Pursuing My Purpose in Life
As told by Hazel O. Burford
HAVE you ever wanted something so intensely that every fiber of your being seemed to crave it? And then, how superbly happy you became when you attained it! You know now what pioneering has meant to me. From the time that I made my dedication at the age of fourteen I have wanted to do just what I then vowed to do—give all time, strength, energy to studying and then to helping others learn the truths that so delight me. To me, obeying Romans 12:1 meant full-time service; so my high-school years were not completely happy ones.
Came graduation, but not a realization of my dream. My parents, not dedicated, never opposed me in making or fulfilling my dedication. They felt they gave me an education. Now it was up to me to make my own way. Accordingly, I turned to my second love, nursing. For training I entered Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, September 1, 1925. That work I enjoyed tremendously. But here came a new peril to the pursuing of my purpose in life:
On duty ten hours out of each twenty-four, besides our class periods and studying, meant my attendance at meetings and time in service were very irregular, finally tapering off as cares of this life crowded out production of Kingdom fruit. Zeal had cooled. Some excellent Scriptural counsel then was given me by one of the members of the Denver congregation. Ashamed, I reluctantly agreed to meet the group for service the following Saturday afternoon. I went; but no one else came. My reluctance gradually gave way to eagerness. If only someone would come; I wanted to go in the service. After an hour’s wait, a cold terror began to grip me as my conscience condemned me. I had been so negligent—Jehovah had turned His back on me! Returning to my room at the nurses’ home, I threw myself on my knees, pleading forgiveness and another opportunity to serve. After some time, calmness returned as I determined to do my best from that point on and to leave the outcome with a merciful and loving God.
The intervening years have abundantly proved that only as I do my best to perform the obligation to pursue my purpose in life will I have peace of mind and contentment.
In the fall of 1929, as the depression began, I graduated from nursing school. Some thirty other graduates had priority over me and cases were few and far between, and those only the least desirable ones. Next January (1930), through help of a family friend, I was accepted for work with one of the best and busiest surgeons in the West. Pay excellent, raise every six months, hours of work regular—enabling me to attend all meetings and go in service every week end. What more could I ask for?
Full-time service was my goal! But I discovered that even among some of the dedicated I was considered a fanatic for considering such a thing. I knew I had dedicated to give all and principally myself and I could not be satisfied with less.
Announcement of the international convention in Columbus, Ohio, in July, 1931, next confronted me. Summer is the year’s busiest time in Colorado. In the doctor’s office no one took vacation from May through November; so the convention for me was out. However, never having attended any large assembly, as the time neared my desire to be there became almost irresistible. I had about a thousand dollars saved, so the first of June I quit my job and sent in my application for pioneer service, planning to attend the convention, find a partner and go on pursuing my purpose in life: full-time service.
The convention was grander than I had ever dreamed—a marvelous springboard to launch me on my chosen career. Next came finding a partner. I looked for someone with a car but soon saw all other prospective pioneers were doing that; so the bulk of my savings I took to buy a car. Then, leaning heavily on Jehovah’s promise to provide if we seek first the Kingdom, another young girl and I went to Texas to work. She also had never pioneered.
By the trial-and-error method we learned, and it was lots of fun. We had territory in east Texas, near Gladewater’s new oil field, where depression had not yet arrived. Our placements were quite good, but not enough to rent our furnished room. So we pooled our meager resources, bought a tent and other camping gear, and “took to the woods.” Excellent during bright autumn weather! We saved on gas and traveling time, camping wherever our work ended one day or began the next. But coming of winter rains, occasional sleet and snow, compelled us to have more shelter; so we rented one-room shanties that farmers maintain for their cotton-field workers. Luxurious? No, not exactly; but with water to carry, wood to cut, cooking over an open fireplace, it was exhilarating to face and surmount each problem, with the satisfaction of having “done as thou hast commanded me” and of having helped still others to learn the way to life. Constant rains and almost impassable roads traversed by us in our endeavor to reach every house in our territory contributed toward our success. Oil-field workers, loggers and farmers daily helped us out of one mudhole after another. Always they wanted to know just why two lone young women had to get to that house on such a road in such weather. So we had many opportunities to witness while sitting on the end of a pry pole or chucking rocks under the wheel thus lifted from its bed of slime. It was hard on the car and on us, but at the end of each such day deep sleep of contentment was ours.
In the spring my partner married and her husband’s sister became my partner; so the four of us worked together. Since there was no back-call or home-study work in those days, we had completed our assignment by May and set out for the Panhandle to work en route to summer territory in my native Colorado. But a month after arriving there my original partner and her husband left the pioneer work for a while and his sister and I continued alone for the next five years. As a baby she had had polio and was too badly crippled to do many of the physical tasks necessary in isolated territory; so my manual labor share was heavier in chores such as tire changing, car greasing, etc., but she was excellent as a Bible student, very mature spiritually, a real help to me. Her brother and his wife made us a trailer, which enabled us to continue in very difficult territory. We learned the difference between getting by with necessary things and having the things we thought were necessary.
