Mrs. Lowe with Mrs. Sadat
Mrs. Lowe with Mr. Anwar Sadat
Mrs. Lowe as a missionary in the 1940's
In the early 1930’s, a man of God from Baltimore, Maryland, Thomas E. Lowe, set out for South America as an independent missionary (as his visa termed him, a nearly unheard of designation in those days of total Roman control). He had a burden in his heart for those who never had the opportunities so freely available in the United States: the Bible, the preaching of the Gospel and the marvelous moving of the Holy Spirit. Soon, Sister Lowe joined her husband and they worked together, first in an outlying backward city where they saw bonfires of Bibles burning and then, for five years in Bogota with a population of 300,000. Brother and Sister Lowe were the first missionaries with the Pentecostal experience to work in Bogota. Among those saved included priests who took great risks and testified to a personal knowledge of God through His Son. One even wrote a book, The History of a Redeemed Captive. Then, in the midst of his work and ministry, Brother Thomas Lowe died at the age of forty-seven on November 19, 1941, leaving his widow alone in a foreign land.
Sister Lowe returned to the States in January of 1942, and in her desire to thank the Sabine Tabernacle for the help of their missionaries, the Lord brought her to Beaumont. When she met Brother and Mrs. Hodge, they found a kindred spirit, and on August 25, 1942, she was ordained through the United Gospel Tabernacles. The burden in her heart, her love for the Colombians and the petitions they sent urging her to come back proved too great to refuse, so Sister Lowe decided to return to Colombia after her ordination. At this critical point, Brother Hodge offered to help sponsor her re-entry and agreed to stand behind her so that she could respond to the request from Colombia that she return.
From that point on, she poured the remainder of her life into that land, including a year as supervisor of an orphanage in Bethlehem, Jordan. Later on, she began working with students in the Ivy League universities in New York with some catching the vision, giving their lives to the Lord and working in Colombia with her.
In December of 1965, the following article appeared in the Beaumont Enterprise:
“Mrs. Hannah Lowe, independent faith missionary for thirty years to Colombia, South America is visiting with her friends at the Sabine Tabernacle of Beaumont. Mrs. Lowe has not been in Beaumont for fifteen years during which time she worked on the mission field; mostly in Colombia, South America, but also one year in Bethlehem with Arab orphans, and in various countries in Europe and Venezuela. For the past year, Mrs. Lowe has worked with students from various Northeastern Universities such as Columbia University and Yale University.”
God used Mrs. Lowe to witness to many in the higher echelons of foreign governments, including the Shah of Iran, President and Mrs. Anwar Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan and Presidents Lopez and Turban of Colombia. However, she never lost “the common touch” and related to taxi drivers and hotel maids with the same love of Christ and desire to win their souls.
Mrs. Lowe died in Jerusalem on June 20, 1983 and is buried in the Alliance International Cemetery on Emek Rephaim Street.