How to Start Being What You'd Like to Become

When I was a freshman at Seattle Pacific College (now University) in 1963-64, our dorm mother, Mrs. Marie Hollowell, often held meetings with us girls in her apartment. I'll never forget what she said at one such meeting:

"When are you going to start being 

what you'd like to become?"

The Cousart & Personeus Family in Pelican Parsonage
(I am front right of my brother & sister. My parents are on left.
Grandma & Grandpa in center.
Uncle Byron & Aunt Marjory Personeus on right.)

As I heard those words, I thought of my Grandma Personeus. She was my role model. My brother, sister, and I had spent nearly every summer of my grade school years with her and Grandpa in Pelican, a tiny fishing village on a large island in Southeast Alaska.

Pelican in 1953

Having young children night and day for three months is not easy when you are in your sixties, yet I could not recall Grandma ever speaking harshly or impatiently to any of us. She was always up and fixing breakfast when we got up in the morning and was the last one to go to sleep at night. After we were in bed, she wrote letters until the wee hours to keep up her correspondence with hundreds of people around the world in her beautiful schoolgirl handwriting. She was the sweetest person I knew, and she loved us and all the other children in town unconditionally.

The church in Pelican built by my family in 1948

I thought about all the older women I had known. Some were sweet, and some were crotchety. Oh, they were good people, but no one was as consistently loving and kind as Grandma. I decided I'd like to become a sweet little old lady like her. 

As I recalled the stories Grandma had told us about her childhood, I realized she had not had an easy life. Her father was demanding, strict, and harsh. 

One time, she was bitten by a beetle that took a small chunk out of her nose. As children will, she kept picking at the scab so that it was not healing. Her father scolded her and promised to spank her if she did it again. 

The next morning she awoke to discover that her rough-textured nightgown had scratched the scab off. At the breakfast table her father noticed and told her to go to her room and await the promised punishment.

A very sensitive child, she was so terrified of her father that when she tried to explain what  had  happened, she trembled so hard she couldn't speak coherently. Sobbing, all she could utter was, "My gruff gright grown scratched it off!"

Her mother had to intervene and explain what she was trying to say.

As children, we thought that story was funny, and that is how she told it, laughing at her twisted words. But thinking about it as an adult, I could see that it showed how much she feared  her father.

The eighth of eleven living children (two others had died in infancy), she was allowed to only complete the first eight grades, although she loved school and longed to go to high school. When her older brothers and sisters left home to be missionaries, Their father disowned and disinherited them for not doing what he wanted them to do. Grandma was forced to leave school and take over their chores of printing and distributing the newspaper her father wrote and published.

Grandma & Grandpa Personeus in 1959

When Grandma left home at the age of 21 to study for the missionfield, she too was disowned and disinherited. She was not allowed to return to the family home again. 

By the time I  went to college, she and Grandpa had spent nearly 50 years as missionaries in Southeast Alaska, living by faith under often less than favorable living conditions, but she never complained. She had survived many serious falls on ice and snow as well as several life-threatening illnesses, but she didn't let those hardships deter her from her mission, caring for the sick and taking in orphaned children, cleaning and washing clothes on a washboard.

As I  pondered what made her different from so many others, I realized that she had allowed the trials of her life to make her better not bitter. She loved the Lord, communing with Him daily and continually putting the needs of others ahead of her own. She unselfishly served people out of love. Children and young people enjoyed being with her, listening to her stories of their early days in Alaska.  She often told us,

"The way spell true J-O-Y is to put 

Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last."

My observations showed me that no one becomes like Grandma Personeus just by growing old. We become what we have practiced throughout our lives. Those who love and serve others in spite of their own difficulties grow sweeter, and people love to be around them. Those who think only of themselves grow even more selfish, and and people tend to avoid them.

As a freshman girl, I determined to become a sweet little old lady. That's been my life's goal. I've striven to that end. I'm old now, and I'm not completely there yet, but I'm still working on what I'd like to become--to be like Grandma, and to be like Jesus.

Are you becoming what you'd like to become? What do you need to change today?

To read more about the Personeuses, visit my website, www.annaleeconti.com, where you can order my book, Frontiers of Faith, the story of Charles C. and Florence Personeus, Pioneer Missionaries to Alaska, "The Last Frontier," 1917-1982, directly from the publisher.

The Personeuses are the inspiration for my Alaskan Waters Trilogy, a set of inspirational novels based on true stories they told. (The Penningtons in my fiction stories are based on the Personeuses.) They are also available from my website.

