67 years of God's faithfulness
Phylis Treasure
serving in India 1957-present
(Day 8 in the Daily Prayer Guide)
Phylis Treasure answered God’s call to serve Him and as a missionary and moved to India in 1957. She lives in her home at Rehoboth, where she has been ‘Mummy’ to hundreds of girls who were denied the opportunity to grow up with their biological families. We asked her to share the story of God’s faithfulness to her these 67 years of service.
I will never forget, years ago when I was a child, I saw my mother kneeling at the side of the bed, tears on her face, with her hand on the open Bible in front of her.
Whatever the conflict she faced, my mother always relied on God and His Word.
She faced every issues in her life with certainty, holding on to the promises of God because it is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18)
Through my life as a missionary, God has taught me the same truth. He is absolutely trustworthy.
Called to India
When I was young, I was given a book about Mrs. Goforth, a missionary in China, as a Sunday School prize. I read how she would go into the community visiting, and one day a poor woman greeted her at the door who said “Please don’t come in today. We have all been ill with fever. I have not had the time nor the energy to clean the house, and the bed is full of bugs.” In her heart Mrs Goforth responded “The love of Christ constrains me”, she knew she must go in, even if it meant discomfort! So she went in, sat on the bed and shared the good news of Jesus.
Phylis Treasure’s mother, grandmother to the children at Rehoboth, during a visit in 1968.
Over the next ten years the Lord kept leading me. I didn’t realise it then, but when I look back I can see that everything I did during those ten years was training. He was shaping my circumstances to bring me in line with His will.
It was ten years after I felt God calling me to be a missionary that I first heard of Rehoboth. I was listening to Miss Edith Wallace speak about her work in India, and God spoke plainly to me “This is My place for you!”
When I read it, my response was, “God, please don’t send me where there are bugs!”
Then I felt God asking me. “How much do you love me? Would a bug stop you from going somewhere if I asked you to?”
After some time, I responded,“I do love you enough to go wherever you ask me to go”.
And that’s when I knew, with that simple statement, that God had his hand on me and that he would send me somewhere one day!
After that, every time there was a missionary meeting I was listening and asking God, “Will you tell me today where you want me to go? But God didn’t tell me yet.
Over the next ten years the Lord kept leading me. I didn’t realise it then, but when I look back I can see that everything I did during those ten years was training. He was shaping my circumstances to bring me in line with His will.
It was ten years after I felt God calling me to be a missionary that I first heard of Rehoboth.
I was listening to Miss Edith Wallace speak about her work in India, and God spoke plainly to me “This is My place for you!”
Edith Wallace in Rehoboth, from The Treasury 1955
I knew God had spoken, but how could I go? Me? I didn’t know the language, I had no training. I wasn’t good enough. What could I do?
How could I leave New Zealand and all the future it held for me?
For nearly a year I questioned and struggled. But God kept speaking through his Word, and through a letter from Miss Wallace to the women at my Assembly. She said that no one had offered to return with her, she couldn’t understand it.
In my heart I said, “No, no one will offer, because I’m the person who is to go back with you!”
But I was still struggling, so I asked God to confirm the call a third time.
In the next Treasury Magazine, written in bold black print, I read the Special Prayer Request: Miss Wallace needs an assistant to go back with her to India”. I was relieved, “Perhaps I could just be an assistant, a helper”.
So God gave me the strength to accept His guidance. I told Miss Wallace that I felt God’s calling to go with her to India.
Some months later, I was standing on the deck of the steam ship, holding on to a paper streamer, my family held the other end standing on the wharf. As our ship pulled away from the wharf, the fragile streamer grew taut and then snapped and I said goodbye to beautiful New Zealand.
Phylis Treasure, and Edith Wallace with the women and girls of Rehoboth, from The Treasure 1962
Adjusting to my new life in India
Adjustment wasn’t easy. Miss Wallace and I moved from Rehoboth to a nearby village. Life was hard, and there were many times of severe homesickness and loneliness living in a place where no English was spoken.
No telephone, no mobile to communicate with loved ones in New Zealand, but by God’s grace, I never doubted His call.
I became seriously ill, three doctors gave me three months to live if I remained in India. I was discouraged beyond words! Yet I refused to return to New Zealand because I KNEW God had called me to India, but God had not told me to return. I didn’t mind if I died, but I did mind if I doubted God’s call.
I did get well, and did complete my first five years before coming back to New Zealand on furlough.
I learned to converse in Malayalam and began to teach a Sunday School class. I also learned from Miss Wallace how to do house visits and share the Word.
In those early days my Bible and hymnbook were my best friends.
They fed, comforted and strengthened me. The Word of God continues to keep me.
Life was hard, but my memory now is not so much the hardness of the way, but the joy of learning much about the preciousness of God and His Word.
God taught me so much about his sufficiency during those years of struggle.
What God has taught me
God showed me two things: that my human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things and, in the words of the hymn writer, ‘every virtue we possess, and every conquest won, and every thought of holiness are His alone.’
Without Him, nothing.
And oh! How I praise the Lord for all those dear New Zealand praying partners, and especially my commending assemblies! I long to see them receive their reward.
I’ve been in India 67 years. Some time ago on a visit to New Zealand I met a dear little old lady who humbly said
“Dear, I have prayed for you every day, twice a day, for fifty years.”
I am nothing and having nothing other than what these dear ones, the Lords who have held me steady. We are workers together! Some stayed behind to “look after the supplies” some “went out to battle. All share alike” (1 Samuel 30:24)
I will continue to do whatever He had prepared for me to do, committing each day to Him, my Lord and Master, believing that I am God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for me to do. (Philippians 2:10).
Pray for Phylis and the Rehoboth family
Colossians 1:9-12.
