“We were all so happy.” - Nora Chambers

As I pause to ponder on the past and dream future dimensions of God-Possibilities for women in ministry, I’m inspired by a woman named Nora Chambers.  She was an unusual woman for the early 1900’s. She had a pioneering spirit, well-educated and was filled with the “Holy Spirit’s baptism with fire and evidence of speaking in tongues.”  That produced a radical Kingdom builder.

She and her husband, Fred, came to the mountains of North Carolina, in the spring of 1911 to be an evangelistic team with E. J. and Millie Boehmer.  Millie had been converted in a Blairsville, Georgia revival in 1910. The two couples faced great persecution, including being burned out of several places of worship and their homes.  One night six masked men broke into their home and seventy more men waited outside.  They dragged Fred outside and beat him unconscious. Nora escaped and warned the Boehmer’s.

In Like A Mighty Army, Charles Conn wrote the following about Nora—

“Years later she recalled those days of beginning ministry:

‘There we were, a little band without money, without friends, no law to protect us from those determined to drive us out.  We were stoned many times, poisoned, and fired at…angry mobs continually threatened our lives, but God revealed Himself to us in many ways. When we had to walk eighteen to twenty-five miles in one day to reach an appointment, the trip was made with shouting, dancing, talking in tongues, and praising God. We were all so happy.” In 1918, Nora Chambers became the first teacher of the newly formed Church of God Bible Training School (now known as Lee University).

I work with and meet women every week who have the same pioneering spirit of Nora Chambers.  We seldom experience the physical beatings or have our dwellings burned to the ground here in the United States, but many brothers and sisters around the world do face these things.  The pioneering spirit may look a little different today but there are still sacrifices made and difficult times to navigate.

Here is the good news! The same Holy Spirit in the book of Acts and in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina will equip Church of God women today with boldness by doing what Nora Chambers described they did in the early 1900’s.

May our prayer for today and testimony be, “… and her ministry trip was made with shouting, dancing, praying in tongues and praising God.  We were so happy!”

Charla Madden

International Women’s Advisory Council