Mission Nannys: Serving missionaries around the world

By Betty Sullins

Discover Your Part in the Ministry of Mission Nannys! Mission Nannys was started by Betty Sullins in 1991, after she personally traveled to help international missionaries with domestic duties of the home. Her eyes were opened to just how much her "at home" help meant to the families, allowing them more time to serve Christ on the field. Mission Nannys serves individuals and families in a variety of ways. Specific assignments provide the opportunity to join active field missionaries with a particular gift and calling in order to fill a need. What this book aims to do is to show you how God used the vision of one woman, Betty Sullins, to bring about the domestic needs of missionary families with the excitement of travel and seeing the world. Hopefully, by the end of it, you will look at your future with optimism, and possibly be more prepared for what God has in store for you too!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098043780

Book preview

Chapter 1

What a joy to write to you about my life and Mission Nannys. It changed my life completely, and God has been very good to me. He planted the idea of Mission Nannys on my heart back in the ’80s when I was attending and helping with the organization of Teen Missions. They would have fifteen hundred kids ages thirteen to eighteen commit to serve the Lord in any location of their choice and each team was thirty people with two leaders (man and woman), three assistants, and thirty children. They had missionary places around the world in need of many items including new roofs, new buildings, an assortment of many things that would help the missionaries to serve better if someone would come to help them.

God had given me Mission Nannys for twenty-seven years, but old age is catching up, and Valerie Dunn has willingly assumed the job of finding places for Mission Nannys who apply and want to work to help out families overseas. Valerie served for four years including Albania, Nepal, and Romania and is ready to help you when you contact her. Please feel free to email Valerie at [e-mail]. if you would like to serve a missionary family, please check out the website missionnannys.org for a listing of all missionary families currently in need of some help on the field.

The year 1956 was great for me. I was thirty years of age, had married at the age of twenty, and gave birth to my first child in 1947. My husband had been in the army serving under 232 Regiment in France and Germany, and we had met at the YWCA in Washington, DC, at one of their Wednesday Spaghetti Nights for servicemen. The chairman of the Wednesday Night Group asked if I would attend some leadership conferences and I said yes. It was so much fun to be with others the same age and go to four different universities for additional education over the next four years.

In 1946, World War II was over, and we had a Civilian Clothes Night for the soldiers that attended. No uniforms were allowed. That was when I met Van Sullins. He was one of seven children and had been in the army for four years. We were married three months later—I was twenty, and he was twenty-six. We had our first child in 1947, a boy named James Earl.

Early in 1947, we realized we needed more housing space and began looking at housing developments in the area. We found just the place we wanted to build and paid our $500 deposit. Each soldier had been given $500 when they were discharged. Unfortunately, we lost that down payment because it was a scam to steal the discharge money from soldiers by not actually developing homes. The salesman was put in prison for not following through with the development. He was caught because of he was mailing the contracts from Washington, DC to Maryland, and it was a crime to use the mail for that. Van and two other men participated in the investigation.

In 1953, we moved to Rockville, Maryland, after Van graduated from George Washington University under the GI Bill. Right after we moved to Rockville we met a man who also lived in the area and worked at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC where Van was employed. I worked in Washington, DC at the Food and Drug Administration. He was happy to join our carpool, and I met his wife. One week later, she invited me to go with her to a Bible Study in Bethesda, Maryland. I had attended church when I was younger but had never been to a Bible study. I went with her to the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Silver Springs, Maryland and attended weekly and enjoyed it very much.

One night, she was driving me home, and as we stepped into the car, she asked me if I was saved. After hearing the study we had just finished, I knew I was not, and she led me to the Lord in 1956, which changed my whole life. It was such a joy to read the Bible and to seek to understand all that God has done for us. It definitely changed my life as you will see as you continue to read about the blessings God gave me from that point.

After I was saved, Van’s boss, Lew Depro, led him to the Lord. Van became quite active at the local bakery, talking and leading some military men to the Lord as they waited for the evening bus to return to the local camp in nearby Maryland.

