Beulah Wood was President of the Baptist Union of New Zealand in 2019 and is currently part of Mt Albert Baptist Church. Using her gift for storytelling, Beulah shares the remarkable stories of Baptist women living out God’s mission.
Who leaves New Zealand to work as a missionary without knowing what skills they will offer? That was Lois Rusbatch in 1978. She arrived in Pakistan as an Interserve missionary, aged 32, with a library diploma but no expectation of library work. She hoped to go to Afghanistan, but the visa never came. She studied Urdu for two years, trusting there was a right task ahead. She even said ‘No’ to a job she wanted to do, believing it was not God’s plan.
Born in Dunedin in 1946, Lois grew up on a South Island farm near Waimate, a third sister with a younger brother. Her determination showed early at home and in passing piano exams, school exams and a library diploma. She left for an overseas experience, worked in London, travelled in Europe, visited her sister in Afghanistan and helped with food distribution. It was there that she came to faith in Christ. That changed her life. She studied at the Bible College of New Zealand, commencing in 1974, joined Blockhouse Bay Baptist, Auckland, the same year, applied to Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship, BMMF (now Interserve), reached Pakistan by boat and travelled to Lahore for two years learning Urdu.
In Pakistan
Living in Pakistan took commitment. Even then, there were 76 million people. Now estimated at 252 million, it is the fifth most populous country in the world, after China, India, the USA and Indonesia. Lahore, close to the border with India, had a long history of invaders, including Alexander the Great, the Mughals, and the British Raj. You can still see Kim’s gun, the bronze cannon described in Rudyard Kipling’s epic novel ‘Kim’. The city of 2.7 million was excessively hot and crowded even in 1978. Now it has 6 million, with correspondingly intense traffic and heat. Lois got around by bus or autorickshaw, finding a mix of old and new areas, extremely poor or quite posh.
Publishing
Then Lois was invited to work for Masihi Isaat Khana (MIK), a Christian Publishing House, which works for all denominations and seminaries in Pakistan. (Yes, Christian publishing is permitted in Pakistan.)
Lois started as the one-person Art and Graphics Department, designing book covers. Designing? She had to quickly learn something of Pakistan’s long culture of writing, poetry, and art, especially intricate design patterns, which she could commission for book covers.
There were no computers in those days. Every page had to be prepared by hand, laid out, and pasted precisely. Book covers needed a separate sheet for each colour, layered fastidiously on the previous, intricate and exacting. As the main artist at MIK for 20 years, Lois became one of the few Christians in the country who could do design and layout.
For a while, the company employed a young lady who helped with the layout. Next, an untrained young man, Daud, whose ability delighted Lois, and she could train him. He became a huge asset. Formatting the inside of books is fiddly, and fine attention to detail is needed. Daud learned quickly, and they spurred each other often with reminders, “You have to be so exact!” laughing and trying to reach the highest standard of accuracy.
Lois had become outstanding at proofreading, even in Urdu. Her Pakistani CEO, Peter Calvin, believed God gave her a specific ability to glance down a page of Urdu and immediately spot the error. MIK became known for its high-quality presentation and the accuracy of its publications. Peter grew proud of the good name, largely due to Lois’ work.
MIK, which is the only organisation in Pakistan that regularly publishes Christian books, gradually built a catalogue. Lois did or oversaw the preprint of every book—devotionals, biographies, Bible study, fiction, hymnals, Bible commentaries, church history and books for evangelism. Her skills made it all possible.
The Big Projects
Some layouts took years. Early on, the two longest projects were the Urdu Dictionary of the Bible and the Urdu Concordance of Bible Words. They published the first edition of the dictionary in 1984 after five years of work. Every word was handwritten, and every page was laid out by hand. Later, it was all transferred onto computers. “That was an achievement. It was a beautiful thing to see,” Lois commented. The concordance followed—another mammoth task.
Then, when computers came, Lois had to learn the whole preprint task on a computer, starting in the late 1980s, through the 1990s and onwards. She became a computer expert as well. “I didn’t know anything,” she explained. “I didn’t even know what ‘menu’ meant. Then the office suggested, ‘Maybe you should get a graphics programme.’ We got a cheap one. I had to somehow find out how to work it. These days, I couldn’t imagine life without it. Imagine doing those thousands of pages by hand. And the graphics. Imagine it!”
