Today’s Scripture: Galatians 6:9
There is a fifth woman who is not mentioned in scripture, but she is almost an embodiment of Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, and Miriam. Her name is Lillian Trasher.
In 1910, almost 3,500 years after the story of baby Moses, God called 23-year-old Lillian Trasher to break off her engagement ten days before the wedding and become a missionary to Africa. Her family and closest friends tried to convince her to reconsider this decision. But, she knew she had to obey God’s call.
Lillian arrived in Egypt with only $100 to her name and no idea of what she was supposed to be doing. She just knew that God had called her and she was willing to go. Within a few months of arriving in Egypt, Lillian was asked to visit a dying woman who had recently given birth to a baby girl being cared for by her elderly grandmother. The mother died shortly after Lillian arrived, and an Egyptian translator informed Lillian that the grandmother planned to throw the baby into the Nile River (Sound familiar?)
Lillian offered to take the baby, giving life where there was the stench of death. Over the next fifty years, Lillian “adopted’ more than 10,000 orphans and raised them at the Lillian Trasher Orphanage in Assiout, Egypt. She became known throughout Egypt as The Nile Mother. The very river that represented death 3,500 years ago now offered life.
A few weeks before her death, a news reporter asked her, “Miss Trasher, what is the secret of your missionary success? What is the greatest thing you ever did?” Her reply: “There isn’t any secret. I just stayed. I did not quit. I stayed with the work God gave me to do.”[1]
- What qualities in the five women in this study would you like to see in your own life?
- How will your walk with the Lord be different after this week’s quest?
[1] Janet & Geoff Benge, Lillian Trasher, The Greatest Wonder in Egypt (Seattle: YWMA Publishing, 2004).