Discarded - Evelyn Brand

1879–1974

She was too old to return to the missions field she loved. That’s what the missions board told Evelyn Brand after decades of ministry. She must have felt crumpled up and discarded. At age sixty-eight, what was left for this widow?

From a well-to-do English home, Evie had been a Christian since childhood. A talented artist, she helped out in some local ministries to the poor in her twenties, but it wasn’t until some overseas travel at age thirty that she felt called to foreign missions. She went to serve in India, where she married another missionary, Jesse Brand.

Together they developed a difficult ministry to mountain villages. It took years to build trust. The local Hindu priests offered strong opposition, but the Brands faithfully shared the gospel by their words and actions, tending the sick, building houses, teaching new farming methods, and helping the locals interact with national authorities. Jesse shared with Evie his dream to reach the people on five Indian mountain ranges.

Then Jesse died of blackwater fever in 1929. Evelyn tried to carry on the ministry, but her new coworkers weren’t as effective as Jesse. Reassigned to an area in the plains, she was frustrated, cantankerous. And as political tensions in India arose, everyone decided that retirement was her best option. But she never gave up the dream.

In 1947, a new era dawned in India, and missionaries were returning (including Evie’s son, Paul, a doctor at Ida Scudder’s Vellore hospital). Evelyn begged the missions board to send her back to the mountains, and they refused. She promised to play well with others, if they’d just send her back, even to the plains, even for just one year. Finally they agreed.

And after one year, she retired again from that missions board but launched an independent mission, starting new ministries on the mountain ranges of India, as Jesse had dreamed. Over the next two decades, “Granny” Brand became a legend. Her son said she kept looking younger. “This is how to grow old,” he wrote. “Allow everything else to fall away, until those around you see just love.”

Ever feel discarded? Don’t let anyone tell you you’re finished. God loves you, and he still has a wonderful plan for your life.

The LORD will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever.

Psalm 138:8