Written Winter of 2015

The following is from Mary Lederach’s writings about Willis and Mary Lederach’s time at Norristown Mission during the 1920s. This is just one example of the service of many at our first mission church, Norristown Mission on Marshall Street, Norristown. Stay tuned for the release of the history of Nueva Vida Norristown New Life (NVNNL) later this year. 

“A lonely man came to our back door, and …asked for a bite to eat. I asked him to come in, and I prepared breakfast for him. As he sat up to the table to eat, my husband (Willis Lederach) was ready to leave for work. He hesitated as he bade me good-by and asked whether I was afraid alone. I told him I was not.  And truly I was not.  I was alone in a large house most of the time for three years. In this time I had made it a custom to invite in to the table all who came for meals, and treated them as guests, not as outcasts. I never could tell when perchance I might be entertaining an angel unaware.” Mary went on to tell how after reading Scripture to the man, he opened up about his estranged wife and child that he desperately missed and how he had enlisted in the Army, wanting to die, but had returned home without a scrape on his body. Mary “tried as best [she] knew how to show him his need for a Saviour, who could fill that aching void, and make life worth living.” The next day, the man came back to thank her and ask her to pray for him. Mary continued to pray for this man throughout the years and in 1936, over 10 years after the incident happened, Mary wrote on her typed copy, “In August 1936, God gave me the assurance that this man is saved.  Now I pray, God, use him mightily to Thy glory, and oh God, I humbly thank thee. –Mary Lederach”