Maisy Cameron passed away April 23 at her home in La Ceiba, Honduras. She and her husband, Archie, first went to Honduras in 1952 as UB missionaries, and it has been their home ever since. The following is from Chapter 34 of Tio Archie, the story of Archie Cameron and the development of Honduras Conference, published in June 2001.

Maisy

Steve Dennie

For a time, Reina Valez lived with the Camerons (Marilyn was her best friend) and had the privilege of knowing Maisy during her good years. "As far as I was concerned, Miss Maisy was my mother. She was totally dedicated to her family. She was so patient in teaching the boys, and was a great mother not only to her own children, but to other children as well. She gave me a lot of advice, like a mother would have given me advice. When I had my first child, she was the one who taught me how to take care of a newborn baby. From the day my children were born, I taught them to say Grandpa and Grandma when speaking of Rev. Cameron and Miss Maisy."

Archie and Maisy (left) in the 1950s with Evan Towne.

Likewise, John Ray thought the world of Maisy. "Maisy was friendly to everyone, and she knew everybody. As far as I was concerned, she treated me as part of the family. If Archie came home with 30 people to feed, she would take it as one of those things. She would say, 'That's Archie Cameron. No one knows what he's going to do.' She was always there, ready to do whatever was necessary."

Antonio Lopez recalls, "Miss Maisy would work and work and work making sheets and pillow cases and things to cover up the mattresses. She worked hard. She wasn't very vocal, but she worked for the Lord."

"I owe a lot to Miss Maisy," says Julia Nunez. "She has always been a quiet person. She used to tell me, 'I don't know why the Lord ever chose me to be a missionary. I don't have any special talents.' But with her, it was the example of her life, her patience, the way she served the Lord and loved us. She was a very worthy person, a good person, a loving person with all the people in the church. She loved the poorest along with anybody else. I always remember her in my prayers, and I admire her."

"Maisy was a good missionary wife over the years," says Archie. " She was wonderful--never pushing herself forward, but always there. Her house was open to everybody. She wasn't up in the front all the time, though the people here wanted her there. Her Spanish wasn't good, but she would give messages. Everything I did, her attitude was, 'Archie, you're the one that has to go out, and if you have to be away for weeks on end, that's okay--my place is at home taking care of the home.' And she would care for mission things while I was away.

"My wife," Archie states, " was a good minister's wife."

The Camerons went to Canada on furlough in 1968-1969. They couldn't get the proper papers to bring their adopted son Arturo to Canada, so they left him with Helen Villanueva. It grieved Maisy to be apart from her cherished adopted boy. She eagerly looked forward to the day they could return to Honduras.

It had been suggested that Archie let his name appear on the ballot for General Secretary of Missions at the 1969 General Conference. Maisy, a naturally timid person who preferred to stay out of the spotlight and avoid major responsibilities, told Archie, "I feel that God could give me the strength to go right along with you."

However, Mrs. Erma Carlson urged Archie to not even consider the position. "You're not the type of person to sit in a chair back home. You should be forging out with the Gospel." It was perceptive advice.

And so, they returned to Honduras for the foreseeable future. "Maisy was rejoicing that we were coming back to Honduras," Archie remembers.

Maisy began using correspondence courses to teach Arturo. However, she soon got bogged down in trying to teach him the new math. Archie tried to help Arturo understand it, too, but he just couldn't grasp it. Finally, she suggested that they send Arturo to an American woman who had tutored Marilyn and Bob. However, Archie told Maisy he didn't think it would be a good idea; it had not been a good experience for Marilyn and Bob.

A couple weeks later, Maisy sank into a deep depression again, just as she had done in 1952 upon arriving in Honduras.

"She cried and cried all day long," Archie recalls. "She felt she was nothing--that she had never been a good wife, a good mother. That she was just no good for anything. She was scared even to put a kettle of water on the stove. The whole thing was that she thought she wasn't saved."

Someone had told Maisy that if she couldn't trust God to teach Arturo, then she didn't have faith. And if she didn't have faith, she wasn't a Christian. This preyed on Maisy's innate insecurity. Something similar had happened in 1952, when a missionary nurse with another organization told Maisy that God wouldn't permit a Christian to have a nervous breakdown, and she concluded, "Then I must not be a Christian after all."

