Ella Hadassah Sanders: Heroine

Ella Sanders was one tough lady.

She raised 8 kids on the African frontier for over 20 years.

No household appliances, no internet, no cell phones.

She was a missionary, the wife of a missionary doctor.

The first woman in Canada to be ordained as a minister (in 1901).

In her book “The Communion of Saints,” 
my friend Vesta Dunlop Mullen tells the story of Ella (1871-1962) 
and her husband Herbert (1869-1941).

Herbert was raised in Port Maitland, Nova Scotia,

and Ella moved there with her widowed father 
when she was about 14.

Herbert’s father was a fisherman, and Ella’s dad a pastor.

As teenagers they were both part of a church youth group

called the “Union Band of Willing Workers.”

Their love for Christ and for one another grew in these years,

and they shared with each other God’s call to foreign missions.

Ella began keeping a journal at 16.

Even then she was full of faith and prayer,

a determined young woman.

She preached and held evangelistic meetings 
while still in her teens.

Herbert and Ella married in their early 20s 
and moved to Brooklyn, New York 

to attend the Union Missionary Training Institute.

Then Herbert studied at New York City’s Homeopathic College for four years, graduating in 1900 to become a doctor of homeopathic medicine.

Herbert, Ella, and their children sailed to South Africa in 1901.

After studying Zulu, they moved inland from Durban, 

preaching and sharing the love of Jesus.

There were many adventures. 

They faced opposition from white Afrikaans farmers. 

Once the family survived a frightening storm of wind, rain and hail, protected only by the tent in which they were then living.

This intrepid couple established preaching points, new churches,

and eventually two mission stations:

Hartland in Natal and Altona in Transvaal.

Their life’s work was focused in eastern and northern South Africa.

Herbert and Ella were missionary pioneers.

They blazed a trail followed later by their children

(most of whom also became missionaries),

and by other Christian workers.

Returning to Canada by the age of 60,

Herbert and Ella spent another ten years in pastoral ministry

in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

At 90, Ella wrote, “…I am still busy trying to fill up the remaining time of my life in winning souls for Jesus and helping others.”

God grant that Ella’s love for Christ and indomitable spirit will infect many other young men and women in this 21^st century!