Today is the second Saturday of March 2022, and it is also the second Saturday of “Women’s History Month.”

I am dedicating my column for the four Saturdays of March 2022 to Some Amazing Women of Faith in our Nation’s History.

Last week’s column was about a personal hero of mine, “Gramma” Irene Eskey, who died in February of this year at the age of 115.

Gramma was a shepherdess, a jeweler, a weaver, a prayer-warrior, and a Woman of God who made a quiet and peaceful impact on every person she met.

Irene Eskey was a living part of Native American history.

Women have played a vital role in Christian ministry and missions all throughout history.

Ever since the very beginning of the Christian movement, started by the itinerant Jewish teacher (Rabbi) known as Jesus of Nazareth, women have served as ministry assistants, financial supporters, and teachers and even preachers.

According to the Gospels of Mark and John, the first person to see Jesus after His resurrection from the dead was one of those missionary assistants, a woman called Mary Magdalene.

Jesus gave her a ministry assignment that morning. He told her to “GO to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”

Then Mary, acting in obedience, “answered the call” and told the men, the disciples, that she had seen the Lord, and what He had said to her.

Mary’s continuing history of ministry work is told only by sources other than what is recorded in the Bible.

But this woman, who personally knew the power of Jesus Christ as The Divine Deliverer from demonic powers, set an example of obedience to Jesus, and friendship and companionship with the other disciples and His close-knit followers.

The Book of Acts, written by Dr. Luke, the Apostle Paul’s personal physician, records the account of a woman by the name of Priscilla, a woman used by God to minister to people in Rome, Greece, and throughout Asia Minor.

Priscilla was a Jewish woman who along with her husband, Aquila, lived in Rome until Jews were expelled by the Emperor Claudius.

They met the Apostle Paul in the city of Corinth. Priscilla and her husband had become believers in Jesus Christ before they met the Apostle.

They were leading a house church in their home at that time, and they provided Paul with lodging when he came to their city. They then joined him and traveled with him on his missionary journey.

While Priscilla and Aquila were staying in Ephesus, they heard a man speaking in the synagogue and they described him as “an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures.”

He was an Egyptian Jew, by the name of Apollos. He knew about Jesus, but only through the teaching of John the Baptizer. So, Priscilla and Aquila befriended him and taught him “the way of God more perfectly,” according to Acts 18:26.

Since Priscilla’s name is usually listed first by Dr. Luke, Bible scholars suggest that she was probably more prominent and helpful to the Church than her husband.

Scholars also note that “her role in cross-cultural service, leadership, and teaching were perceived as so normal they did not require special comment or explanation by the writer of Acts.”

Mary Magdalene and Priscilla set the example for other Christian Women of Faith to follow throughout the centuries.

In the early days of Protestant missions, most women who went to the foreign fields were wives of missionaries who had been sent by their church groups.

The Male Missionaries soon realized that contact with women in many of these Non-Western cultures and societies was impossible for them, so their wives began to teach the Gospel to the women.

These Female Missionaries were rarely recognized or honored for the heavy load they carried personally (just like most of today’s women).

Not only did these ladies take care of their household duties and care for their children, but they had to learn a new language and acclimate to a foreign culture; and then, on top of all that, they were busy teaching and ministering to the local women.

Those “unrecognized” Christian women are truly Heroic Women of Faith, worthy of being honored during National Women’s History Month.

In most Missionary Organizations throughout history, single women were only allowed to go to foreign fields to be “nannies” for the missionaries’ children. Sometimes they were allowed to help alongside the missionary wives in the teaching and ministry to the native women.

Christian preachers of the day, like J. Hudson Taylor, A.B. Simpson, D.L. Moody, and A.J. Gordon, believed in “encouraging women’s gifts for public ministry,” especially to evangelize “cross culturally.” This was rare of men during those early years.

Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission wrote, “We are manning our stations with ladies.”

It’s said that throughout its initial history, China Inland Mission “expected women, both single and married, to carry out ALL the missionary duties, including preaching and teaching.”

This was at a time when most Western Christian denominations would never have allowed women to be preachers.

In one study of the letters and articles written by women from the mission field it was said, “the vast majority of women missionaries were motivated by a deep sense of commitment to God, far more than by any desire to attain personal recognition or power.”

The correspondence from these heroic missionary women throughout the years have inspired multitudes of Christian women in the churches back home.

Their reports filled these church ladies with a burning desire for missions and gave them a vision to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

After the Civil War in the United States, so many men were killed, and hundreds of women were left widowed, and were suddenly faced with providing for their families on their own.

This forced women to take on new responsibilities.

Some of these widows started running businesses and local banks. Others ran their farms. And some women even formed colleges and schools.

For the 50 years following the US Civil War, these heroic women inherited a larger role than the men in the missionary endeavors as well.

Since the male-run missionary boards refused to send women directly to the mission field, the dynamic and heroic women of faith decided to organize their own mission boards.

One of the first was the “Woman’s Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands.”

It was started in New York in January of 1861 and established with headquarters in a home at 41 Bible House on Astor Place.

At the Society’s first meeting on January 9th, a female missionary who had recently returned from the country of Burma, was their guest speaker. The next day the women met again and officially organized the Society, and they elected Sarah Platt Doremus as their president.

The Woman’s Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands stated purpose was to “send out and maintain single women as Bible-readers and teachers, and to raise up native female laborers in heathen lands.”

Many other female-run missionary societies were created in the years to follow, and women answered the call of God to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in other countries.

Throughout Christian history, women of faith have been used by God to change their world.

They followed the example of Mary Magdalene and Priscilla in the Bible, and followed the example of modern-day heroines of faith such as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu from Skopje, Macedonia

This brave and selfless little lady stood just barely five feet tall and answered God’s call to GO. And in obedience to God she went.

She boarded a train and went to Calcutta, India, where she began her ministry to the poor and hungry and dying people on the streets. In time she became known as the “Saint of the Gutters.”

We now know her as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

In Jim Reapsome’s column in “World Pulse,” October 9, 1992, he advocated for more training and more support for women in missions.

That column received an almost immediate response from a missionary to a Muslim group in Southeast Asia.

This male missionary wrote: “Interestingly enough, despite the common emphasis on training and using men, here in (name of country deleted), some of the best evangelists are all women! In fact, three of our most important coworkers (who are really doing the most cutting-edge ministry) are women. Interns of Americans, we only have one single man who made the sacrifice to come here but four single women, with three more on the way. In the face of chauvinistic Islam, it is good to be reminded that true Christianity is not chauvinistic, but an equally exciting call to new, fulfilling life for women and men.”

To all of these ladies I say thank you for your example. I know they are amongst that Great Cloud of Witnesses that are spoken of in The Faith Chapters of the Book of Hebrews.

These amazing, brave and inspiring women of faith are worthy of recognition during National Women’s History Month.