The South Asia Bible Commentary, produced in the 21st century, was perhaps the largest project. Lois formatted every page of that commentary, with 1807 pages in the English volume. Urdu takes up more room, and that commentary had to be published as two volumes, each well over 1000 pages. It was a mammoth task and often delayed by waiting for the second pair of eyes, in this case, the CEO, who always had too much other work. The second volume was eventually finished in 2024.
Coaching Sunday School Teachers
Lois also worked for years for Sunday Schools, largely at her Bethany Church in Lahore. Along with Ingrid Hauer from Germany, Lois pioneered Sunday Schools in the Brethren churches of Pakistan and greatly assisted other churches. They trained Sunday School teachers, wrote a curriculum for age groups 6–8 years and another for 8–13 years, and spent part of each year running camps for teachers and for Sunday School children. They then visited multiple Sunday Schools to upskill the teachers. It reached a wonderful stage where teachers function well without Lois now. They have learnt so much. Some are the sons and daughters of the children she taught earlier.
Using her love of piano from her early years, Lois also taught several church members to read music to play for church services. When they taught others, the ability spread through the Bethany churches.
A pattern grew for Lois. Years at a time in Pakistan, long months in Lahore, summer visits to the mountains to the Hill station, Murree, summer children’s camps and training teachers, back to the office, and a visit to New Zealand every three or four years. Lois kept this up for 47 years, greatly valuing friends in New Zealand and Pakistan, thankful for Blockhouse Bay Baptist and grateful for support.
A Tribute from Pakistan
In September 2024, Lois returned from Auckland to Pakistan to do a few last months for MIK, but in November, she was diagnosed with a tumour. She had already packed her things and emptied her home of decades in Lahore. There was a swift return to Auckland.
In April 2025, her long-time Pakistani colleague Peter and his wife Jingle came to New Zealand to farewell Lois. (The MIK Board paid the fare and told them, “Take our blessing to Lois. After all Lois has done for Pakistan, sending you to her is the least we can do.”) As a result, we could interview Peter in Auckland and include his great appreciation of Lois here:
Lois was hugely important to us, not just in art and Graphics. She was a leader in the organisation, but always out of sight. When I came as business Manager in 1990, I leaned heavily on Lois’s wisdom, and when MIK thrived, it was in large part due to Lois. We achieved things which, humanly speaking, would have been impossible without her.
She was meticulous, meticulous. Her proofreading was brilliant. The Lord gave her peculiar eyesight to pick up the mistakes. Our books became highly reputed, largely due to Lois. She trained staff and they do well. We admired her Sunday School work too. The Lessons have been used for 20 years and have served the church in Pakistan very effectively. The present church leadership is the product of the Sunday School material Lois and Ingrid developed. Lois also wrote Sunday School songs in Urdu.
Lois took initiative but was also a wonderful team member and a gentle, wise voice in decisions. She was a godly woman, selfless, sacrificing, a faithful friend with a quiet, wry humour. The present MIK team has a spirit of servanthood, largely due to Lois’s impact. Her Urdu was wonderful, yet she was so self-effacing that she would not lead a staff devotional—just not a public speaker. She loved the people of Pakistan. Although she was single, she had many children in the Lord. We called her Baji, older sister...
Lois was also highly focused. She could work for hours on end and finish difficult tasks. No distractions were accepted, and few breaks. Work was the thing. She was independent of nature and kept using public transport even when she was in her seventies. In the last three years, after her handbag was snatched several times, we used to send a car for her. In the heat of Lahore, nobody could beat her. Sweating all over, she placed a towel under her elbows so sweat could not dampen her papers. She could work in 45 degrees Celsius. Only in recent years did we convince her to have AC in her home. She served God and Pakistan for 47 years.
Lois passed away on Easter Monday, 21st April 2025, and her funeral was on 26th April at Blockhouse Bay Baptist with a full church. One of her favourite Bible passages was read:
“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water... I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name, I will lift up my hands... I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:1, 4, 8).
Sources
Lois’ Missionary presentation, August 2024
Interview with MIK CEO, Peter Calvin, April 2025
Funeral eulogies, April 2025
Photos: Supplied by Beulah Wood.
