Memories of Love

When I was born, my maternal grandmother received me in her arms and bathed me. I was born in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her home was my spiritual refuge, and on her kitchen table I always saw food and her open Bible.

As a young girl, I spent vacation time with my paternal grandmother. We walked together on the dirt country roads to the highway to take a bus to the city…to evangelize new immigrants from Italy in three-story homes in Worcester, Massachusetts.

At 11 years of age, the love from my Sunday school class led me to fall in love with Jesus. I said yes to Him as my Savior and I received a call to missions.

At 18 years of age, I married a pioneer pastor, George DeTellis. I loved and was loved by the people of the church. Later, with three children and George’s salary of $25 per week, the Sunday school director regularly came and put meat in our freezer.

I loved my first mission trip to India in 1977 with my sister Elizabeth, as our hearts flowed and melted together with women in ministries in Chennai and Madurai.

In 1978, my heart broke to see hungry children in Haiti. Our church then started a feeding program.

In 1983, I saw love from God as He worked through us—pitching tents in rural Haiti and living life among the people we were serving. I saw love in the spiritual ministries initiated with our weak language skills, the miracles of feeding, educating, and medical assistance.

In 2000, my love was stretched beyond my human will, as we pioneered a new mission in the Dominican Republic with no family or team, a new language in a new culture, and with my husband carrying an aggressive form of cancer. I saw God’s love when people accepted Jesus and schools began for children from other countries.

In 2008, I saw love when people poured into our home throughout the day and night, as my first husband lived his last days with cancer, and missionaries supported me with their presence and help.

In 2015, I saw love when we signed to buy land for a new campus in the DR. But my second husband had fourth-stage cancer and he was my mission. A woman I never met, paid for the land in Los Castillos. My second husband passed away, and I went to live with my parents who were 96 and 98 years of age at that time. I gave love and received love again and again.

In 2017, I saw love again with a man who matched my heart to serve God. Then, three years later, I felt God’s love as my third husband went through cancer treatment and the subsequent MRI’s showed him cancer-free!

I’ve been loved, and I love to love. As a human, my love is imperfect, but I know the perfect love of God. God’s love saved me, healed me, and gives me promises. It is all through the powerful, everlasting love of Jesus. “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” I John 4:16.

This love, the perfect love of God, is for you. It is what I want to share with the world. ~Jeanne DeTellis Loudon