Vera and Charles Ainley were always used to trusting that God would provide what they needed and open the way for what they were to do. One of their sons remembers a story from their time in mission in Pátzcuaro, a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. “Once when we were gathered at the table to pray over a meal, my father told us, ‘This is the last of our food. We need to ask God to provide us what we need.’ A knock on the door interrupted the prayer; when we finished praying, we went out to find that someone had left a bag of food on the porch for us.”
In her memoir, Vera recalls several instances of answered prayer. Once, near the end of their time in Guatemala, she needed to visit a woman she knew. Doña Esther had always waited on her when she shopped in her store. Stricken with cancer, she had now moved to her daughter’s home in Quezaltenango. Vera and a friend wanted to visit her but had no way—Charles was out of town with the car. As the two women prayed for a way to get there, a loud knock on the door was followed by a man’s voice: “Anyone here want to go to Quezaltenango?”

As they approached the town, Vera prayed that God would open Esther’s heart to God’s healing love. When they arrived, it was clear that Esther was suffering. She called to Vera, “I want to get better.” Asking if she could read to her from the Bible, Vera read a passage from John. Esther asked her to read it again and again. After hearing the passage a third time, she accepted Jesus as her Savior. A week later, when Vera returned to give her a copy of the Bible, Esther was up and around and called her family to come listen to the Word.

In 1971, five years after they retired from the mission field, Charles began to have pains in his head that turned out to be arterial sclerosis. When he needed to be hospitalized, she went daily to visit and care for him. One morning as she was feeding him, his eyes focused on the wall and he began to smile. She asked him, “Do you see Jesus?” Charles nodded and went into a coma; three days later, he died. That was almost 32 years ago. Since that time, Vera has continued to live at Westminster Gardens in Duarte, California, thanks to income supplements and housing supplements made possible by your gifts to the Christmas Joy Offering.
The Ainleys’ faith that God would provide for them didn’t imagine that Presbyterians would always offer the means for that support; they knew that God works both through us and around us. But Presbyterians have long felt called to support the individuals and families who serve our church in mission around the world, both during their active ministry and throughout their lives. Just as it is our joy at Christmas to help students at racial ethnic schools and colleges find their calling, so it is our honor to support those who have given their lives to following that call. Today we have a chance to do both of these through our gifts to the Christmas Joy Offering—may we do so joyously and generously.

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