Remembering her story

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 8th. Thanks for tuning us in to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: memories.

Last week, our 25th class of World Journalism Institute students wrapped up their reporting projects and submitted stories, including the one you’re about to hear. WJI student Alessandra Gugliotti interviewed a former missionary nurse living in Sioux Center, Iowa.

REICHARD: Having lived 99 years, this woman has many stories to tell! Keeping the details clear can be a challenge. So what does it take to pass those stories on to the next generation? Here’s the story.

SOUND: [KNOCK ON DOOR]

ALESSANDRA GUGLIOTTI, REPORTER: Memories fade.

AUDIO: Hi there! How are you? Come on in.

Good thing for books.

ARLENE SCHUITEMAN: This one was on Sudan. This one was on Iowa and Ethiopia, and then this is Zambia.

This is Arlene Schuiteman. She was a missionary nurse in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Zambia, but she’s not quite sure when that started.

SCHUITEMAN: I can't remem—I can't remember those things at all.

It was around 1955. A lot of time has passed. She’s about to turn 100 years old.

JEFF BARKER: She does get forgetful.

That’s her biographer Jeff Barker. He was wanting to tell a story about women in ministry when he ran into Schuiteman. He noticed something when he interviewed her for the first time.

BARKER: Arlene had a stack of papers next to her. And I said, What's that stack of papers? She said, that's for another time. I said, Well, when can that other time be? I’d like to come back and talk about those.

That stack of papers was her collection of journals. She began journaling on her 19th birthday, and from then on, filled roughly one journal each year.

SCHUITEMAN: It helped me to remember. It helped me when I looked back. If I wanted to remember something, you know, I could look in my journal when it happened and so on.

Almost 10 years after that birthday, she found herself listening to a church sermon on missions.

SCHUITEMAN: The topic was like, Who will go? Who will? Who will I send? And he he emphasized that part of his sermon so powerfully that I felt that it was me that had to go.

Just one week later, she was in the pastor’s office.

SCHUITEMAN: And then he sat down, and he wrote an address. And he says, Here, write that address.

475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY. That connected her with the Foreign Missions Board.

Four years later, she would be on her way to Africa. She’d be serving as a nurse in a region that is now South Sudan.

Her sister Greta helps her recall what that time was like…

GRETA: Well, there was one time that a little boy got grew or group gored by a bull. And the doctor wasn't home and you had to do surgery on the boy.

SCHUITEMAN: I think he was about 10. Nine or 10 maybe?

GRETA: The doctor wasn't around and so they came into the village, and so you just had to do it.

SCHUITEMAN: Yeah and he lived. He got so attached to me that he was always comfortable following me where I was. That was really cute.

Barker started telling stories like these, first through plays. But then Schuiteman asked him to write her biography.

Barker: And I said, Arlene, I’m a playwright, I'm not a biographer. And then she finally said, Well, Jeff, if you don't do it, nobody can do it, because it takes me too long to develop a trust relationship with someone.

So that he could do it, she gave him all her journals. And she meant for him to keep them.

SCHUITEMAN: I felt that maybe they would help somebody somewhere. I didn’t know where to put it if I just put it in my room, and they would just lay there and decay. And so I, I wanted Jeff to take care of them.

But she does miss those journals.

SCHUITEMAN: I do. Because it helps my memory. And it just makes the whole picture back. It brings it right in focus.

But because Barker condensed a lifetime of stories into four books, it’s easier for her to remember.

SCHUITEMAN: So when I read what Jeff wrote after he had talked with me and so many times. And I saw that he had it right. It helped me to just reread that and feel satisfied.

And others can, too.

Barker: There is no possible way that this story could have been told if Arlene had not been disciplined to write nearly every day in her journal. So here's a woman who has sought God with her whole heart.

That starts with hiding God’s word in her heart, which remains a sharp memory.

SCHUITEMAN: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Alessandra Gugliotti in Sioux Center, Iowa.

SCHUITEMAN: He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.

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