakers. After a near-death experience, she became the founder of a new religious order called “The Universal Friends,” a forerunner of the more popular Christian Scientists.

21. De Marillac Louise

De Marillac Louise was a devout French woman married to a high official. After her husband’s death, she established a sheltering ministry for women in crisis. At the time of her death, the ministry had more than 40 houses throughout France and 26 more in Paris alone.

22. Bojaxhiu Gonxha Agnes (MOTHER TERESA)

Mother Teresa was recognized worldwide as the very personification of compassion. Her duty was to minister to the sick, the poorest of human societies, the disabled, and the dying. She did for more than a half-century; to her, it is Christ in His distressing disguise whom she loved and served. She claimed to be God’s pencil which He writes what He likes. She was an active participant in 126 nations and six continents. She operated more than five hundred homes and clinics. As a Catholic Nun and Missionary sister in Calcutta, India, she was laden with the poverty of the Cross, walked the streets, and responded to the distress of children, the sick, and the poor.

In 1950, Mother Teresa founded the order of the Missionaries of Charity, which was dedicated to alleviating human suffering. To her, God is all, and she is nothing. Ladies Home Journal in the Spring 1999 book included her in the 100 most influential women of the 20th Century and observed that Mother Theresa believed in the preciousness and dignity of human life that was as unshakable as her deep religious faith. In Greek Souls, Six who changed the Century, authored by David Aikman, he said of Mother Teresa that she not only demonstrated what true light is but to her dying day, she pointed the way for millions and millions of others to find it too.

23. Nightingale Florence (1820 – 1910)

Florence is known as the “Lady with the lamp.” That was the signature tune of this amiable woman. Florence met a deplorable situation on the ground at the English General Hospitals in Turkey, but she did not despair. Instead, she brought a ray of hope and won great respect for herself. She was the rock all clung to in the hospital due to her calmness, resources, and power to take action. Florence forsook wealth, fame, and social life to become a nurse.

She had her aunt (her father’s sister, Mai) as her spiritual mother. Florence radically changed hospital administration and reformed nursing by making it a respectable profession. The London Times reported: When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp, in her hand, making her solitary rounds. Florence’s contributions to the care of the sick and wounded in the Crimean war were greatly applauded and appreciated. The grateful people of England donated $250,000 that she used to establish the Nightingale Home for Nurses.