We watched the women prisoners file slowly from their cells into the common area. Their plain, dull uniforms seemed to match their expressionless faces. The team of four women from our assembly stood at the front of the room trying to urge a smile or even a mumbled hello. A few were obviously relieved by this opportunity to escape the monotony of their cells and managed to squeeze a tight-lipped smile–even though we were “church people.”
As we prepared to begin our little meeting, Anna made her way through the women, passing out hymn sheets. At the bottom of the page she had included the name and address of our assembly with the hopes that some might visit us when they got out of jail. Suddenly from the back corner of the group, a squeal pierced the flat murmuring. “Northwest Gospel Hall! I know that place–that’s where Aunt Mabel goes, isn’t it?”
Anna smiled. She knew Aunt Mabel many years ago, before she was called home to heaven. The gruff voice from the corner demanded the attention of everyone in the room as she regaled them with tales of a little angel who used to invite her and her sisters into her apartment for cookies and hot chocolate. Sandra dug into her childhood memories and retrieved every detail of that little upstairs apartment and the Bible stories that they had heard there. She remembered going to Sunday School and meeting other Christians in the assembly. Hers was one of many lives that had been impacted by Mabel Carter and her love for the children in her neighborhood.
Two months later, our team stood in the same room in the jail with a group of inmates that were apparently entirely different from any of the faces we had seen previously. Then we heard a familiar gruff voice traveling towards us. Sandra came huffing out of her cell, late for the meeting, putting final touches on a special gift for us–it was a story she had printed with a pencil on plain white paper about Aunt Mabel.
“I Believe in Angels” was the title. It was in memory of “Miss Mable Carter: A true angel from our heaven above. Her gift to me was Jesus. I still see her smile on her face.”
My face broke into a huge grin and tears gathered in my eyes as I read the words she had written. I now live in the house where Aunt Mabel lived for many years and it is my dream to touch the lives of our neighbor children in the way she did. I read Sandra’s words: “I will always remember her smile was as bright as a star, all the times me and my sisters and my brother stoped by her apartment for hot choclate, and cookies, and storys that we loved her to read about Jesus. She was such a sweet lady. I will never forget her. Miss Mable was a angel and worked for God…I know in my heart Miss Mable is in heaven. I have a deep feeling from her in my heart, I know anyone who knows her feels the same, I wish to be with her in heaven some day.”
Surely someone who leaves an impression so deeply after almost twenty years must have been an outstanding Christian–unusually gifted and bold for the Lord! Not really. I found that out by asking friends who knew her best. In fact, if there was one word to describe Mabel when she was first saved, it was “timid.” She was so timid that when she got a job at a Christian bookshop, she often prayed that no one would come in so she wouldn’t have to talk to strangers. (The bookshop soon had to close!) Her heart was burdened for her neighbors, but when she went to visit their homes, she said her heart was beating louder than her knock on the door.
But she kept at it.
Aunt Mabel continued to visit her inner-city neighbors, inviting them to meetings, entertaining the children in her home, and baking special cookies and treats for them.
She offered to babysit for friends, so they could go to the gospel meeting–but later discovered they used her services for a night at the movies or the bar. Aware of their deception, she kept going back, confident that eventually they would feel guilty enough to go to the meeting like they promised. Sure enough, both parents, and the whole family were eventually saved.
She hosted Bible studies for hippie teenagers. Sometimes they would steal things from her apartment, but she didn’t mind as long as she could slip a word in the gospel in with the stolen goods.
Since she lived near Gospel Folio Press, every Saturday morning Aunt Mabel would wrap up little bundles of blank scrap paper in Sunday School papers and hand them out with a cookie to the neighbor children. Soon youngsters were traipsing from all around the area every week to receive the little gift.
One Saturday morning about three years ago there was a knock on the door of Gospel Folio Press. One worker had “happened” to stop by for a few minutes and curiously went to the door to see who would be there on a Saturday morning. It was a middle-aged woman with her son in his early twenties. She was visiting the neighborhood and wanted to show her son this important landmark in her life: where she received the Sunday School paper whose message had led her to salvation. And now she had led her son to the Lord, too, and she wanted him to see where it all began. They were sorry to hear that Aunt Mabel was not there anymore and disappointed that no one was handing out cookies anymore. But they wanted to return to say thanks.
As years passed, timid Aunt Mabel became a fearless witness. She eagerly “dropped in” on houses that no one else would dare approach. A couple of houses from her home was just such a house. One of the little ones was having a birthday so Mabel offered to prepare a meal for her family. By then she was not well and could barely move about her own kitchen. Friends tried to compel her to rest and let someone else do the work. It was too much for her, they insisted. But Aunt Mabel was determined: “I’ll do this if it kills me,” she said. She knew of no one who would be willing or able to take her place.
Aunt Mabel thought she didn’t have anything much to offer, but what she had, she gave to the Lord. Only eternity will reveal the miraculous fruit that her unique ministry bore in hundreds of lives.