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Three Tribes BLESSED Slocum for Her Faithful Ministry

MARIANNE SLOCUM met Bill Bentley in 1940 at Camp Wycliffe in Sulpher Springs, Arkansas. Twenty-two-year-old Slocum had recently committed to serving as a missionary. Bentley, four years her senior had already spent two years in Southern Mexico where he had made a little headway among standoffish Tzeltal Indians and was translating the Gospel of John. She liked him but he seemed barely to notice her.

Training done, Slocum went straight to Mexico where she began language learning among the Chol people with her coworker Evelyn Woodward. Bentley helped find a home for the pair. Although even short treks left Bentley unduly tired, he often walked over to check on them more often than was necessary. Early the next year he proposed to Slocum. They set a wedding date for August in her native Pennsylvania.  

When they left to travel north, Bentley was rejoicing because the secretive and unfriendly Bachajon Tzeltals had finally invited him to work among them. When a woman suggested Bentley could make a better living in the United States than in Mexico, he replied, "I'm not interested in merely making a living, I want to make a life!" Around that time, Bentley reminded Slocum that if God required it, she must be ready to give him up for the Lord. 

The week before their wedding date, the pair attended a Keswick conference in New Jersey where Bentley spoke on the needs of the lost. After sight-seeing in New York 22 August, Slocum and Bentley had to run to catch their train back to Pennsylvania. The next morning Bentley was late coming down for breakfast. Thinking he had overslept, Slocum's father went up to wake him so they'd not be late for church. But Bentley's faulty heart had given out. 

Later that afternoon the grieving Slocum spoke with Cameron Townsend, founder of the mission. She asked if she could take over Bentley's work among the Tzeltals. He agreed. But the Bachajon people had changed their minds and wanted nothing to do with Slocum. She settled in Yochib, among the Oxchuc Tzeltals of the highlands. Between interruptions, she learned their language. She was trying to meet medical needs, show hospitality, and keep up other duties at her outpost. 

Three years later Florence Gerdel, a nurse, joined her. The pair were able to help many suffering Tzeltal as much by prayer as by medication; and Slocum was able to concentrate more on language study. 

One night, Juan Mucha, a Tzeltal from Corralito, walked to Yochib. "I have heard that God speaks in a book," he said. "Is that a true word?" He believed the gospel and became a powerful evangelist among his people. Despite fierce opposition from traditionalists, Corralito soon had a flourishing congregation. At great sacrifice, its impoverished Christians erected a church building.

But shortly before Easter, opponents struck. On this day, 25 March 1951, an enemy set fire to the building. At great danger to themselves, the Christians rescued what they could from the burning structure. Trusting the Lord to meet their needs, they dug deep into their already depleted resources and rebuilt with a metal roof, completing the new building in time for a civil marriage ceremony of 225 couples in August that year. 

In 1956, Slocum completed the translation of the Bible into the highlands dialect of Tzeltal. Later the Bachajon people had a change of heart and invited Slocum and Gerdel to work among them. Slocum completed translation of the New Testament into their dialect by 1963. The following year, she and Gerdel began work among the Paez Indians of Colombia, again translating the Bible and meeting medical needs. 

In addition to her other work, Slocum left about fifty publications, many of them concerned with erudite linguistic considerations, others anthropological in content, such as studies of tribal mores and transcription of local myths. For their part, Tzeltal Christians spread the gospel widely, developed schools, and obtained training to run their own clinics. A few were martyred.

—Dan Graves

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