Mathilda Wrede, Part 1

[00:00:04] Welcome to Women Worth Knowing, the radio program and podcast hosted by Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones Gunn. Hello, beautiful listeners. We love to tell you stories about fascinating Christian women. They're ordinary women who trusted our extraordinary God. I love that.

[00:00:22] And Cheryl has found one that I don't know if I'll ever be able to pronounce her name. No, and it was so obscure. It's crazy. I love it when the Lord just, puts this woman in front of you. Like a highlight. It's like a spotlight.

[00:00:37] This one. Tell her story. And it's such a story. I love the discovery. Yes. Oh, me too. Because like we say in this program, right all the time that there's so many. There's so many. This is inexhaustible because of the women that have trusted the Lord.

[00:00:53] And this is no exception. But I have to warn you, our story takes place mainly in Finland. Wonderful. Yes. Right around the turn of the century. So Mathilda and her name is M-A-T-H, think math and then Ilda, which is interesting because some sites end it with an E,

[00:01:12] others with an A, but her name is Mathilda Reid. I'm going to try it. Mathilda. Mathilda. All right. There we go. Aren't you so tempted to say Mathilda? Which is probably the English equivalent, right? Yeah. And her last name was Reid with a W, W-R-E-D-E. Okay.

[00:01:28] So Mathilda Reid and she was born in a place called, and I'm going to probably try this one. Since Finnish is supposedly the hardest language in the world. I believe it. I have been to Helsinki and the signs alone are thumping. Yes. Okay. So this is Vaasa. Okay.

[00:01:48] Vaasa. And that's how I would say it. So Vaasa is on the west coast of Finland and just about halfway down the coast of Vaasa, it was actually for about nine months, the capital of Finland in, I think it's, oh, somewhere in the early 1900s, it had this

[00:02:10] short, short lived time of being the capital. What's interesting about Finland for those who know what Finland, where it is, is it is like a peninsula that juts down into the Baltic sea, but the little gulf between Finland and Sweden is called the Gulf of Botnia.

[00:02:35] Now there has been, or was, sorry, for years and years and years, an ongoing battle between Sweden and Russia for dominance on Finland, mainly the czars. And so it would go to Sweden and then it would go to Russia and then it would go to

[00:02:55] Sweden and then it would go to Russia. And this is the time of the czars. So most people in Finland speak or then spoke Finnish and Swedish, two very difficult languages. So here's my one fun fact about Finland. Okay.

[00:03:12] Finland is the only country that paid back the United States for the debt of what they borrowed during World War II. The only country probably ever to pay back the full amount of a loan. Wow. That's some integrity. What is my mouth today?

[00:03:33] I started with Mathilda and I keep going. Another interesting fact is that they have reindeer. That's true. And their Christmas feast is usually on reindeer. Yeah, I actually ate reindeer when I was there. Did you? Yes. So that's a fun fact.

[00:03:50] Okay, the average temperature in Vaasa, the average temperature is 40 degrees. That's average. Yeah. Oh, it's a wonderful summer day. Oh, it's a wonderful spring day. It doesn't get usually that much colder or that much warmer. So I believe it. I went in February. It was ridiculous.

[00:04:11] That would be so beautiful. And the people I loved. So, all right. So let's hear about Mathilda before we go on. And Finland only gained their independence after World War I. So Mathilda was born in 1864 and that's when Finland was still like a vassal state of the Tsar.

[00:04:35] So Tsar Alexander the First. So, oh, sorry, Tsar Alexander the Second. He was the ruler. And so there was always kind of a civil unrest because there were those who were loyal to Sweden, those who were loyal to the Tsar and those who wanted Finland to be independent.

[00:04:56] Right. So those who wanted Finland to be independent in that time, and we're going to talk 1864 till World War I, were deported to Siberia. And rarely seen again. And they were deported to work in the minefields for the Tsar.

[00:05:17] So that's some of the tension that was going on. Now, Mathilda is actually Baroness Mathilda Reed. And she has her title from both her father and her mother. So her father was Baron Karl Gustav Reed, and her mother was Baroness Eleonora and then Glanson Tegerna.

[00:05:45] And I'm so glad I only have to say that once. And if you didn't hear it, just do something else because I'm sure that I did not say it right. Her father was not only a Baron, but he was also a governor.

