As a young girl, Pauline Brown dreamed of going to India. Years later, while a navy nurse, she met a man with gangrene who used to be a missionary in India. She told him of her dream to travel there, and his encouragement made the pull even stronger.
With no theological training and no mission experience, Brown applied to go to India's Bhil field. The Women's Missionary Society, having sought a nurse for four months, saw the 25-year-old Brown as answered prayer. Six months later, her bags were packed and she was on a boat. “It may be fanciful, but I basically walked off the gang plank and thought, 'I'm home,'” said Brown during an interview on a humid day in May. “I've always felt it was a place I was supposed to be.”
At first glance, one can mistake Brown as Indian. Her long black hair, always pulled back in a braid or swept up in a bun, her traditional sari and her fluent Hindi, mixed in with a hard to place accent that seems part Indian and part French, easily cover her Ottawa and Huguenot provenance.
And though she would never admit it, Brown is the closest thing that the Presbyterian Church has to a celebrity. When she speaks, people fall silent. When she tells the moderator to sit down, (as she did at assembly) he obeys. And when someone mentions her name, all who have met her, talked with her, visited her, or hosted her in their home, respond with nodding heads, warm smiles and knowing glances that belie the unforgetable encounters they each have shared with her.
Her kindness and hospitality, her humility and authenticity, as well as her quick wit and humour have left many inspired, smitten and proud to be Presbyterian. “I am here by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ,” she said in her opening remarks to the assembly. “And I thank him for his graciousness all through these years.”
Brown spent her 55 years in India working under the Church of North India in various capacities, but always with a focus on health care and education. Travelling around the rolling hills of the Bhil field with her mobile clinic, heading up community health programs that train locals in hygiene, first aid, nutrition and midwifery, teaching at schools of nursing, participating in the women's group at her church in Jobat, or simply welcoming people in her home, Brown put herself second as she strove to make life better for others. She received the Order of Canada in 2001.
She credits her WMS superiors for encouraging her to stay, saying though she knew nothing about being a missionary, they were always tolerant of her mistakes. “I'm sure those women realized how green I was,” said Brown. “There was a lot of learning, a lot of love, and a lot of forgiveness. I must have done a lot to offend. Even my friends and family said I wouldn't last a year. And now, 55 and a half years later, God is still working.”
She stressed that the PCC is the only church that has ministered to the Bhil field, starting with John Buchanan who travelled there in 1897. The relationship that has ensued, said Brown is strong and faithful, and of great importance to the Bhil people.
“Can Presbyterians believe in destiny?” she asked, a playful, yet resolute look in her eyes. “Because I believe that India is my destiny.”
Though officially retired this summer, Brown will return to India to serve in an informal capacity.
