wfn.org | ABCUSA: Ruth Teasdale, Former Missionary, Died Dec. 30

["SCHRAMM, Richard" <Richard.Schramm@abc-usa.org>]

American Baptist News Service (Valley Forge, Pa. 3/19/04)--Word has been
received that Ruth Hudson Teasdale, who served as an American Baptist
missionary with both International Ministries and National Ministries, died
Dec. 30.  She was 95.

Teasdale served in Assam, India, as a missionary with the Woman's American
Baptist Foreign Mission Society from 1939 until her work was disrupted by
World War II. There she taught at the Girls' Middle English School in Tura,
compiled a hymnal for Garo children of which 2,000 copies were made, and
worked with people in the nearby leper colony.

During the war Teasdale was engaged in cryptographic work for the U.S.
Department of State, first in Calcutta, India, and then in San Jose, Costa
Rica. Following the war she resigned from the State Department to again enter
fulltime Christian service as an instructor and dean of Women's Activities at
Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa. 

In 1953 Teasdale was appointed by the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission
Society (now part of National Ministries) to serve as a Christian
Friendliness missionary for New York State, where she ministered with new
immigrants. When the Home Mission Society was asked by the American Baptist
Convention to coordinate the denomination's Refugee Resettlement Program,
Teasdale was appointed national missionary for the program.

Church World Service named Teasdale as one of ten special emissaries who
visited Germany, Austria and the Netherlands to explain the Refugee
Resettlement Program and convey the concern and interest of American churches
for refugees.

A memorial service for Ruth Teasdale will be held 2 p.m., Saturday, March 27,
at First Baptist Church, 298 Barlows Landing Rd., Pocasset, Mass. Letters of
remembrance may be sent to the church.

K/2004/04ABN38

American Baptist News Service: Office of Communication, American Baptist
Churches USA, P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851; (800)ABC-3USA x2077
/ (610)768-2077; fax: (610)768-2320; www.abc-usa.org;
richard.schramm@abc-usa.org