[00:05:59] And he governed the region of Aasa, which was a very profitable region. You can imagine because of the coast and the imports and exports. Exactly. So when Mathilda was only 11 years old, her mother died. And her older sister Helena kind of took over the raising.

[00:06:20] Now, Mathilda was the middle child of nine children. So no wonder her mother died early on. Now, Mathilda was tutored. She had governesses. I mean, she lived a very upper class lifestyle, filled with tutors. She went to a very elite boarding school. She was educated.

[00:06:45] But their servants who served her father, they like to control and kind of bring the obedience of all nine children out by threatening them with the King of Hiram. Oh, if you're bad, the King of Hiram is going to get you.

[00:07:01] And so this was something that the servants built up over and over again. Well, the actual King of Hiram was this man named Isotalon, Isotalon Aunty. And he was a farmer, a local farmer actually, who had all these thugs working for him.

[00:07:21] And they would come to the marketplace in Vaasa to sell their produce and all of that. And his thugs would inevitably get in a fight, and there'd be a huge brawl at the marketplace. So this is one of the things that her father, Baron Karl, had to solve.

[00:07:42] What was he going to do? So one day he came home and he announced that he had solved the problem because he made Isotalon, he made him the peacekeeper over the marketplace. Oh, clever. Do you think that worked? I doubt it. No, it did not work.

[00:08:05] So again, the threats of the King of Hiram that you'd be like conscripted into his force, or you would, you know, be beaten up by one of his thugs. All of this was going on and it worked.

[00:08:20] It made Mithilda a very obedient, very compliant child because she did not want the King of Hiram to get her. Now, this is really interesting that, you know, she was threatened by the King of Hiram because this man, Isotalon, will come up later in our story.

[00:08:42] So we're not even to the good part yet. We're still at the very beginning and the early influences. So her father had quite a few landholdings. He was a very, very, very wealthy.

[00:08:53] And they had a home not only in Vassa that was pretty substantial, but also a country estate too. And both of these estates were maintained by prisoners from the local prison. And she was told, do not talk to these men. Don't ever talk to these men. They're criminals.

[00:09:12] And they would work the gardens. They would work in this shop building furniture for the family home. They worked the maintenance, just, you know, painting and keeping up these different properties. But she would watch as they would come in and they were all shackled.

[00:09:32] They all had these chains on them wherever they were. Talk about a ball and chain. They actually had them in some of them even had an iron neck brace that they had to wear. And so that obviously identified them.

[00:09:50] And I think as a child, that would be so frightening to see. Thinking so much fear. Right? Because, you know, what have these been done that they have to have these kinds of chains and shackles on them?

[00:10:04] Well, one day she was looking out her window and she absolutely loved animals. There was not an animal that Mathilda did not love. She had just this tender heart and her favorite of all animals were horses.

[00:10:20] So sometimes she would look out the window to watch the blacksmith shooing a horse because she loved to watch the process and to see the horses. She loved all of that. Well, I'm glad that there were some happy and peaceful and normal things besides the

[00:10:37] marketplace brawls and the prisoners in the garden. Wow. This was not pleasant. Oh, you, you, I wish it was. Keep going. But this, this was a defining moment that she would talk about for the rest of her life.

[00:10:50] And when she looked out, she saw the blacksmith with his hot iron, take it out of the fire, put it into the water. And then she saw men in their shackles lined up with two burly guards with guns. Oh. And she watched these men being branded. Oh, sure.

[00:11:10] And it just tormented her. True. To the point where they said she couldn't even enjoy her bedroom furniture anymore. Wow. She thought branded men. Yeah. In shackles made this. Mm-hmm. And so that was just something that, you know, was working her.

[00:11:29] But again, she's not allowed to talk to these men. And again, the branding was in case they escaped, that they could be recaptured, that they could be easily identified. But how cruel. Yes. You know, branding is what you do to animals.

[00:11:43] And I don't even think that's very, you know, kind. So when she was 19 years old, there was a huge reception for her. It was kind of, you know, one of those big galas that her father had to appear at.

[00:12:00] And her sisters went and it was a time to dress up and to dance. And it was for frivolity. And she was planning on going when she received this invitation to go to this small church.

[00:12:16] And for some reason, she felt that she needed to go to that church. So she goes to this small church and she's sitting in the back, not really knowing the Word of God, not really ever hearing a message about the love of God.

