Excerpt from a letter from
Bodil Bjørn.
Dear Mrs. Anker!
Thank you very much for the letter 21/6 that I received here in Harunje. You are probably back in Norway, so I send this letter through Miss Ihlen Hansen and I hope you get it. I thank all the dear friends at home for their great gift. I will see how I can use it in the best possible way. In such times as these you need a lot of money. Here there is so many children who are suffering, so it would be lovely if you could support a couple more children from Norway. Yes, what we have not experienced! But God is a wonderful God. We often cannot understand the ways he leads us, but once we get home and into all the glory, all that darkness will be resolved, and we will praise him for the path he let us walk. If God will then I hope to travel home this spring; it's been 5 years since I left.
I feel good here in Harunje, the work has helped me not to think so much about the past and it is a joy to be of help to others. I came here just in time as Mr von Dobler was bedridden with malaria. God be praised, the attack passed quickly, so that he could travel to his family, who were in the mountains at Mezreh. I have now been here alone for 2½ months with a group of 180 children. We live in a large house with a wonderful view of the mountains in the distance. We have a large garden and forests nearby. Although nature is beautiful and the air gentle, it seems to be unhealthy here. I have many sick people here, about 50 mostly with Malaria but also with dysentery and eye diseases and wounded. You can only imagine how much I have to do, as there’s no doctor closer than 2½ hours away; he has so many soldiers to tend to that he doesn't have time for more. I have trained 2 girls and a boy to help me with the sick children. I am very much looking forward to von Dobler's return in mid-October. I have so far bathed every day in a large water basin and slept on the porch, but during the last bad weather I caught a cold, so now I have to give that up. I often take almost daily lessons in Turkish; it is necessary here. I hold the devotions in the children's language, Bible lessons once a week for the boys and once for the girls. Few of the children are converted, yet God speaks to them through their illness. I love this service for the Lord – I have a prayer time once a week with the teachers. I was glad to be with my aunt in Jerusalem during her time of grief, we hope to be able to travel together to Germany for the spring. In Jerusalem much missionary work is being done, so I found the work among this people whom I love more necessary.
Sincerely, to you and all the dear friends.
1. Joh. 3, I6, Esaias 51, 11.
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