Leota's Life

I first met this small, dark-haired lady at a Sunday evening service in Bagley in northern Minnesota. Twenty five miles west of Bemidji, the town boasted 1316 inhabitants—and I’m sure Leota was the most sincere and passionate woman among them.

She greeted Dan and me warmly after the service and was excited to hear that we were sent by the Christian and Missionary Alliance to restart Ebro Community Church, seven miles west. She had grown up near that area. She and her children soon joined us for morning services in the hamlet of Ebro—she and her five girls and son filled a whole pew! Josh her husband began visiting sporadically. He ran a thriving plumbing and heating business and by his own admission was not a believer yet.

What was it about Leota (Lee) that impressed me? Her passion was selfless. Hospitable dinners and youth groups in her comfortable home…intense discussions as we studied the Bible at her table…a desire for more of God, the filling, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She trained her children well and modeled for me the Proverbs 31 virtuous woman.

A year later when the tiny church was thriving, and I was nursing young Nicholas, my marriage with Dan began to fragment. Lee was a bulwark, her home a haven. When Dan didn’t come home one night after he resigned the ministry, she and I went looking for him. Had there been a motorcycle accident on his drive to Bemidji? She and her family prayed for me in the dark days after I found out about “the other woman.”

Dan and I moved away for a time to live with his family, then separated. It was during a long month in Phoenix while Nick and I were in an efficiency at the Pharaoh Apartments that I began to call Lee at three or four in the morning. I needed prayer. I was wasting away in the wilderness…couldn’t sleep much at night, and had little appetite. My weight dropped to barely above 100 pounds. I was Hagar in the wilderness, Ruth gleaning small sheaves to stay alive-- Leota prayed me through.

Eventually I moved back to Bagley and Lee rented her parents’ little home to me and Nick. Set among tall pines on the outskirts of town, I was 17 miles from my nursing job in Fosston, but only 2 miles from Leota and the warmth of her family. Dan moved back to Ebro and the other woman.

In the following months I met with Lee and other friends often to pray. Nick turned two in the summer, and my parents arrived home from the mission field of Irian Jaya. What a relief to have them closer! They talked to Dan…he was adamant in his desire for divorce, and soon after finalized it.

I moved to the Twin Cities to live near my parents and later remarried, my father walking me down the aisle before they returned to the mission field. Leota and I kept in touch through the years. She went on to get her teaching degree and taught disadvantaged school children. After retiring she led Bible studies at the local jail and launched a Christian library-reading room. And she published Beyond These Walls, a book of Bible study outlines.

Timothy had Paul, Melancthon had Luther, and I had Leota for a season of my life. And now I wonder…am I there for others at four AM? To listen to the gush of heartbreak bleeding and stanch the flow? Am I willing to listen to a draining person, and then pray and pray and pray. Being a lifeline is not just saving one…the line stretches out to other people the survivor reaches through the years.

I am taking any four AM calls seriously. And I watch for hurting people. I know them…I was one.