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Jeanne Saeger

Burundi Prayer Warrior
"Going where He led...Even to Africa"
By Rachel Elwood, Staff Writer, 2013

 “Early in life, I experienced God’s salvation and made the decision to ask ‘What would Jesus do?’ about every situation,” Jeanne Saeger, retired missionary to Africa, said in her testimony. She pledged to keep this commitment to God and go where He led, even to Africa.

Jeanne was born and raised on a Shelton, Washington, dairy farm. At the age of 15, she made a decision to follow God. After graduating from high school, she felt God was calling her to be a missionary. When WGM missionary Anna McGhie spoke at her church, Jeanne responded to the altar call. Anna encouraged her to attend Chicago Evangelistic Institute to receive a solid Bible education.

After graduating, Jeanne applied as a missionary with the National Holiness Missionary Society, now World Gospel Mission. The mission agency asked her to pursue further education, so she earned a degree in education from Seattle Pacific College (Washington). She served in the NHMS Prayer Band Department before being assigned to the field of Urundi, now Burundi.

After language study in Belgium, Jeanne arrived on African soil in 1952. She enthusiastically wrote in the Call to Prayer magazine, “How I love my new country! How I love my new people! How I love, how I adore my everlastingly faithful Lord!”

Jeanne traveled around Burundi, serving in education wherever she was needed. She taught French to medical students, instructed at the primary school in Murore, and then taught at a teacher’s training school in Kibimba. While stationed in Murehe, she served as the primary school’s director and as the women’s ministry director. She founded the Gertrude B. Saeger Memorial Women’s Center in 1966, where classes, food, and a dormitory were provided to those in need. Giving praise to God, she called the center “a special place of study and worship for our women and girls.”

Jeanne later taught home economics to teenage girls and exhibited God’s love revealed through Jesus. She taught at both the Mweya Bible Institute and the Evangelical Seminary of Central Africa and was involved in women’s ministry and Vacation Bible School.

Her “heart concern” became instructing the Barundi people in God’s Word and the power of prayer. Stan Lewis, former missionary to Burundi, frequently saw how Jeanne prayed. “She would pray in the night on her knees, and when she woke up, she would still be on her knees.”

In 1972, national unrest struck Burundi. When it became too risky for missionaries to stay in the country, Jeanne transferred to Kenya, where she taught at Kenya Highlands Bible College. She also served in Tanzania, teaching discipleship classes at the Tabora Bible Institute. When she retired in 1992, she had served 45 years in Africa with WGM.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV). World Gospel Mission joins with Jeanne’s family and friends in honoring her lifelong faithful service to our Lord. Jeanne truly fixed her eyes on the eternal, and we rejoice that she is in the presence of her Savior today.

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