Here’s the rest of Evelyn Brand’s story. At age seventy she received word from her home mission office that they weren’t going to give her another five–year term. But she had Caleb’s ‘we can certainly do it’ attitude. A party was held to celebrate her time in India, and everyone there cheered her on. ‘Have a good trip back home,’ they all said. ‘I’ll tell you a little secret,’ she announced, ‘I’m not going back home. I’m staying in India.’ Evelyn had a little shack built with some resources that she had smuggled in. Then she bought a pony to get around the mountains, and this septuagenarian would ride from village to village on horseback to tell people about Jesus. She did that for five years on her own. One day, at 75 years old, she fell and broke her hip. Her son, Paul Brand, the eminent doctor, said to her, ‘Mom, you’ve had a great run. God’s used you. It’s time to give it up now. You can go back home.’ She replied, ‘I am not going back home.’ She spent another eighteen years travelling from one village to another on horseback. Falls, concussions, sicknesses and ageing could not stop her. Finally, when she hit 93 years old, she could not ride a horse any more. So the men in these villages—because they loved Granny Brand so much—put her on a stretcher and carried her from one village to another. She lived two more years and gave those years as a gift, carried on a stretcher, to help the poorest of the poor. She died, but she never retired. She just graduated.
How about You? Will you say with me today '...We can certainly do it.'
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