Both Archie and Maisy were convinced that God wanted them in Honduras. During Maisy's first bout with depression in 1952, Archie told her, "We're not going home. If you have to die here, we're not going home." Such was his certainty of God's call. And God brought Maisy out of her darkness.

It was different in 1969. Archie told her, "Maisy, the last time I told you that even if you had to die, we wouldn't leave Honduras. But you've served with me, we've done our best. If you think we should go back to Canada, we'll go."

But she didn't want to leave. She knew Satan was attacking her. "Don't take me home," she told Archie.

Initially, Maisy cried all the time. But she gradually became increasingly nonfunctional. They had to force her to take a bath, and if left to herself, she wouldn't change her dress for weeks.

One night, about midnight, Heather (who was visiting) and Archie heard Maisy cry out with a terrible moan from the bathroom, where she was bathing. They ran to her.

"Archie, Heather, I'm so ugly, I'm so ugly."

They talked to her for hours. Maisy was aware of her condition, that something terrible had a grip on her. But she didn't know how to return to normalcy.

Finally, Archie told her, "Maisy, you've never once really tried to conquer this thing."

"Archie, I'll try," she said. Then she began crying again, but in a different way--the crying not of a depressed person, but of a normal person.

The next day, they worshipped at the UB church in Tegucigalpa. They had a wonderful time, and Maisy was delighted to be there. She had, once again, resurfaced from depression. But that lasted for just a month. When they returned to La Ceiba, she dropped back into it again. And there she remained until 1984.

"An awful thing," Archie says, simply.

In 1984, Archie made a special trip to the States, and he returned to Honduras with Dr. Paul Fetters, dean of the Huntington College Graduate School of Christian Ministries. Fetters was going to do some teaching for the ministers in Honduras.

Back at the mission house, Archie couldn't find Maisy. "Is my wife around?" he called to the secretary.

"No, T’o," she said. "We gave her permission to tell the workers what to do, and she's down there cleaning up the property. I haven't see her all day. From early morning until late in the day, she's down there working."

What?

Previously, Maisy wouldn't even have looked at a guest, let alone wanted to talk to him. But she came up to the house and said, "Hello, Paul, how's everything going?"

She was cured, again.

The next year-and-a-half proved to be a wonderfully precious time for Archie and Maisy. First thing in the morning, Maisy would head downtown to buy something. Upon returning to the house, she might remember something she forgot to buy.

"Archie, I need to go back to town," she would say.

Teasingly, Archie would say, "Vagabond."

"Archie, you don't know what it's like. I was a slave and now I'm free."

During that time, they came to the States for the Board of Managers Convention of the Women's Missionary Association, where they received a special award for their lifetime of ministry in Honduras. Archie and Maisy stood together on the platform of College Park UB church in Huntington, before hundreds of people, fully in the spotlight. And Maisy, all smiles, took it all in.

But, again, it didn't last.

In 1985, William Smith-Hinds returned to Honduras to become superintendent of the mission field, taking on the responsibility which Archie had carried since Day One. Archie and Maisy moved from the mission house to a farm outside of the city.

They had moved nearly everything, with just one more load to go. Archie asked, "Maisy, do you want to go with this load now? I can come out later with the rest of the things?"

"No, you go," she replied.

So he did. When he returned, he found her in depression again.

This time, there would be no reprieve. There have been trips to doctors and neurologists, medications prescribed, a cat scan. As the years passed, Alzheimer's Disease descended, adding it's own terrible grip on Maisy.

Today, Maisy needs constant care, unable even to get around without the help of a wheelchair. She is almost entirely deaf. A hired nurse or relatives watch Maisy when Archie is out ministering or teaching in his music studio. But when he returns from his labors, he takes over.

The nature of the condition is such that Maisy continually subjects Archie--and only Archie--to constant demands and complaints. She will have him up throughout the night answering her cries. He responds with love, knowing that underneath everything, this is Maisy, his dear Maisy.

This is, still, the lifelong companion with whom God blessed him decades ago.

The woman who is loved and fondly remembered by people throughout northern Honduras.

A good mother, a faithful companion in ministry, a cherished friend to so many.

This woman who barks out incessant demands, who now contributes nothing to the relationship--this is still Maisy, his wife regardless. And so, in the darkness of the house, Archie climbs out of bed to take care of her and reaffirm his love. Nobody else sees, nobody else really knows, except perhaps for one or two angels lingering nearby, watching as chills run between their wings.