Dreams That Come True

by Dr. Mary Ray

She was just a slip of a girl when I first met her, a teenager with a warm smile, a gentle spirit, and a determination to follow God’s will. We were “dorm mates” at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we often sat cross-legged on the bed eating popcorn and dreaming of where our service for the Lord would take us.

College years passed swiftly and we went our separate ways. She married a missionary and I married a pastor who later became a missionary. She went to Japan and I went to Australia. Our paths did not cross often, but when they did, our conversation always drifted back to our college days and our dreams of what the future held.

She served alongside her husband as a missionary to Japan for thirty-five years. After a long struggle with cancer, she died in 1998. Recently, our paths did cross again when my husband and I were guests at the Bible college she and her husband helped found in Japan. Pictures of each graduating class of the Kansai Bible College hung on the dining room walls, and as I gazed at the faces of the young women graduates, I detected her warm smile, her gentle spirit, and her determination to serve the Lord.

When I entered the ODESSA WHITE HOSPITALITY HOUSE, it seemed that I could feel her presence. When I looked at her picture hanging on the wall and saw her warm smile, my mind went back to two teenage girls, sitting on the bed, eating popcorn, and dreaming of the future and I realized OUR DREAMS HAD COME TRUE.

*Odessa Bartlett White served with her husband Ron as a BIMI missionary to Japan from 1963-1998.

*Mary Briggs Ray has served with her husband James as a BIMI missionary for thirty-six years.