Where Angels Fear to Tread

As an adult, I only spent a couple of Mother's Days with my mother because we lived on opposite coasts, but I always sent her the prettiest card I could find. In later years, I was able to call her. She's been gone for four years now, but her influence on my life still lingers. The daughter of Charles and Florence Personeus, the first Assemblies of God missionaries to Alaska (1917-1982), my mother followed in their footsteps in ministry.

Mother playing the piano at about 85 years of age

At the age of 10, Mother taught herself to play the piano. "I was just playing the notes," she said, "but I wanted to play better."

In her early twenties, she heard someone play "fancy," as she called it. One night, she prayed, "Lord, please help me to play fancy." She went to bed, and dreamed that she was playing all over the keyboard.

The next morning, when she awoke, she went to the piano and began to play. For the first time in her life, she was able to play fancy. "It was God who gave me the ability," she said. Until the last week of her life at the age of 89, in spite of Parkinson's and cancer, she played hymns from her wheelchair, running arpeggios all up and down the keyboard.

Mother & Me

A favorite memory of my childhood was waking from Sunday afternoon naps to hear her playing the piano and singing hymns in her beautiful soprano voice.

When I was four years old, my parents operated a children's home in Juneau, Alaska. While Daddy worked to support the home, Mother cared for the thirteen children, including her own three preschoolers. Nine of us were under five with two babies in cribs, and Mother often had no help. Sometimes she'd get so busy feeding and looking after us children that she'd forget to eat.

After five years, her health broke, and my parents had to close the home. A few years later, my father became a pastor, first in Pelican, then in Seward while I was in high school, and in Valdez after we left home.

Throughout their years of pastoring, Mother worked alongside my pastor-father in music, children's and women's ministries, and visitation. She had begun writing Christian songs when she was 16 and before she died had compiled a book of 44 of her songs and a Christmas cantata she had composed. She sang solos in church and on the radio and directed all the Christmas and Easter programs.

My parents, Bob & AnnaMae Cousart

In addition to her church work, she was active in the community as well as in PTA, including several years as president. In Juneau, she served on the city and territorial election boards, which counted the votes when Alaska voted for statehood, working 26 hours straight. She also collated the Constitution for the new state. In Valdez, Mother worked as a U. S. postal clerk. When they moved to Fairbanks, she conducted weekly church services in the Pioneers' Home.

After 25 years in Alaska, my parents spent well over 30 years ministering in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys of Central Washington. For a few years, they also ran a Christian school there.

Mother was one of the most creative people I have ever known. In addition to composing songs, she wrote poems, articles, short stories, and teaching materials for church publications. An excellent seamstress, she worked her way through college doing alterations in a dress shop and made most of her own clothes as well as ours. I don't think she ever bought a dress she didn't remake to add her special touch to the design.

A wonderful cook and baker, she sold pies and cakes for the Cookhouse in Pelican and decorated cakes for special occasions. Two I remember specifically: a Grumman Goose seaplane carved out of cake and frosted to look like an Alaska Coastal plane for my father's birthday. (He had been boss of cargo at that airline for 10 years in Juneau.) For a PTA event in Seward, she carved out a large apple from layers of cake and frosted it a shiny red--an apple for the teacher. It looked just like a real apple, only much bigger.

Mother also invented a method of crocheting with plastic wrap and wrote a book, AnnaMae's Plastic Wrap Crochet Craft, which tells how she cut and worked with plastic wrap and included many of her own patterns. She sold her creations at bazaars, craft fairs, and gift shops, although she gave most away as gifts. I have a complete set of her lovely plastic wrap Christmas tree ornaments in a variety of colors. The pearly white snowflakes and angels are my favorites.

She loved to invent gadgets and new ways of doing things. One time in Pelican we were viewing a Billy Graham film in church when the 16-mm projector broke. She fixed it with a bobby pin and the show went on.

Mother was a perfectionist and had strong opinions she was not afraid to express. She never accepted the mediocre in herself or us. When she taught us girls how to sew, she made us rip out seams until we sewed them straight. We began paraphrasing Galatians 6:7, "Whatsoever a woman soweth, that shall she also rip."

We often said that Mother "trod where angels feared to tread." During the summer of the Gulf oil spill, she wrote several letters to President Obama telling him he needed to declare a national day of prayer for the situation. When I remember her teaching me how to sing and play the piano, I imagine that in heaven Mother is now teaching angels how to sing.

Above all, Mother loved the Lord and did all she could to see that everyone she else knew Him too. She was a woman of strong faith and experienced many healings through prayer. At her knee I learned to pray. In her kitchen I learned to cook and clean and iron.

