Paulina was born to Henry and Eva (Block) Foote on November 13 , in Kansas, just four days after her
oldest sister died.
In the home where she grew up they sang a song and read a portion of scripture and prayed twice a
day.
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When she was still young her mother died of a broken neck. This left Paulina with four younger
siblings to take care of. The youngest two were given to an Aunt and Uncle to care for. Less than a
year later her father married her mother's youngest sister and four more children joined the family.
At the age of eighteen she gave her life to the Lord but did not find real peace until with the
Lord's help she was able to forgive those who had wronged her.
In 1909 she followed the Lord in baptism and became a member of the Mennonite Brethren Church in
Corn, Oklahoma as this was where they were now living. In the book God's Hand Over My Nineteen
Years in China she tells of how she learned to trust God through her experiences in her child
hood and teens. After up-grading her education she taught school for four years with enrollments of
42 to 52 pupils with all eight grades represented.
In her fourth year at Tabor College after a great struggle she became convinced that the Lord wanted
her to be a missionary in a foreign land because those at home had the opportunity to hear the
gospel if they only wanted to hear it. Now she was also convicted that the Lord should call her
through man. This the Lord did through the Mennonite Brethren mission board. She was asked to go to
China to teach the children of missionaries. After receiving the assurance from the Lord that this
was His will for her she gladly went even though this was not what she had thought would happen.
Her many adventures and success and God's leading and protection during WWII and the Japanese
invasion are all described in detail in the above mentioned book.
-Anna Kroeker
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