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Widow Chooses Exciting Life

What does a woman do after her mate of many years dies?

Most women remain settled among their friends and loved ones. But former park commissioner Margaret Coles decided to make her life count by serving others less fortunate with her special skills and experience as a medical technician.

"The Lord had done so much for me," Margaret Coles says, "that about a year after my husband died I wanted to serve Him in some special way that would utilize my skills to show His love to other people.

Then I was invited by the Christian Medical Society to go on a two-week medical mission tour to Honduras. They urgently needed a technologist who could set up laboratories without the help of a computer. Few technologists today can do that, but because I had been in that field for so long, I could."

Roughing it in Honduras
Carrying their equipment and supplies, 140 medical personnel divided into teams that set out early in the morning for various remote Indian villages. "We traveled by narrow-gauge railroad, plane, truck, donkey cart and dugout canoe," Margaret says. "We sent word ahead that we were coming and usually would find several hundred people awaiting us, for they had no doctors, dentists or clinics."

Margaret ran tests and helped the doctors diagnose ailments. "Everyone worked elbow to elbow in the one building we might find available," she says, "except for the dentists, who set-up shop under a palm tree. The frustrating part of the work was the sheer numbers who came seeking help. Sometimes we had up to 500 a day. They started lining up at two a.m. The eye team, for instance, daily fitted nearly 300 persons with glasses and performed up to 19 eye surgeries. We often worked until ten at night, using kerosene lanterns and flashlights."

Christian Love Wins Souls to Christ
In spite of their heavy work load, the medical team fulfilled their primary goal of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with their patients.

"We saw many receive Christ as their Savior," Margaret says. "But those people are very suspicious of Americans, and first you must prove your love and compassion for them by binding their wounds. Then they will listen."

The medical team found an abandoned clinic with lab equipment in one village. "Wouldn't it be good if we could return here with the necessary parts and repair this clinic?" Margaret exclaimed to her co-workers. They agreed.

On her return to the States, Margaret obtained the parts, tools and manuals necessary to repair the equipment in that laboratory. Then she and three others returned to Honduras in December.

"During the three months I was there," she says, "I not only repaired the laboratory, but I trained three national girls to use the equipment. A Moravian missionary doctor who had served there several years before is now back using that lab with the help of those three girls."

Margaret also found many opportunities this time to witness for Christ. "People came for miles around to get medical help," she says, "and I was able to lead a number of them to the Lord."

The Indians thought the medical missionaries were superhuman, but Margaret assured them that she was only human like them. "If you will put your trust in the Lord," she told them, "He will help you just as He does me. He will always be with you as He is with me.

Mission Work Expanded
The medical technician made trips with CMS teams to the Dominican Republic and Honduras during the several years that followed.

"On these trips we bought soap, baby blankets and other things to give the people," she says. "I brought up to 13 cartons of soap. With each bar goes a gospel tract in Spanish.

One day two women walked a six-hour round trip just to get a bar. So for the cost of one bar of soap, each they were reached with the message of salvation."

The following year Margaret sailed with a group called Project Partners with Christ on a Christian medical ship bound for Guatemala. She set up a laboratory on the "Sea Angel" and trained two nurses in its use.

During a tour of the villages around a large inland lake in Guatemala, Margaret assessed what needed to be done to restore or set up laboratories for clinics in various places. Although what she did was not directly involved in bringing the gospel, it made it possible for medical missionaries to reach many for Christ in the areas serviced by those clinics.

In between making such short-term mission trips to Central America at her own expense, the dedicated technician has worked with the Voice of Calvary Ministries, founded by John Perkins, setting up a laboratory and clinics to help black people in Mississippi. A Christ-centered organization, it seeks not only to help the people physically and materially, but also to bring them to the Lord.

All-Around Woman
Margaret Coles came to know Christ as her Savior at a summer camp when she was 17. She and her husband operated a medical laboratory in Iowa during their 28 years of marriage. An avid airplane pilot and tennis player, she has served as a park commissioner and state board member of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.

"I knew many women my age who had lost their husbands," Margaret says, "and I just decided I was not going to be a typical widow who felt that life was over. As long at the Lord opens doors, I'II go through them!"

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Dr. Muriel Larson, author of 17 books and thousands of published writings and songs, is a Doctor of Religious Education, a certified professional counselor, long-time professional writer, counselor and speaker and has taught at writers' conferences across the United States. She also serves as an advice columnist for  Christian Women Today.