Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

Meg Foote, 1921-2007

Obituary

Meg, who died on December 31 2007, was born in 1921 in Leamington Spa, and grew up in France where her family were expatriates. She was a mischievous child, whose sense of humour often got her into trouble.

There’s a story of her brother reciting Kublai Khan, and Meg’s uncontrollable giggles when he reached, ‘As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing’!

On leaving school she went to Bedford College, University of London. The college was evacuated to Cambridge, and she received an invitation from a group called the Cambridge Women’s Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. She went along, eagerly anticipating ‘jolly good grub and a jolly good dance’! But she must have been impressed nonetheless, because she went on going. One Sunday she heard a sermon about the road to Emmaus, and the words ‘their eyes were opened and they knew him’ suddenly became her own experience. There she found something which completely transformed her life — her faith in Jesus.

Rock the establishment

Meg began immediately to rock the evangelical establishment by suggesting that the women’s and men’s CUs should merge! She was ahead of her time, but later worked tirelessly to establish co-educational missionary training. This challenging of the establishment was characteristic: she would quietly, graciously and with humour insert little pin-pricks of subversion. Her childhood nickname was ‘Mosquito’, and she retained the ability to sting!

After university, Meg taught modern languages for several years. No one could get away with bad behaviour in her classes: ‘It's no good trying that one on me’, she would say, ‘I was an adept at it myself!’ At the same time she began working in her spare time for the Inter Varsity Fellowship (now UCCF). She began to feel called to do this full-time, but was concerned about leaving her mother (now aged 70 and with a weak heart). Whenever she prayed about it, she seemed to hear, ‘If any man … hate not his father, and mother … he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14.26). So she became a Travelling Secretary, and later Women’s Secretary, travelling all over Europe and beyond in the post-war period, and touching countless lives.

Principal

In the 1960s, Meg became Principal of Mount Hermon Missionary Training College, and, in 1971, her vision of a co-educational establishment came to fruition with the creation of All Nations Christian College, of which Meg was Vice-Principal, later Acting Principal. Her students will long remember her lectures when she opened up the Scriptures, stating all sides of an issue with scrupulous fairness, never imposing her own point of view.

In her retirement, she continued to correspond with hundreds of people from every stage of her life, and never failed to dispense wisdom, humour and a genuine interest in their circumstances.

Her last words to her family were, ‘I’m rejoicing in the Lord’.

A thanksgiving for Meg’s life will be held on Saturday April 12 at 2.00 pm at All Nations Christian College.

Ruth Jolly