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 The
Lord's Handmaid
Anna
Sutherland 1939 - 2004
On January 22nd 2004,
at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Anna Sutherland passed peacefully into
the presence of her Lord and Saviour. She had been admitted to hospital
in Inverness with a liver infection just before Christmas and on Friday
16th January she was flown to Edinburgh, where she died the following
Thursday.
When I first met Anna
in 1984, I was transported back twenty years to a time when one of the
nation’s favourite TV programmes was Dr Finlay’s Casebook.
Watching the programme, I used to feel that all the niceness, sweetness
and kindness in the world had been distilled into the voice of the
doctor’s faithful housekeeper Janet. That was how I felt when I met
Anna. It was not only Anna’s lyrical voice that was lovely, I
discovered, but also her character. She was wonderfully sweet,
abundantly kind and genuinely nice.
Anna was born in the
picturesque fishing village of Brora in Sutherland on the east coast of
Scotland. In her teens, soon after her conversion, she felt the call of
the Lord to Christian service and enrolled at the Faith Mission Bible
College. Attending a Friday evening synagogue service in East Anglia,
Anna realised that, for all their religion, Jewish people would perish
without Messiah and subsequently applied to work as a missionary with
CWI.
She began her
missionary service in 1971 in Glasgow under the supervision of Ray and
Nelly McCabe. Not knowing where to begin, she prayed that the Lord
would “open doors” and give her “the grace to speak sincerely and
honestly” to all she met. She was introduced to the Zionist
organisation Pioneer Women but at the first meeting she sat
quietly in a corner while the women argued loudly over every proposal.
She wondered what she had gotten herself into. However, a friendship
developed with a young mother who, after many discussions, recognised
that Jesus was the Messiah. Anna worked very hard in Glasgow to the
point that some of her colleagues felt her health was suffering. She
was loved by the people she visited and helped, so much so that one
elderly Jewish lady said Anna was the best friend she had.
In 1988 Anna joined
John and Katie Graham in Sydney, where she was to work for twelve
years. The Australian climate was more favourable to outdoor evangelism
and, in addition to door-to-door visiting, John and Anna regularly
distributed tracts at Bondi beach. She was a frequent contributor to
the discussions at a Jewish/Christian dialogue group in Sydney, where
she gently but fearlessly defended the gospel. Just prior to Anna’s
retirement the 2000 Olympics took place in Sydney, providing an
exciting opportunity for her to be part of a team reaching large
numbers of people with the gospel.
After her retirement
Anna returned to her beloved Brora, to a cottage overlooking the North
Sea. Those who knew her will remember Anna as a calm, gentle and deeply
spiritual lady who also had a great sense of fun. We miss her, and our
thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones.
Mike
Moore
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