BACK IN THOSE INA DAYS!

BACK IN THOSE INA DAYS!

     I was a newly born-again Christian, back in 1968.  Two Christian colleagues at the downtown Hamilton bank in which I was a current account teller at the time, had sensed my spiritual search, got others to pray for me, and had used a Gospel tract to lead me into an eternal relationship with our Saviour Jesus Christ.  What joy was mine, as I now attended Philpott Memorial Church, formerly the Philpott Tabernacle, a church with a heritage of city-wide revival in Dr. Philpott’s day, one even respected and remembered by my Anglican grandmother.

              I had many mentors at the church as a new Christian: my Sunday School teacher- yes, at this evangelical church, adults attended Sunday School too for an hour before the hour-long service – my teacher training instructor and his wife, the organist; the elder who led me to the Lord with his wife and daughter, who showed me so much hospitality on Sundays, a real Sabbath day for me after working all week; our choir director and his family, and so many more.  One day Pastor Stein asked me whether I would like to take a course for new believers.  I said yes, and he said he would pray about whom to ask to teach the course.

              Enter one Ina Gay into my life! 

              I hope this tribute will be a eulogy for this amazing lady. 

              Ina invited me to her apartment for supper, then our lessons.  Soon my sister Margaret, whom I led to the Lord one week after my own salvation experience, and my friend Sue, from the bank, who needed a refresher course in the Word, joined our meetings.  Ina was a single missionary to Israel, now retired because of a life-threatening tumour.  A favourite with the other single missionaries, Ina held down two jobs to support herself: one at the local Bible book store, and one doing financial counselling in a secular workplace. My very favourite story of Ina, feisty, Scottish, sixty-something and 100% passionate for the Lord is as follows:

Her boss at the secular job took the name of the Lord Jesus in vain while at work.  Ina, the next day, came to her boss and they held the following conversation:

Ina: “May I be transferred, please?” (This was in her rolling Scottish brogue, sounding more like “transfaird”).

              The boss: “Why, Ina?  Your work here is excellent!  We don’t want to lose you!”

              Ina: “Because the Lord Jesus Christ is my best Friend, and I can’t be around when His name is taken in vain!

              Boss: “Oh, I had no idea you felt that way.  I’ll be careful that it doesn’t happen again.  Will you please stay?”

              Ina:” Yes, I’ll stay on that condition only.”

Wow!  That stance of Ina’s still inspires me to holiness and faithfulness.  I can almost sense her cheering me on to holiness, as part of the great cloud of witnesses in Heaven who pray for us.

In fact, anything else I may write about Ina is eclipsed by this anecdote.  However, I will finish this story off.  I was tempted as a new Christian, but kept it to myself, when I should have gone running to Ina, who would have prayed for and counselled me.  However, as she was wise and discerning, she probably knew anyway.

She invited my mother to dinner, as an attempt to win her to salvation, saying that two “such lovely girls” must have a wonderful mother.  She made trifle-she enjoyed hospitality  - but my mother declined, not quite understanding the role of this spiritual mother in my life.

Ina invited other people to speak at our meetings: another single missionary and the pastor’s wife, who taught us about church history.  One night we had a session about missionary callings.  My sister Margaret was crying, and the ladies thought that this was her night to accept a call from the Lord to missions.  However, it was more an emotional reaction, and her deep grief in life.  I was the one with  the calling, but that came out later.  Margaret went on to become a force to be reckoned with in taking people’s prayer requests to big places such as Dr. Yonggi Cho’s prayer mountain, and a Scottish Bible College which had been established by a family of alcoholics who received salvation and brought the message of household salvation to the world, appearing on 100 Huntley Street, and who had a 24/7 prayer tower.  So she was certainly a missionary in that sense!

I visited Ina in the hospital, where her stomach tumour had become so large that clothing would not fit over it.  She asked me if I was going on a date, because I was dressed up, but I was dressed up to visit her – she did not realize how important she was in my life. Ina had taken the Biblical route of asking the church elders to pray for her, and told me that she could really feel the Holy Spirit at that time.  However, her healing was not to be.  She passed away.  I am so thankful for the Christian lady in the waiting room who reminded me that it was about what was best for Ina, not our feelings of missing her.  That was God’s kind way of helping me to let Ina go.

At Ina’s funeral, with the few attendees and the cheapest canvas coffin available, I disobeyed the instructions not to give flowers but to give to a charity.  I could not help but put a small wreath of roses there.  But oh, what a welcoming homecoming she must have received in Heaven!

Oh, one last thing:  as a new believer, I assumed that her missionary tale would be full of adventure.  I remember her telling me that she tried to win souls in Israel by proving that the rabbis had changed certain words in the Scriptures which pointed too much to Jesus as the Messiah.

As for her scariest moment?  Being chased by a bull in Scotland!

See you soon, Ina –what an inspiration you have been to me.