[00:12:31] And the pastor chose as his text that night, John 3, 16, which of course we're all familiar with, for God so loved the world. Yes. That he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

[00:12:47] And her heart was so stirred, not only for the love of God for her, but the fact that God loved the world. He loved everyone. She gave her life that night to the Lord.

[00:13:01] And she said she had an experience, just this experience of every burden being lifted off of her and the incarnate God coming to live within her. That's beautiful. She was so excited. But when she shared it with her father and her sisters, they were really dismayed.

[00:13:20] In fact, the reaction from her father was he was appalled. You know, she's 19, so she's not considered old enough to make those kind of adult choices maybe or family traditions. That and I think he just felt like it's all right to believe, but you're talking with

[00:13:36] such exuberance about an experience. And the sisters and he were all very, very put off. Interestingly enough, there was a brother who had already had an experience like this, and he'll come up a little bit later.

[00:13:54] But after his experience, he ended up going to Siberia and working with those men that have been deported, evangelizing them as well as the people who lived in Siberia. And he did that for three years. So she's had this experience and there's no one to tell.

[00:14:14] There's no one she can tell, and she wants to tell somebody. And the next day she heard somebody rattling outside her door, and she opened her door and there was one of the prisoners right outside her bedroom door.

[00:14:33] And he had been sent by her father to fix the jam on the door. Her door was getting jammed, so it was something with the doorknob or something. And so she began to talk to him, something that was forbidden on her father's estate.

[00:14:49] But as they begin to talk, she realized this is a human being. This is a child of God. He was created by God. So she asked him if he would like a cup of coffee. And that just wasn't done.

[00:15:05] And she went and she got him a cup of coffee. And when she brought it back, something about her, this baroness serving him, a convict melted his heart. And she began to share with him the experience she had with Jesus Christ the night before.

[00:15:25] And she said, I don't know that I would do this, but I learned last night that God loves everyone. And he said, your message is so wonderful. You need to come and tell everyone in the prison about the love of God. You need to tell them.

[00:15:45] And she said, oh, I will. I promise. So the next day she went to her father and she said, Father, I need to go to the prison and I need to tell them about Jesus in the prison. And he said, I don't think so.

[00:16:04] No, that's not going to happen at all. And she said, but Father, I promised. Well, when he heard that she promised because a baroness and a baron's word was to be binding, he said, all right, but I'm going to send you with an armed guard, which they called

[00:16:24] a ward. And so a warder. So she was sent to the prison to speak, but she had a warder. Well, when she got there, she was so put off by the conditions. There was screaming, there was shrieking, screeching because not only were convicts there,

[00:16:45] so were the mentally ill. They were housed in this. There was no sanitation at all. The rooms had maybe straw that would be swept out. But for the most part, they were never cleaned any of the cells. There were no bathroom facilities and there were very few windows.

[00:17:05] And most of the cells were just dark, completely dark without light because they were worried about giving the convicts anything. There were stories about convicts who had worked in the kitchen and smuggled the knives back and tried to kill the guards.

[00:17:23] And so they were very strict with all the prisoners and the prisoners had little to nothing. They weren't allowed outside into a prison yard like we think of today. Even as austere as a prison is, cannot begin to match how terrible these conditions were.

[00:17:45] She said the stench was overwhelming. And the cold, I mean, I'm sure they didn't. And it's Finland. Yeah, exactly. No, they did not. So she went around to each of these cells and spoke to the men.

[00:18:03] They had an assembly and she spoke to that assembly and she left and she thought, okay, that was good. I've done that. I did that. I kept my word and I have done that. Mm-hmm.

[00:18:16] But that night as she went to sleep, she had a dream and it was vivid. In fact, her dream was so vivid, she really expected it to come true. She saw this man come into a room who was chained.

[00:18:34] He had a chain around his neck and he had shackles on his arms and his legs and his chains were rattling. And he walked into her room and he looked at her and she said, what is it? Why are you looking at me?

[00:18:51] But she said his face was again so clear she could make out every feature that she half expected to meet him someday again because of how strong this apparition was. And the prisoner spoke finally and said, speak to them about Jesus while there is still time.

[00:19:15] Okay, I just got chicken skin. Oh, Cheryl. Speak to them about Jesus while there is still time. Well, she awoke from this dream and immediately began to pray and say, Lord, are you trying to say something to me?

[00:19:33] Are you telling me that I'm supposed to speak or someone else's to speak? Lord, what are you saying? And then she said she was conversing with the Lord. She said, Lord, I'm way too young for this. I'm too young. I'm I'm only 19 years old.