An Out-of-Character Request that Saved Our Lives

Byron & Marjory Personeus

Today I was looking through some writings of my Aunt Marjory Personeus given to me by their daughter last summer. Uncle Byron and Aunt Marjory have both gone to be with the Lord, but they operated a mission boat in Southeast Alaska in the forties and fifties and then around Vancouver Island for another 20 years.

During those years, they often experienced God's protection. Some of their stories are included in my book, Frontiers of Faith, about my grandparents' 65 years of ministry in Alaska as pioneer missionaries. But this story was one I had never heard.





I am telling it here in my aunt's point of view:

At 5 o'clock in the morning, I rolled over. The cabin was cold, but it was too early to be disturbed. "Don't get up to start the fire yet, dear. I'm so comfortable. Let's wait until 6." We snuggled under the warm covers.

The little three burner propane stove in the tiny cabin on our missionary boat, Gospel Light II, could not keep us warm, so we had installed a small charcoal stove we had picked up at the army-navy store several years before. The instructions promised no fumes or chimney needed.

At 6 a.m., Byron got up to start the charcoal stove and crawled back into our bunk, a small chesterfield (couch) on one side of the main cabin, until 7. Then we had to hurry and get underway for a logging camp where we were to hold Sunday school that morning, the first to be held at the location. We had visited the homes and invited the children, hoping to soon build it up into a regular morning service too. We didn't want to be late.

At 7 a.m., Byron went outside onto the aft deck to turn on the gas so he could start the engine. That's when he noticed that the air inside the boat smelled quite stale, so he left the door open. As I got up to make up the bunk, I felt sick. I tried to get out the cereal for breakfast but had to lie down again.

When Byron came back in, he said, "I feel sick."

I was feeling a bit better, so I quickly got up and told him to lie down. No sooner was he on the chesterfield than down I went onto the cold, hard deck. I could not stand up.

Byron managed to honk the boat's horn to signal for help, but no one came. The folks in our beautiful little village of Quatsino, where we had had a precious service the night before, thought we were signaling a friendly goodbye.

The Gospel Light II in the 1960s

Byron forced himself up and outside onto the float to untie the boat, almost falling into the water as he tried to loosen the lines. Steadying himself, he staggered back on board and to the controls. The little engine chugged to life, and we got underway.

Try as I might, I couldn't make myself do anything. Each time I tried to get up, my head felt so light I had to drop down again. I couldn't even attend Sunday school that morning. Although he too was feeling very weak and had a headache, Byron had to do his best without me.

That afternoon, we continued on to Port Alice for an afternoon service. An RN in the congregation told us that our symptoms indicated that we had no doubt almost been asphyxiated by carbon monoxide. Since my side of the bunk was under the side deck where the fumes had collected, I was hardest hit. Both of us had bad headaches all that day.

When out dear congregation in Quatsino learned of our near-death experience, they came to our boat the next Saturday night after service and presented us with a key to a lovely little cabin. "We don't want you to sleep on your boat any more. Whenever you minister in this area, we want you to sleep here."

Rarely did I tell my husband not to get up to start the fire early on a chilly fall morning. How thankful I was for God's nudging that morning! Little did I realize that my unusual request would save our lives. An hour longer breathing those fumes and we'd have been dead.

Beside Still Waters, Book 3 of my Alaskan Waters Trilogy, is now available in Kindle, Nook, iTunes, and in paperback. See www.AnnaLeeConti.com

Blast from the Past

I thought I had collected all the historical memorabilia about my missionary grandparents, Charles C. and Florence L. Personeus, when I wrote my book, Frontiers of Faith, about their adventures of living by faith in Alaska from 1917 to 1982.

Then last week I received an unexpected call. The Alaska Ministry Network of the Assemblies of God in Alaska is writing a book of the history of the Assemblies of God in a Alaska for their centennial celebration coming up in 2017.

Since my grandparents were the first missionaries from our Fellowship to go to Alaska and they spent 65 years ministering there, their story would be featured in the book.

As Jack Aiken, the designated writer, gathered materials for the book, he had found a box some unknown person had left at the ministry office in Anchorage. The items in the box, according to Jack, were more of a personal nature, probably of interest only to the family.

He described photos, cards, postcards, memo books and tablets containing my grandma's writing. When he read a signature on several tiny greeting cards from 1908 to 1912, it caught my ear. I recognized it as my grandma's great-aunt Salome, who had spent 40 years as a missionary in India and had influenced Grandma to become a missionary too.

"We'd be happy to send you the box," Jack said.

I thanked him. After chatting about the early days in Alaska, we said goodbye.

When the box arrived, I looked through it eagerly. What fun to see what it contained!