We had another baby boy, Donald Paul Sullins, in August 1953 and were able to start to buy a house in an area near Rockville, Maryland. It was a longer drive now into Washington, DC where we worked but a great place to live. Thank you, Lord. Van was so busy working with the military men and leading many to the Lord, time was passing fast. He had just finished his graduation from George Washington University and anxious to learn more about the Bible.

David Alan Sullins was born on August 17, 1956 and was just a few months old when we moved to Phoenix to attend Arizona Bible Institute. So then we attended there and lived in a thirty-five-foot trailer on a lot behind the main building over a river of water, which put us to sleep every night. We had Jimmy and David sleep in the living room, and Van and I with Donnie on a hammock sleeping over us in the bedroom at the rear of the trailer. It was determined that I would work for the IRS in Phoenix to give us food money, and he would attend classes. We had left our home in Rockville to be sold, and it took almost a year to receive money from that. I had a good time working and met and made many friends.

We were there for one year and then left to go to Dallas, Texas for Van to start attending Dallas Theological Seminary. He started in the fall of 1958 and graduated in June 1962. In November 1960, my first girl, Patricia Ann, was born. Finally! My first girl after three boys. Then Stephen Timothy Sullins was born June 11, 1962, just a few days after Van graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary. We left Dallas in June 1963 and headed for California. Van was pastor at a church in Adelanto, California, but they voted in January 1964 that he was not doing a good job, and they asked him to leave. I was pregnant with no. 6 when we moved to San Bernardino, and I started to work for Western Vendors. I gave birth to Laura Ann Sullins on November 16, 1964. I took several weeks off and then got a job at Norton AFB in San Bernardino. Money was tight and Van would not work and I took a loan from a great credit union that was extremely nice to me. I was constantly borrowing from them in order to pay a babysitter to allow me to work. God was so evident in the transactions, and I praise the Lord for His guidance and leadership

During this hard time in my life, I filed for divorce in 1969, flew the little ones home, and David, Donnie, and I took all the furniture that would fit on the car and started our journey to Maryland, where my father and mother lived. My dad was following the maps so he knew exactly where we were. I checked with him every night as to our location on the trip.

Dad had arranged with the president of United Airlines to have his secretary take Patricia, Steve, and Laura on a flight to Maryland, so they were safe in Maryland when I arrived a little later. I got a job right away and commuted with my dad for six months to establish my government job with General Services Administration. Dad put a down payment on a house with three bedrooms close to the Chesapeake Bay in Beverly Beach, Maryland. This allowed the children to bike, swim, catch crabs, and enjoy their friends while I was gone for eleven to twelve hours each day. Dad drove me for the first six months, then I purchased a Volkswagen van and started a carpool, which paid for an allowance for the children at the end of each week.

I started attending the First Baptist Church of Edgewater and began a children’s church, inviting them into their own little service where I showed Christian films, and they memorized scriptures to win a free week at camp in Amsterdam, New York. God was so good to set this all up, and for eleven years, we enjoyed the environment of living at the beach. While Jim was still living in California, Donnie and David were attending high school and Pat, Steve, and Laura were in elementary school in Maryland.

At Christmas time, I took a lot of the IBM cards home that were trashed, and the kids made beautiful wreaths with them, using the leaves from the bushes we had all around the house. This money was exclusively for buying their Christmas presents, and they all knew that and really tried to sell many to the neighbors. They would add this money to the $75 from their grandparents and have a great Christmas. My father, Earl W. Cooper, would come down to our place (about half a mile) and read the Christmas story to all of us as we eyed the presents and wondered which one was ours.

Donnie was a huge help for watching over the children after school, and he eventually moved into another apartment, which was only a few blocks away from where the children and I lived. He was seventeen when he graduated top of his class and left to attend Wheaton College in Illinois. He had a job of tending to the furnaces downstairs in the large building and could get a lot of study in at the same time. He graduated in 1974 in a class of three hundred forty-five and was one of the two students who graduated with high honors. I was at the graduation but felt so lonely because I only knew one person—Donnie. He went to Europe to spread the Word of God and bring others to know and live for God. When he came home, he had an experience and asked that he be called Paul, which was his middle name, which we have adhered to since then. He taught at an elementary school for a few years in Maryland and got married, and they attended a Bible college for a few years.

