April 10, 1953 - December 2, 1980
Missionary to El Salvador volunteering to feed the poor during the country's civil war
From Westport, Connecticut
Served in El Salvador
Affiliation: Catholic
Death: Raped and murdered by a military death squad
"I don’t know how the poor survive. People in our positions really have to die to ourselves and our wealth to gain the spirituality of the poor and oppressed."
Flannery O'Connor
March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964
Author
From Savannah, Georgia
Served in Milledgeville, Georgia
Affiliation: Catholic
"What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God."
P.D. James
Ruth Graham
Mother Teresa
Simone Weil
Dorothy Day
November 8, 1897 - November 29, 1980
Journalist, Social Activist and Co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
From Brooklyn, New York
Served in New York City
Affiliation: Catholic
"The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love."
Dorothy L. Sayers
Corrie ten Boom
Lillian Hunt Trasher
Annie Armstrong
July 11, 1850 - December 20, 1938
Missionary and Founder of the Woman's Missionary Movement
From Baltimore, Maryland
Served in Baltimore, Maryland
Affiliation: Southern Baptist
"The central figure of the world, the greatest man, the King of Kings, our Lord and Master came not to be ministered unto but to minister. In His incarnation, by the emptying of self, He grasped not at divine sovereignty, but service."
Mary Slessor
December 2, 1848 - January 13, 1915
Missionary
From Aberdeen, Scotland
Served in Use Ikot Oku, Calabar, Nigeria
Affiliation: United Presbyterian Church of Scotland
"Prayer is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service — praying is harder than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom."
Lottie Moon
December 12, 1840 - December 24, 1912
Missionary to China
From Albemarle County, Virginia
Served in Penglai, China and later in the areas of P'ingtu and Hwangshien
Affiliation: Baptist
"How many there are ... who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God."
Fanny Crosby
Harriet Tubman
Phoebe Palmer
December 18, 1807 - November 2, 1874
Evangelist, Writer and Founder of the Five Points Mission in 1850, a mission to the slum area in New York City
From New York City
Served in New York City, New York
Affiliation: Methodist
"God's time is now. The question is not, ‘What have I been?’ or ‘What do I expect to be?’ but, ‘Am I now trusting in Jesus to save to the uttermost?’ If so, I am now saved from all sin."
Sojourner Truth
Anne Bradstreet
Joan of Arc
January 6, 1412 - May 30, 1431
Defender of and Warrior for France during the Hundred Year War
From Domrémy, France
Served in Rouen, Normandy
Affiliation: Catholic
Death: Burned at the stake by pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon
"If I am not in the state of grace, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me."