[00:19:47] How how can I possibly go into these these prisons and do this? But the Lord spoke to her that day as she picked up her Bible to read. Now remember, she's very new at all of this. Yes. From Jeremiah one, seven and eight.

[00:20:04] Do not say I am only a child. Love it. Love it. For to everyone I send you, you will go. And all I command you to speak, you will speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you.

[00:20:21] So she said, okay, that was good. But I still need. So good. Another another word of, you know, comfort. You know, confirmation. So a little bit later in the day, she got a word from Ezekiel three eleven. I was thinking about that.

[00:20:37] Yeah, this is not a common passage. Oh, is he just opening? And there it is. Or, you know, I don't know. It could be somebody spoke to her. I don't know. But this was the scripture.

[00:20:50] Go get thee to them in captivity unto the children of the people and speak to them. So here are her words of confirmation. So, you know, she prays a little bit and she turns 20.

[00:21:03] So at 20 years old, she goes back to well, before that, she starts visiting, but she always has to have an armed guard with her. And she starts a ministry at Kukola prison near Abo. And that's not too far from her home.

[00:21:20] There are over 400 men in this prison that are sentenced for life. And she she would she spoke to an assembly on Good Friday. And when she finished, there were men weeping. And then she began to visit the prison daily, visiting men at their cell doors, preaching, teaching.

[00:21:43] Now, remember this between 19 and 20, writing letters for them because a lot of them were illiterate. So she would write letters back to their their families, their children, their wives. Their parents. She would write these letters for them. She would come fully prepared with, you know, ink and paper.

[00:22:01] She was encouraging them, listening to them with empathy. Now, some of the prisoners had the most heart wrenching stories and others that she sat with. She could tell they were trying to shock her with the ghastly things that they had done almost to test her.

[00:22:21] Almost to test her, you know, her resolve to keep visiting them when they were evil and had done such evil things. And she knew that it was an anointing from the Lord because she was never once afraid. It's almost like her childhood with the marketplace thugs and everything.

[00:22:38] It's like, OK, I know there's evil out there. Now I know where the light comes from. That's right. To tell everybody. And she was never afraid. And she believed in the Lord so strongly and knew that the light in her was stronger than any darkness around her. Yes.

[00:22:56] Well, she felt like these warders, these armed guards that were with her were off putting to the men and she wanted to get rid of the armed guards. Talk about faith, right? Or maybe they needed to get saved first. Join in the ministry, guys.

[00:23:12] So even though she's small and she was not pretty by all accounts, and she had a rather prominent nose, one convict recalled, I remember distinctly the moment when for the first time I saw her standing in the doorway of my cell.

[00:23:28] It was if daylight were streaming in and as if spring had come with all its greenery in the barrenness of winter. So there are many stories about when she was just a Coca-Cola, about violent men she visited

[00:23:41] and her fearlessness, the kindness and the loving appeal in the face of violent threats. But not once in any of her visits did she ever meet with violence. Although many of the men she talked with received Jesus Christ.

[00:23:59] So when she's 20, she goes to the commissioner of the prisons and she says, I want constant permission to enter the prison and every prison in Finland whenever I want. And he says, well, you're only 20. And she said, yes, but that will change. She's the realist as well.

[00:24:25] And she says that will definitely improve. And so because of that, he not only gave her a pass for every prison in Finland that she could visit at will or whenever she wanted to, but she also received a rail pass so that she

[00:24:43] could take the train to any of the locations where the prisons were anywhere in Finland. So that's part one. Oh, yes. Oh, good. I can't wait to hear the rest. Oh, yeah. She's amazing. There is more to come. I'm so excited about this discovery.

[00:24:59] Mythbuilder, I'm so glad you brought her to us. Thanks, Cheryl. Thank you for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones-Gunn. For more information on Cheryl, visit CherylBrodersen.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook.

[00:25:21] For more information on Robin, visit RobinGunn.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook. Join us each week for a lively conversation as we explore the lives of well-known and not so well-known historical and contemporary Christian women.

[00:25:35] If you think there is a woman worth knowing, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at WWK at CCCM.com. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Make sure you rate us on your podcast app, subscribe and share it with a friend.

[00:25:50] Thank you again for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones-Gunn. Women Worth Knowing is a production of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.