Meanwhile, David was attending Southern High School in Maryland, but he didn’t graduate because of trouble with rules. David decided he would hitchhike across country and visit his brother Jim in California, but in the course of getting there, he was arrested in one state for hitchhiking at the age of fifteen when the legal age was sixteen. He was placed in jail, and I had to send money down to the police to allow him to ride a bus out to California to meet his brother. Money was always tight in raising six children.

When all of the children were younger—1970 to 1980—they all memorized scripture in order to attend one week of camp free in Amsterdam, New York, about a ten-hour drive from Mayo, Maryland, where we currently lived. Each one received their appropriate BMA scripture memory book at Christmas time. Camp was usually in July, so they had six months to apply their time to it. Every year, I drove many children from the First Baptist Church of Edgewater, Maryland who had qualified to attend the camp. It was so much fun, and they all looked forward to the ride and the week of camp. One time, I had thirteen in my Volkswagen bus, and David had built a wood wall to block off and hold all of the suitcases. The trip up to Amsterdam, New York took ten hours, and we usually arrived just in time for dinner. One time on the trip home, a girl screamed, and I applied the brakes only to discover that one of the boys had brought his frog home with him, which really scared the girls. This was every year from 1970 to 1979.

In 1979, I worked as supervisor for payroll with the General Services Administration with about forty employees paying twenty thousand people. They decided to move the office to Kansas City. My children did not want to leave their neighborhood friends, and I really didn’t want to go so I applied for retirement at the age of fifty-three and had all of the files packed and under lock and key ready for the truck to move to Kansas City at the end of May 1979. I worked forty-one days straight to pack all the material we were sending to Kansas City. Meanwhile I had a daughter attending Florida Bible College and wrote to them to ask if they had a job for me. The picture on the brochure for Florida Bible College was beautiful—right on the Atlantic Ocean and close to water boats. Pat had attended there for one year. Steve and Laura went with me, and they both signed up to attend school at that time.

Pat and Laura enjoyed the freedom they had throughout the college because the security officers kept a close eye on them. Steve decided to go back to Maryland to attend Towson University and play his guitar for a living. Meanwhile, the girls enjoyed living with me in Hollywood, Florida, as I worked in the maintenance department and they attended school. Every evening about five to five-thirty as we were having dinner, a marine airplane would fly over the Atlantic Ocean just level to the ninth floor where we were housed.

One day as I was cooking in the school cafeteria, a student, Nancy, came in and offered to help me. As we worked together, she said she would love to be a missionary and wanted to attend a New Tribes Mission event to attract missionaries overseas. But she said she couldn’t find anyone to drive her to Sanford, Florida to the event. I said I would drive her, and I did and stayed with friends I had met on Teen Missions. She applied, was hired, and served ten years in Papua New Guinea as a schoolteacher. Another day in the kitchen, I was preparing dinner and the students were waiting for me to open the cafeteria. Each meal, I had two students to help serve, and as one reported, I asked her to put butter out by the bread for the students to use. I asked Joy to do that and then when I went to inspect what she had done I just laughed and laughed. She had written the word Hi on the stick of butter. I told Joy we were the only Bible college in the United States where you could get the word Hi on butter.

While I was working at Florida Bible College as cafeteria manager, I was longing to go to see the world. I had spent my life in the United States of America and now the children were grown and I applied to go to Teen Missions and be a lady leader. I was chosen to lead the team to Bolivia to help to put a new roof on a Christian college in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Bob Bland was in charge of the event and more than fifteen hundred teenagers in a huge tent to live together for two weeks and learn what was expected of us to go to Cochabamba and many other countries. All of the lady leaders were, of course, the cooks, and we practiced making items in the morning ovens to serve at lunch time. And we kept the water bottles full because of the heat of summer in Florida during June. Each member of the team, thirty boys and girls, had to memorize a Bible verse each day. The lady leaders were to hear the verse repeated from memory, and each day they had to repeat all of the verses already memorized. There were five of us leading the team of thirty of which three were helpers and two leaders. It was all organized very well. During the two weeks at camp, the teens were learning how to build, duties of digging properly, and meeting each other personally and learning more Bible verses. I was learning how to cook with a charcoal stove and lack of refrigeration. Fortunately, we had both on this team, but we learned a lot of safety tips. Boot camp was fun and a good learning experience for me. The night of dedication was a somber time for some who did not want to stay with their team—they were dismissed and went home. However, the Bolivia team was coordinated and everyone wanted to take the trip.

