Joan Broughton went where God sent her
Joan Broughton made a decision at the age of 24 to travel to Brazil as a missionary and dedicate her life to God’s work. Little did she realize that when she left the United States, she began a journey that would last 38 years.
As she celebrates 80 years of life, Broughton’s reflections are those of a woman who feels very thankful for the many opportunities she has had during her lifetime.
“God never gives us more than we can handle,” says Broughton. “I do what God wants me to do. Every decision is God-directed.”
Broughton was born in 1926 in Big Creek, a tiny California mountain town of 500 people. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in Fresno, and attended Fresno State for one year. After transferring to Westmont College, a Christian liberal arts college in Santa Barbara, Broughton received her bachelor’s degree in Christian education in 1948.
The next year she graduated from a one-year program at the Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, then continued her studies at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, School of Missionary Medicine in 1950. Students at the school of nursing at BIOLA are taught to view nursing as a ministry wherever they choose to serve and to integrate Christian caring into their practice.
In 1951, after attending the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Norman, Okla., to study and analyze languages, Broughton received an appointment to the Conservative Baptists Foreign Mission Society, which is now known as World Venture.
World Venture is a network of mission-minded Christians with a shared vision to see people of all nations transformed by Jesus Christ. Today, World Venture is a community of more than 500 missionaries who work in more than 60 countries around the globe.
As a missionary she would evangelize to people who had never received an understandable presentation of the Gospel and plant missionary churches in northeast Brazil.
Broughton spent the next year raising support for her missionary work which was to begin in Teresina, Brazil. On the Parnaiba River, Teresina is a city in northeastern Brazil and is the capital of Piaui State. It’s a trading center for agricultural products.
Broughton learned Portuguese and for the next three years worked with another missionary to establish a new church.
On her first return trip to the United States in 1955, she married a man she had met at Bible school. Broughton and husband, George, raised their three children in Brazil while serving their mission for the next 34 years.
She often gets asked, “How do you become a missionary?” Broughton’s answer is always the same, “I keep saying yes to God.”
The Broughtons were boat missionaries for three years as they traveled 500 miles up and down the Parnaiba River. Although the Broughtons acclimated to the hot temperatures and equatorial climate, boat malfunctions and muddy waters were always a challenge.
“We had a boat pilot that knew the river well, but there were no charts and the waters were so muddy you could not see to steer,” Broughton says.
The Broughton boat was nicknamed the “Floating Palace,” and since they could hear the diesel engine from miles away, there would always be crowds of Brazilians waiting for them on the shore.
“Many of the Brazilians would walk great distances to meet us,” Broughton says. “They shared their crops of bananas and squash. They are wonderful, sharing people.”
Since Broughton offered the only medical help around, she used her training well as she treated malaria, infections from parasites, pink eye and many childhood diseases. Medicines were often donated by Brazilian doctors.
The Broughtons held open-air meetings because there were no homes large enough to hold the crowds of people. They would spread God’s word with literature, books, Bibles and messages on records.
Another part of their ministry was to help build churches; they planted two churches located in Sao Luis on Brazil’s north coast.
Donations to support their missionary work were provided by 36 conservative Baptist churches across the western United States. Every three to five years the Broughtons would travel back to the U.S. to visit family and report about their accomplishments.
The Broughtons retired to the United States in 1990 because Joan’s parents were ill and needed help. After her husband died in 1995, Joan moved to Rathdrum to be closer to her son, David, and family, and her brother, Dean Barber, who resides in Spokane.
Her children have continued their parents’ legacy. Daughter Lois is a missionary who specializes in deaf ministries and continues missionary work in Brazil. David is active with church camp and youth ministries, and daughter Beth and husband are Wycliffe Bible translators in Dallas.
Broughton has “aged to perfection” as she stays physically active participating in water fitness classes, and by being a grandma to her 10 grandchildren.
She leads women’s Bible studies at Solid Rock Four Square Church in Post Falls, mentors young women in her church and is a volunteer tutor for North Idaho College’s Adult Basic Education program. Broughton also continues to work as a Portuguese/English translator, carefully translating long articles and reference materials for magazine articles.
“I feel so very privileged to have lived my life,” says Broughton.