It was June 2018 and Ilene Nagle and I were sitting in a village square in a remote Oaxacan town. The sun warmed us as we watched people going about their daily activities: Shopping, chatting with friends, and buying small trinkets from the vendors.
Ilene leaned over and asked if I wanted an ice cream from a local seller. But years earlier, I had eaten ice cream on a beach in Mexico, and things hadn’t worked out well for me. I declined her offer, not wanting to make the same mistake twice.
“Don’t live in fear,” she said, giving me a look I’d come to know, a sideways glance that was a mixture of skepticism and gentle reproach. “Don’t be afraid to try new things.”
A few days later I said “yes” to her offer of a ride up a village road in a three-wheeled mini cab. We whooped and cackled as the cab bounced through deep grooves and puddles, until the driver gave up and let us out to pick our way through the rocks and mud.
And that’s how it was when I was with Ilene. She took me to places I never would have traveled without her as a guide in the Mexican states of Baja California and Oaxaca. She wanted me to document and share what God was doing in the ministry that she and husband Don had established, and I wanted to see whatever she had to show me.
The first trip I took to Papalote, in the Baja, involved helping families clean up their homes after a flood in 2010. Floods filled the homes – not much more than shacks – with sand and swept the belongings out, including a small Bible left opened to Psalm 139. In Oaxaca in 2018, she introduced me to people who spoke mountain village languages, some of whom Ilene had witnessed break free of generations of abuse.
There was beauty and heartache, physical trials and tight prayer circles. She was a trained nurse and I watched as people came to her with all manner of ailment. She and Don strove to bring everyone they met into an encounter with Jesus. It wasn’t a question of if, it was when they’d meet Jesus. And once they met Him, it was only a matter of time before the person would go to the mission's Bible school. And once a person graduated, it might not be long before the Nagles asked if it was time to start a church.
We lost Ilene on March 20 this year after she battled cancer in her brain and other places in her body. While there is sadness for those of us left behind, Don called us to instead remember that Ilene's last and greatest trip was into the arms of Jesus.
“My dear wife, Ilene, went to be with the Lord Jesus,” Don wrote in a letter that shared news of her passing. “It is with great joy I make this announcement, as she is now interacting with believers from generations past and family that has gone before her. She is not suffering or in pain from her past life in this world. She has a new body and has been transformed awaiting the elect. With this hope we have no fear.”
No fear. That’s exactly how I’ll remember her. Kind of takes my breath away.
Ilene’s Celebration of Life is this Saturday at 2:00PM, here on YouTube and here on Facebook.
