Martha

“I always say I was born in a raspberry patch,” laughs Martha Peters. “Of course that’s a joke, but Mother was working in the raspberries when she went into labour with me.”

Martha’s parents, John & Susanna Braun, arrived in Canada from Ukraine in 1926, virtually stripped of all earthly possessions. Like other Mennonite families, they had fled the Soviet Union for religious freedom in Canada.

After staying with relatives in Saskatchewan for a year, they moved to an undeveloped area in BC’s Fraser Valley – called Yarrow. They were among the first 12 Mennonite families to settle there. The earth was fertile; but how could they make a living? They had to start from scratch. After trying several different crops, John Braun decided to plant raspberries. He was the first farmer in Yarrow to plant raspberries; and soon others followed his example. Before long there was a good market for that delicious fruit.

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Martha was born July 12, 1930; the fourth of seven children. The holy Bible was central in her life, and her parents made sure their children attended church and Sunday School faithfully. “The very first Bible verse I learned as a little child,” she remembers, “was GOD IS FAITHFUL. I grew up in the Bible; but it wasn’t until I was 14 years old that I made a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus.” At a ‘Light Bearers Mission Band’ meeting she suddenly realized that, the words of Isaiah 53:5,6 applied to her: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” At age 17 she was baptized and became a member of the Yarrow Mennonite Brethren church. She began teaching Sunday School, too – something she continued to do for many years, wherever she lived.

Martha graduated from High School and Bible School in Yarrow. Then, on the recommendation of one of her Bible School teachers, she went to work with CANADA INLAND MISSIONS – an outreach of Canadian MB churches to small communities like Grand Forks in BC’s southern interior. Three summers in a row, Martha assisted missionaries George & Erna Martens at the Grand Forks Gospel Chapel, teaching Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and Kindergarten; and helping wherever she could. That was her first taste of mission work.

For a while she also worked as secretary for WEST COAST CHILDREN’S MISSION, preparing and marking Bible lessons for the mailbox club. Corresponding with children from across the province, it was gratifying to receive notes like: “I asked Jesus to come into my heart.”

Employment with a finance company took Martha to Vancouver, where she became an active member of a youth organization which ministered in Rest Homes and at the Union Gospel Mission. Then, in 1973, while on a missions tour to Africa, a serious question was put to her: “Now that you have seen missions in action, would you be willing to go if the Lord calls you?” The answer seemed easy – God wasn’t calling her; because she was neither a teacher nor a nurse. However, when, through various events and encouragements, she came to realize that He was indeed calling her to the mission field, she did have faith and courage to go. The LORD called her to Mexico in 1975, to serve in the finance department with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Martha served Him there for 9 years, until the doors of Mexico suddenly closed to foreign missionaries. Then, for the next 5 years, she worked at Wycliffe head office in Calgary.

April 16, 1989 was a most memorable day for Martha, to say the least. Neil Peters, a special friend, came calling. Widowed, he was traveling to Saskatchewan alone to visit relatives. She was glad to see him — he and his wife, Tina, old friends, had been her faithful supporters all these many years. Martha had often stayed in their home, on trips back from Mexico. How sad, to think that Tina was gone. Then, at the end of a pleasant day’s visit, Neil posed a most surprising question. Martha was taken aback.

“He asked me, ‘Will you be the answer to my prayer?’ That’s all he said! But I couldn’t help but know what he meant. I said, ‘I will pray about it.’ Both of us knew what the answer would be . . .”

They were married that fall, August 19, 1989, at Willingdon MB Church in Burnaby, her home supporting church at that time.

“The LORD has been very good to me,” is Martha’s testimony. “I am so thankful to have grown up in a Christian home. The LORD has always been faithful. GOD IS FAITHFUL! and He has led me all the way. There’s no better place to be, than in the will of God. In order to succeed, to bear fruit for Time and Eternity, to live for the LORD, we must let Him have His way in our life.” A favourite hymn aptly expresses Martha’s sentiments: “All the way my Saviour leads me! What have I to ask beside?"

After the wedding, Martha and Neil made their home in Penticton where they continue to serve the LORD at GRACE MB Church; and at Ten Thousand Villages store (an outlet for craftsmen from Third World countries). “We like to serve the LORD and witness for Him wherever we can.”

Martha remembers and will always cherish a Bible-verse motto which hung on her grandmother’s wall: ‘THE LORD KNOWETH THEM THAT ARE HIS’ (2 Timothy 2:19).

March 2002

© 2002 SKM