In fifth grade I wrote a poem about my mother. One line said, "She is concerned, of that I am sure,/That I live a life that's clean and pure." I still believe that. In spite of her sometimes annoying perfectionism, I always knew she loved me and was praying for me until the day she went home to be with the Lord. I like to think that she is still praying for me from inside the Pearly Gates.

God Is Never Too Late Conclusion

Last week, I posted Part One of a testimony written by my mother about an occurrence while I was in high school. Here is the dramatic conclusion:

Since our arrival in Seward in February, 1960, we too had been living by faith. Our church was small and unable to support us financially. We had only $30.00 in promised support each month. The cost of living was very high in Alaska. We had four teenagers to feed and clothe. Our two oldest girls were buying a lot of their own clothes with babysitting money, which helped, but they all had healthy appetites and were growing. Sometimes we didn't know where the next meal was coming from, but God was never too late.

The Cousart Family & the Personeuses in front of the Seward,Alaska, church

"Lord, You won't let us down this time either," I breathed as I finished packing our lunches.

"Hey, Mom!" Our 6-feet 1-inch, 13-year-old son, Robert Paul, stood in the doorway. "The kids are wondering what's holding you up. They want to get going."

"Mother, we're all ready and waiting," AnnaLee, our 14-year-old daughter, declared, as she squeezed past her brother and entered the kitchen. "We'll be late if we don't leave soon."

"I know, dear," I answered, giving the already clean counter a final swipe and hanging the dish cloth on the rod. "Honey," I sighed and turned to my husband, "I guess we'd better tell them our problem."

"Yeah, I guess so. Come on." And he led the way to the living room, where the young people were sitting around laughing and talking. They sobered quickly when they saw our grave expressions.

"Young people," my husband began, "I don't know what we're going to do. We've been praying for gas money, but so far, it hasn't arrived. We know you don't have enough money either, so let's pray again, right now." We gathered in a circle, and he led in prayer.

Our living quarters occupied the back of the church building. A boardwalk led along the side of the building to the parsonage door. Just as Bob finished praying, we heard loud footsteps, someone running up the boardwalk.

The doorbell rang vigorously. Before anyone could get there, the door burst open. In came a young man who had recently moved to Seward from Cordova and was now attending our church.

"At work a few minutes ago," he exclaimed, breathlessly, "the Lord impressed on me not to wait until Sunday to pay my tithes but to bring them over to you right away. I asked my boss if I could take my coffee break early. I don't know what this is all about, and I don't have time to find out." He laid some money on the table. "Gotta run! Bye!" And he rushed out the door.

"Praise the Lord!" We all burst out in praises to God.

Quickly, we gathered our things and hurried to the car. Not only was there enough money to buy the gas, but we discovered enough extra to buy a can of pop for each teen to drink with the sack lunches.

God is never too late, and sometimes He even adds an extra treat!

Has God ever given you more than you asked for? I'd love to hear about it.

God Is Never Too Late

This is a "nugget of faith" story my mother, AnnaMae Personeus Cousart, told often. Although I remember the incident, I am writing it from her point of view.

"What should we do?" my husband, Bob, asked softly as he entered the kitchen where I was wiping the counter top after packing sack lunches for our family. "The young people are all here now, and we still don't have the money for gas. I guess I have to tell them we can't go."

Bob & AnnaMae Cousart & family with the Personeuses in Seward, Alaska

It was Friday afternoon in 1960. We were missionaries in Seward, Alaska. A youth rally was to be held that evening in Anchorage, 130 driving miles north of us. Our small group of teens needed the fellowship of other Christian young people, so we had promised to drive them to the rally in our nine-passenger station wagon.


The young people had received permission for an early dismissal from school, and now stood in our living room, sack lunches in hand to eat on the way.

But we didn't have the money for gas, neither did our small church. We had no credit cards either, but we felt confident that God would supply the money. Each day Bob had gone to the post office expecting to find a "blessed letter," as the students from his Bible school had called them. Yet, not a penny had arrived. We kept praying and believing, but nothing had come in the mail all week.

While making our egg salad sandwiches, my thoughts had drifted back to my childhood. I had a rich heritage of living by faith. My parents, Charles and Florence Personeus, were the first missionaries of their denomination to Alaska. [Read their story in my book, Frontiers of Faith. (Available at www.annaleeconti.com.)

In 1917, they had traveled by train and steamer from New York State to Juneau, Alaska, arriving one cold, wet November evening. Certain they were called to this ministry, their only promise of support was Philippians 4:19, "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus," and Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." They had fulfilled their end of the bargain, and God had always fulfilled His, maybe not as quickly as they may have wished, but God was never too late.

It seemed that God was really cutting it close to the line this time!

When have you felt like this?

To be continued...