But my zealous little partner’s afflicted body could not keep up with the willing spirit, and in the spring of 1937 she had to give up full-time service.
Pursuing my purpose in life, I continued pioneering with a family from Oregon, with their generous assistance moving with them to Kentucky to work and gain enough to attend the Columbus, Ohio, convention that summer. That was a real feast to me after the years in isolated territory. Also I found a veteran pioneer sister to work with. Alabama cotton plantations proved much easier to work than Texas ranches, and placements were good, enabling me to make a trip home to visit my invalid father whom I had not seen in nearly eight years. From my home congregation a young sister joined me who had been wanting to pioneer but just needed a little help to break loose. For several years we worked together in the South and since then she has graduated from Gilead and now is serving as a missionary in El Salvador.
In 1941, when working isolated territory in western Kentucky, we attended the zone (now circuit) assembly at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. While preparing the evening meal in the cafeteria I was called to answer a long-distance telephone call offering me the privilege of helping to nurse Brother Rutherford, then very ill in a hospital in Elkhart, Indiana. Shocked by news of his illness, overwhelmed by tremendous responsibility I would be expected to shoulder, my first reaction was to refuse; but, ever fearful of refusing an assignment for fear another would not be given, I prayerfully accepted. At once I left the assembly headquarters and made the necessary preparations for my new duties, upon which I entered thirty-six hours later when I entered the sick room of our stricken brother. A week later I was privileged to accompany Brother Rutherford and his party to California, where we lived in Beth-Sarim, the “House of the Princes,” for the next eight weeks until his death January 8, 1942. Had I not been a pioneer that unusual and precious service would not have been mine, as all his associates and helpers were from ranks of full-time workers.
From California I returned directly to my former group in Somerset, Kentucky. Here we met real opposition, were repeatedly arrested and spent some time in jail; but, as a consequence, a decision in our favor finally was secured in a high court of Kentucky that ever since has kept the way for work there open.
In theocratic history 1943 is outstanding for the opening of Gilead. To my inexpressible joy I was called for the second class to matriculate in September. That summer I visited my widowed mother, accompanying her to the district assembly in Denver. My cup of joy was really brimming as I witnessed her immersion. Then to Gilead for five months of the purest joy I have ever experienced.
The next year was a real battle for me. I yearned so desperately for that New World atmosphere of Gilead that I came very close to being discontented with my assignment in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; but by compelling myself to go ahead pursuing my purpose in life I finally conquered and began really to enjoy the service again.
Then came word that four of us were to work in Panama. The steaming tropics! I would not survive long in that heat, I first began thinking. But other humans like me had lived there for generations, I assured myself, so why couldn’t I work there? Nine years of missionary service here on the Isthmus of Panama have proved the falsity of my misgivings. On my arrival December 28, 1945, another truth was borne in on my consciousness: That my family, my people, are everywhere in the world and as a missionary one need never be homesick or lonesome. Bright and early the morning after our arrival, one of the publishers from the other side of the Isthmus was at the door to take us in his car to our assignment in Colón on the Atlantic side. Although his skin was many shades darker than ours, he had that radiant Kingdom smile, the same loving consideration and desire to serve as our brothers right there in Bethel. From that first morning of our acquaintance on through the more than four years of our working together, he and our other brothers and sisters never were too busy or too tired to help us with any problem in our new home. They were so eager for help in doing the work and so co-operative that in that period of time we rejoiced to see the tiny group of some fifteen publishers grow into a well-organized congregation of close to a hundred. After working there about two years it was thought advisable to form a Spanish-speaking congregation, and, although my Spanish was still very poor, I was privileged to work with the congregation from its formation and even serve as a servant in it.
With the congregations in the Canal Zone’s terminal cities functioning smoothly the Society determined to help the people of good will in Panama’s “Interior”; so in 1950 I was one of the four chosen to move out to Chitre. Here we definitely began to realize the import of the miracle worked by Jehovah at the Tower of Babel as we struggled to put our precious Kingdom message into understandable Spanish. Ever since our basic training at Gilead, we had consistently studied and we could read quite well, but we now discovered our usage of the language was entirely inadequate for the many situations we were meeting. After about a year a congregation was organized, we four sisters occupying places as servants; and when, in December, 1952, we were called into Panama City we were able to leave in Chitre a group of eight publishers, with native brothers trained for the servants’ positions. Under Jehovah’s blessing by now the congregation at Chitre has about doubled.
In May, 1954, a congregation was organized in the Canal Zone itself, eight publishers first reporting; twelve months later, twenty. Jehovah’s blessing is making us all rich and strong spiritually. In many sections all day long we work amid squalor and filth of overcrowded tenements. At night we come home to a clean, comfortable missionary home maintained by the Society, our brothers. So these last twenty-three years I now see have been very well spent pursuing my purpose in life, and I hope to continue in full-time service forever in whatever assignment Jehovah may graciously give me.