Grandma never had been able to throw things away. And she had carried on an extensive correspondence with hundreds of people, sending birthday cards and letters to everyone she ever met in their travels across the United States to itinerate for support. When at the age of ninety, due to health concerns, she and Grandpa had to move from Alaska to Washington State to live with my parents, much had been finally discarded.

Where did this box come from? The personal nature of the items obviously indicated that they had belonged to Grandma, and she had saved them for sentimental reasons. Yet, they were not items she would have given to anyone but family. None of our family have lived in Alaska since the 1980s. Who donated them to the Ministry office in Anchorage will probably forever remain a mystery.

One 3 1/2 x 6-inch little booklet among the personal items caught my eye: "A Hand Book of Vacation Trips in Alaska and the Yukon on the White Pass and Yukon Route," printed in the United States in 1938. Its 55 pages contain historical background, descriptions of points of interest, and photos of scenic routes, complete with train and boat schedules, distances, and fares.

This guidebook confirms and clarifies all the extensive research I have done online for the historical background for the major setting of the third book I am currently writing in my Alaskan Waters series of historical Christian fiction.

Grandma is no longer here to answer my questions about the early days, but this booklet she saved does.

Is that coincidence? I think not!

How God Used My Book to Build a New Missionary's Faith

How God Used My Book, Frontiers of Faith, to Build a New Missionary's Faith

As an author, my greatest joy is to hear that a book I have written has encouraged a reader. Last month, I met a new missionary who was going to the exact mission field where my great aunt had ministered for forty years. While we talked about that, I felt I should give the lady a copy of my book, Frontiers of Faith, which tells the story of how my grandparents, Charles and Florence Personeus, went to Alaska as pioneer missionaries in 1917 entirely by faith--with no promise of support.

To order book, go to www.annaleeconti.com 

Last week, I received an e-mail from my new missionary friend, telling of how God performed a miracle for her too as she read my book. She gave me permission to share it:

"I was going to write you after I finished reading Frontiers of Faith, but I feel like now is an appropriate time to tell you how much your book is impacting me. I am in the middle of it right now.

"I've been on a trip to Headquarters this past week and just arrived yesterday. My vehicle began making an awful noise two days ago, and I still had hours left to drive. The noise was terribly bad. I prayed and asked people I knew to pray. I did not have time to get it checked out until I arrived here yesterday. I was trying to have the right attitude, but I just felt sick about it. My car is old, and I knew getting it fixed would cost quite a bit of money. But if I didn't get it taken care of, then I'd risk not making it home in time.

"I took it to an auto shop, and they told me it would cost $90 to just see what the problem was and also that it would be several hours before they could even look at it. I agreed, gathered a few belongings out of my car, and walked around the area. Thoughts began to fill my head about what the cost would be or if they would keep it overnight. I did not have the time or the money to spare.

"I found a coffee shop where I ended up spending a good amount of time reading your book. As I continued to read, my heart just melted. Here I am, worrying about my situation (especially because I am alone and feel like no one understands or cares), and I read about trial after trial that your grandparents faced--the incredible amount of faith that it took to follow Jesus in such conditions. One thing after another. What I was going through didn't even hold a candle, but I had that same feeling--that there is absolutely no one I can depend on but Jesus. I have no other option. Their story amazed me.

"I came back to the auto shop and waited for another 2 hours (6 hours total) and continued to read. The same workers came in and out, moved papers around and helped many customers. Even though I had been reading of such great faith, I'm sad to say that mine was still wavering. I was expecting the worst with every passing second. I just kept praying.

"Finally, it was close to closing time, and I was sitting there, alone. A worker walked in (who I had not seen before). He called me up and told me that he had fixed my problem. As I pulled out my credit card to pay, he told me I owed nothing. Nothing! Not a diagnostic fee. Nothing. He gave me the keys, and I was free to go. I thanked him as tears filled my eyes, but I held it in until I got to the car. Then I cried all the way to the hotel.

"Anyone would think this was a little thing. And no one else will truly understand what God did in that moment. But the best way I can explain it is that He showed me that I was wrong to think that I was stepping out alone (I often feel that way as I travel alone, speak alone etc.). He showed me that He will answer me. He showed me that I need Him like I need air. I did not deserve the kindness He showed me, but He gave it to me anyway. He showed me that He is a good, good Father no matter what the circumstance. He affirmed what I am doing.

"Sorry for writing such a long message. I thought you would appreciate that story, though. God is using your book to deepen my faith and at just the right time. Things are starting to get scary and real. Reading your true story has reminded me why I am here."

Yes, my friend, you are learning what my grandparents learned nearly one hundred years ago: "When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them" (John 10:4). All we have to do is follow the Good Shepherd, who takes care of his own.

How has God encouraged your faith?