When I saw the historical marker sign with her name on it, I pointed and yelled like a kid approaching Disney World. “Lottie Moon! Lottie Moon! We found it!”

As my husband and I drove into Crewe Cemetery in Crewe, Virginia, I saw a woman getting out of her car with an armload of flowers. I almost waved excitedly at her. Thankfully, I caught myself and remembered where we were — a cemetery, not a theme park.

We passed her with polite, somber smiles and parked near Lottie’s historical marker.

We stepped out of our air conditioned car into the midday summer sun to take photos of the sign. I’d already read it from another photo online, but some things are just different in person. So I read it again.

I felt solidarity with that sign. It faithfully stood there, trying to get people’s attention and tell the amazing story of a woman who lived an adventurous life of obedience to God, all in 76 words. How can you tell anyone’s story in 76 words?

I’m trying to tell only the first part of Lottie’s story in 90,000 words, and I know it’s incomplete. Sometimes I wonder if Lottie minds me writing her story.

I only hope that my novel will be like one historical marker on the road of someone’s life, inspiring their imagination about what it might look like if they too follow God so bravely and completely as Lottie did.

My husband took the photos, then we turned to face the cemetery. It looked old and well kept, as though the descendants of people under these stones still lived in town and knew their heritage.

Gravestones sprawled across the lawn. Some newer stones lay flat on the ground, while others with dates in centuries past must have been over 4 or 5 feet tall.

How would we find hers?

If we had to walk around and search for Lottie’s grave, at least we could find shade from the blazing sun under a few scattered oak trees. A handful of men moved their weed eaters from side to side, carefully mowing the grass around the stones. Maybe one of them could help us.

Then we found the sign.

We followed it and then two others that led us to Lottie’s grave. We were on our way! But when we reached it, someone was already there.

A woman bent low, removing summer flowers from a marble vase in front of Lottie’s grave. She started fixing a bouquet of fall flowers.

What were the odds? I didn’t expect to wait in line. Then I smiled and wanted to laugh. “Hello, pardon me.”

The woman turned around. She was the same woman who I wanted to wave to at the front of the cemetery. Her name is Nancy, and she told me I could write about our meeting in my newsletter.

“I change them out every season,” Nancy said. “Been doing it for a few years.”

Nancy is part of the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) chapter at Crewe Baptist Church. She took up the responsibility to freshen Lottie’s flowers after an older woman from the same church couldn’t do it anymore.

“It’s convenient because my parents are over there,” she said, pointing across the lawn. She had brought flowers for them too.

She told me how they give educational tours about Lottie Moon at Crewe Baptist Church. They recently hosted a group of students for a tour.

Nancy left me and my husband for a few minutes while she graciously went to grab us some pamphlets and a postcard about Lottie.

As she walked away, I picked up one of the flowers she brought with her and smiled.

This serendipitous moment felt like one of many that God orchestrated over the years as I’ve been working on my novel. He didn’t have to arrange for me and Nancy to show up there at the same time, reminding me that I’m joining a greater effort to steward and share Lottie’s legacy. But He did. I felt seen and encouraged.

I stuck the flower into the vase — a small contribution to the bouquet.

Nancy came back with the pamphlets and said we should stop by the church to see their stained glass window of Lottie. We didn’t this time because the Lottie Moon gravesite detour had already added 30 minutes to our road trip. I hope to return to Crewe one day soon and repay Nancy’s kindness with a stack of copies of my published novel for her to share with the church’s next tour group.

Before I end this month’s newsletter, I just want to say something plainly. The more I learn about Lottie Moon’s life, the more I’m convinced she is not the hero of her story — Jesus is. I’m not writing this novel to preserve her memory, but to show a new generation of readers that freedom in Christ is the greatest freedom and following Him, seeking Him is the greatest adventure.

I believe Lottie knew this, and her life displays it well. Her ashes lay in this cemetery in Crewe, Virginia, but I trust that she is in heaven now with Jesus and all the Chinese souls she introduced to Him. Only God could write that story.

P.S.

A few months after I visited Lottie’s gravesite and the historical marker, I visited the Virginia Baptist Historical Library in Richmond and found an original program from the dedication ceremony of the historical marker as well as a newspaper clipping with a photo from that day, November 1, 1987. Photos of my findings are below.