Today, Audrey Hebbert, a new friend, shares a story about a woman we can all admire. Here’s Audrey:

“Gwen Edland is a strong woman. Rather than relaxing in retirement, the 74-year-old Nebraska great-grandmother has become a globetrotting evangelist, sharing the gospel even in the world’s more dangerous places.

Sometimes teaming up with organizations like the Omaha Rapid Response Team to offer food and supplies, other times organizing her own team, Edland has prayed with thousands to receive Christ in more than 67 nations, including Iraq, China and Russia. A registered nurse, certified teacher and licensed pastor, Edland has given away countless Jesus and Passion of the Christ videos, and the evangelistic pamphlet, Step Up To Life, which has been translated into more than 28 languages.
(Gwen, Ken & Waheed)

“Being with Gwen is like being with a modern day Moses because it seems like the sea just parts and we walk right through,” said David Collins, Life Care Pastor at Trinity Church Interdenominational in Omaha, Nebraska. He has accompanied Edland on trips to China. “It’s an astonishing experience. She’s so dedicated and so focused in her devotion to the Lord.”

Everyone loves Gwen Edland, including children, young people and adults, all the way up to one of her best friends and primary intercessors who is 92 years old. Edland always greets everyone as if they were her best friend. She sincerely inquires about people; she dances with the children in the street; and always has a joke or upbeat comment to make. Yet this is a strong woman who gets the job done for her Lord.

“I always assume I have a green light until God gives me a red light,” she says. A red light does not signal stop, but rather, figure out how to change tactics and get the job done anyway. On May 8th Edland will leave Pastor Rafael’s house in Uganda around 7:00 a.m. with an eight-person team, headed for a temporary clinic. They will diagnose illness and dispense medicines, and share the love of Jesus with an amazing number of people who have lined up along a dirt path until evening, when they move to the area where they conduct evangelistic crusades until after 10:00 p.m. Then it’s home for dinner and rest until the next morning. Somehow this team will find time to deliver sewing machines to people who need to earn money where there are no jobs.

The team will conduct a women’s conference, minister to 50 Ugandan pastors, speak to 97 million muslims on the radio each weekend, and conduct a mass wedding for couples who have become believers and are convicted that they need to be officially married. Gwen has been collecting wedding dresses and rings for the “big wedding.” Since I’ve known Edland, she’s had signs and wonders on her short term missions trips. Her first was in 1993 when she went to Sweden. Without knowing the language, she understood everyone she talked with, and they understood her. Since then she’s escaped flying bullets, safely walked the most dangerous slums in Venezuela, handing everyone a Step Up to Life, and watching them stop to read it. She’s prayed for people with amazing results, and saw a woman come back from the dead.

Read more at http://audrey4j.blogspot.com/2009/02/raised-from-dead.html.

I wrote Green Light Red Light, a novel describing her work in China, where she slips past the Communist officials, shares the gospel with them and everyone in her university-sponsored English classes, and has fun along the way. She plans to be in China this year, July 11-August 15, her 17th trip since 1993.

You’ll find the book at http://www.amazon.com/Green-Light-Red-Audrey-Hebbert/dp/0976522233/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241109229&sr=1-1, and more information at www.audreyhebbert.com “

Thanks, Audrey!