She continued to wrestle with a call to missions internally even as she went to work for the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago as a research statistician. Though she had tentative plans to marry, she sensed that God was calling her to go to China, and she obeyed. It would be the first of several times in life when she tried to say “no” to God, but it never worked, because she was not her own, she was bought with a price.

On August 18, 2018, Orlena Lynn Boyle (96) entered the joy of her Master. She was not her own; she was bought with a price, and she lived like it.

She served as a single missionary in pre-communist China and then Japan. In 1934, the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam deeply impressed the then-twelve-year-old Orlena and motivated her to follow in their footsteps as a missionary to China. She told of how General Douglas MacArthur signed her papers to allow her to stay in Japan after being driven out of China. In many ways, she was among the last of a particular missionary era. She bore fruit through and for her Savior, and her fruit remains – some of it in my own life, I’m grateful to write.

She was born on January 15, 1922 to Thomas and Marguerite Lynn in Sparta, Illinois. Her dad had been led to a deep commitment to Christ through the ministry of Rev. William Robb, a missionary to China who had temporarily served the church in which he grew up. Later, when Orlena was born, her father named her after Mrs. Orlena Robb, William’s wife.

When she was two years old, she drank a bottle of lye. Doctors told her parents she would not likely live through the night. God showed mercy. Even then, he was preparing her with the grace and guts she would need in years ahead.

She grew up in the shadows of the U.S. Steel Corporation in Gary, Indiana where her father worked. Her family attended the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and her life was shaped by family worship, corporate worship, and youth meetings. By God’s grace, she never remembered a day when she didn’t know she was a sinner in need of God’s grace through Jesus Christ whom she embraced by faith.

After graduating from Lew Wallace High School in Gary, she attended Gary Junior College (later Indiana University Northwest) for two years. Because of Geneva College’s rigorous academic standards, it would not accept her Gary Junior College credits, and so she went to Indiana University instead. There, she continued to play clarinet in the marching band and studied accounting, statistics, and mathematics.

She continued to wrestle with a call to missions internally even as she went to work for the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago as a research statistician. Though she had tentative plans to marry, she sensed that God was calling her to go to China, and she obeyed. It would be the first of several times in life when she tried to say “no” to God, but it never worked, because she was not her own, she was bought with a price.

After World War II, she prepared for the mission field by serving in the Reformed Presbyterian Mission in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, studying Chinese and obtaining a Master’s of Religious Education at Biblical Seminary in New York, and serving as a Chicago City Missionary.

In 1949, she was able to go to China. Though most missionaries were leaving at the time, her accounting skills were deemed mission-critical, and so she was sent. Ministry was intense in South China and Hong Kong for the two years she was there. After disembarking on a trip to Canton, the boat she had ridden was boarded by 300 others for the return trip. River pirates took the boat and sank it killing everyone aboard. Inflation was so bad that one time, she covered an envelope with the highest-denomination stamps possible, but the postage was still inadequate. She gifted me a million-yuan note featuring Chiang Kai Shek that still bookmarks my Greek New Testament as a reminder of the value of one currency that never loses value. The currency of God’s word, of course, has continued to spread through China, yielding remarkable returns in the spiritual marketplace.

Upon being forced from China, God called her to serve in Kobe, Japan, where she operated the Covenanter Book Room for nearly 40 years until her retirement. The Lord granted much fruit through her labor, as you can read below in her lengthier autobiography written in 1984.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article at Gentle Reformation is unavailable and has been removed.]