We boarded a bus to the airport and stopped for frozen custard on the way. All was well—except they were having a war in Bolivia! After two to three days of staying at a large motel in Miami, Florida, the airline released us to fly and we landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia with soldiers and rifles on the roofs. We had a great time and built the roof, obeyed a government order to have no more than four walking in a group. Finished the roofing and flew back to the United States of America for debriefing and then went home. Everyone had recited the forty verses and were debriefed about returning home with good attitudes. It was such a treat for me. Thank you, Lord, for getting me out of the United States of America to see more of the world. They gave me the Dry Pun award as cook.

I returned to Hollywood Florida, and Pat and Laura had a good summer and were ready to return to school. I put in a request to be a Teen Missions leader for the next year and went back to work in the maintenance office for the school. Each year, the teams were all taken at the same time to Disneyland. I was so glad because my feet were all blistered up from the boots we had to wear as a team member, and I went to the nurse’s unit to soak off the blisters. Good to be back in maintenance and looking forward to a trip with Teen Missions next year of 1982.

Laura was attending high school at FBC building and could bring her friends up to the ninth floor of our apartment to play in the hallway. Every day at 6:00p.m., a plane would fly by making his inspections—right over the Atlantic Ocean. Busy year in maintenance, and we had a trip to Maryland to see my father who was eighty-seven years old and living with Cathryn (my sister’s child) and George in Annapolis, Maryland.

In 1983, FBC moved to Kissimmee, Florida, close to Disneyland. Maintenance was in charge of the move, so each day, I would drive their truck to the grocery stores to gather boxes. We filled several storage rooms with lots of boxes which came in handy when we told the enrolled students of the move, and we had boxes already for them to use. Large trucks were packed with suitcases and other items, and the trip was four hours one way. We charted the drivers and soon had everything up in Kissimmee. This was very close to Disneyworld, and they allowed a special tag to be placed on college student cars with free admission to the park, especially to see the movies. Laura was in her last year of high school and was offered the chance to stay in Hollywood for the remaining four months of her high school education. She decided to come with me to Kissimmee and graduated high school in Haynes City, Florida in 1982. She drove my car back and forth and met new people. Now she applied and entered Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina, and I moved with her.

Pat and John were married 1982 in Kissimmee, and he wanted additional education and applied and was accepted into Columbia. We (Pat, John, and I) lived in a mobile home on the back lot of the school but could not find a three-bedroom mobile home so settled on two bedrooms. I had the small bedroom, and John put a high bunk in case Laura wanted to come home since she was now living in the dorm at the college. I got a job in the faculty office and was put in the grad school as a secretary. So much fun! We had eighteen professors all with PhDs, and Gileta and I did all of the typing needed on electric typewriters. I ended up typing (because I had a key to the building) papers needed by foreign students and became good friends of some. I had the pleasure of arranging parties and meetings for the professors when they had a need for a shower or party.

In 1984, I got a phone call from Cathryn, my niece, who had married and was taking care of my father, Earl W. Cooper. He was eighty-nine years old and had been rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. I left immediately and drove from South Carolina to Maryland to see what was happening. When I arrived, he was in the hospital and in an oxygen tent and lived about five days. He had been a great father to me. He had retired from the Senate Appropriations Committee when he was seventy-five and had served for forty years. He was kind, loving, and always interested in my life and the children.

While he was under the oxygen tent, I asked him, Dad, have you accepted Jesus Christ yet? He moved his head in an up and down manner indicating yes—that was all I needed to know. I returned to Columbia Bible College for my job as typist to fourteen PhD men and worked there until Laura graduated in 1986 from Columbia Bible College.