Her life was the testimony

By Dave Thompson

Published: September 2, 2008

In the three and a half months before Alfreda Martin died at the age of 88, her daughter-in-law, Meribeth Martin of Goode, said she had bounced back from recent illness.

She had improved so much that the staff at Gretna Health and Rehabilitation Center was considering releasing her.

The day before her last setback, about a week before she died, Alfreda Martin’s wish list consisted of two things — pizza and shopping.

“She said ‘I woke up, and I was just so hungry for pizza,’” as Meribeth was on her way to go shopping.

Her mother-in-law then started rattling off a shopping list.

“I said, ‘Aw just forget about the list … I’ll come back and take you,’” she said, “‘and then we’ll go get some pizza.’”

“The sooner the better,” said her mother-in-law, and the next day the two, along with Meribeth Martin’s mother, went to shopping, and dined at Pizza Hut.

“The very next day she was in bed,” Meribeth said, “and that was the beginning of the end.”

Alfreda Martin moved to Lynchburg in 1965, after a brief stay in her home state of Pennsylvania following 15 years of missionary service in Japan.

That kind of service defined her life, even when she was too old to be active, said her third son Daniel Martin, who married Meribeth in 1994.

“Her life was the testimony, it wasn’t that she was preaching,” he said.

“The only thing that she questioned,” he said “(was) she didn’t understand why God kept her here after she felt that physically she wasn’t able to do what she thought was full-time (service).”

Once back from Japan, Alfreda Martin’s husband, Edward Martin, felt he needed to found a prison ministry, considering his own early experiences in prison.

So in 1965, the two founded Hope Aglow Ministries, of which Alfreda Martin was still serving as president when she died in August.

Within that ministry, she was able to use a passion that she developed while in Japan — Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging.

While in Japan, she earned her first-degree certification from the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, and in 1965, published her book “Consider the Lillies,” in which she associated a certain flower layout with a particular Bible story or spiritual lesson.

“That’s why she really got into it to begin with,” Daniel Martin said, “so that she could use it as a soul-winning tool.”

With Hope Aglow Ministries, Alfreda Martin traveled the country with her husband, occasionally ministering in foreign countries, India and Mexico among others.

But even when she couldn’t be as active in the ministry as she would have liked, her son said she never lost faith, or the desire to stay active.

For her 80th birthday, Daniel Martin said, he and his brother James took her to the Peaks of Otter on their motorcycles.

“She was talking about riding a motorcycle again,” he said. She stayed (adventurous) until the end.”

“The last three and a half months of her life were really good,” Meribeth Martin said.

But after her mother-in-law’s last setback, she said, everything went downhill, though the day she died, Meribeth and her husband had an experience they said they’ll never forget.

“In her last moments,” she said, “she lifted up off the bed, her head and shoulders … her eyes opened wide, and the most beautiful smile came on her face.”

She smiled through tears while recalling it.

“That smile, it is unlike any picture that we’ve seen her smiling, or in person … and we knew that she was looking into heaven.”

Daniel Martin said, even during her times in the hospital, his mother was constantly ministering to her caretakers, if only through her kind words and carefree outlook.

“She had an impact, even right to the end,” he said.