Specialists in prayer have always been in short supply around the world. A white-haired plumber named Tom Haire, living in Lisburn, Ireland, would qualify today. Who else? Perhaps a little 79-year-old retired nurse in Pasadena, California, who carries her ministry of prayer all over the North American continent.
Mrs. Pearl Lotte Goode is the mother of two children, the grandmother of eight, and the great-grandmother of eight. She was born n Alma, Arkansas, and grew up in Houston, Texas. Upon her marriage she moved to Denver with her new husband, and in 1922, as a widow, she settled in Pasadena with her children.
One day while nursing an aged patient in a well-to-do Pasadena home, she saw a notice in the paper about an evangelistic meeting about to begin in a tent in downtown Los Angeles. Pearl Goode attended the meeting on the first evening and afterwards met Billy Graham an members of the Team. It was September, 1949.
"That night God laid those boys on my heart as a burden," she explains, "and I have been praying for them ever since. I went to the Crusade every evening as long as it lasted, and began talking to God about them, asking him to anoint them individually and to give them boldness in proclaiming the Word."
After she retired from active nursing, Mrs. Goode made up her mind to devote her remaining years to this unique work. She has attended 26 Graham Crusades in the United States and Canada, usually traveling by bus, sometimes by airplane. She travels alone. her zeal causes a tug at the heart"I have never seen one of my grandchildren married," she says with rueful smile, "but I have no complaints. There is nothing like this prayer ministry.
YOU'LL SEE WHO GETS THE GLORY
When she reaches a city where a Crusade is being held, she checks in at a small hotel without telling anyone, and starts her work of intercession. During the recent Southern California Crusade she moved from her Pasadena home to a hotel near the Coliseum, 15 miles away. She quickly discovered that the Crusade prayer tent adjoining the vast bowl was unoccupied in the mornings, and made that her prayer headquarters.
Pearl Goode describes herself as an "old-fashioned Methodist." She was brought to Christ as a girl. Her ministry is by no means limited to the Graham Team; her prayers include others whom she has agreed to present before the throne of Grace. She has been used to organize prayer groups in churches.
Publicity has brought problems to Mrs. Goode: "People write and me to pray for them, and I just can't do all that and this too." Then there are the carpers who her of "running around after Billy Graham to get some glory." She invites them to spend a night in fasting and prayer, alone, to see who gets the glory.
Pearl Goode has a word of encouragement to people whose children have grown up and left home. "If you have time on your hands," she says, "why not give yourself to prayer for pastors, evangelists and crusades? If you feel resentful because you are pushed aside, put on the shelf, try praying for others. You will find a new life, a happy life, and better health too Lift up Christ! This is the greatest work there is, and the most needed work.