This is a picture of Nola Serenity. She is perched on a stool her great-great Aunt Lynie once purchased right out from under the small African man who had carved it from a log.

I married into the family when Aunt Lynie had already been in Africa nearly three decades. I don’t actually remember the first time we met. She had become a legend to me long before she walked through the door in real life.

For fifty years she labored in Africa, in an outpost so remote that only brave pilots in small planes could get there. She left as a young woman in her twenties and remained until illness drove her home long past retirement age. In between, she served as teacher, mentor, nurse, doctor, confidant, and friend to scores of families growing up in the jungle.

Every five years, the mission board made Aunt Lynie come home for a rest. I met her on one of those trips and found her both fascinating and a bit odd. She was always glad to see the family, but it was clear the place of her birth had become foreign soil. She was never completely comfortable here. Sometimes her visit came at Christmas time, and I think that was the hardest of all. She would sit with us while we tore open our gifts. She would nod and smile and thank us for the useless gifts we gave because we didn’t know what to buy for a lady who lived in a jungle hut. Then she would watch as we discarded our boxes and bows almost as quickly as we tired of our new toys.

All the while, Aunt Lynie would be gathering up the torn wrapping paper and smoothing it into small squares. When we made a joke of her frugality, she explained about the little children in Africa. They didn’t have pretty paper for holidays. They would treasure our scraps.

I hope we learned something of that lesson from Aunt Lynie. She would have been surprised, I think, to see another generation sitting on her African stool. I hope we remember to tell Nola and her cousins all about Aunt Lynie’s life. I hope we paint her as big and as brave as she was in our eyes. And I hope something of her passion ignites in their little souls. I hope we pass it on.