Patricia Ruth Bonnell, 81

Patricia Ruth Bonnell, 81, died peacefully on July 30, 2013, in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013, at 10 a.m. in The Church of the Nazarene. Private interment will be in the Grandview Cemetery, Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

She was preceded in death by her parents and is survived by her sister, Martha Marie Bonnell, as well as many family members and friends throughout the world.

Pat was born in Miami, Florida on July 8, 1932, to Monroe John Bonnell and Ruth Esther Bonnell. During her childhood, Pat lived in Alachua, Florida, with her dad and stepmother, Big Pat.

She also lived near Asheville, N.C., with her grandmother and mother, and then Mars Hill, N. C., with her mother and step-father, Vaughn Robinson.

Martha was her constant companion during those days, in numerous activities such as swimming lessons or walking around the farm. Says Martha of her older sister, “Pat was my protector.”

Pat excelled in school, and after graduating from high school in Alachua went on to complete her R.N. in 1953 at Southern Baptist Hospital in New Orleans, La.

She studied linguistics and theology at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Ark., earning a bachelor of arts degree in biblical studies.

For 40 years, Pat served as a nurse, bookkeeper, and childcare worker with Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics. She lived in many diverse places — Buon Jhat, Ban Me Thuot, Nha Trang, Kon Tum, Bukidnon, Kota Kinabalu, and Singapore, among others — and traveled extensively elsewhere as well.

During her time in Vietnam (1959-1975), Pat attended to numerous public health needs, helping to build clinics, preventing the spread of tuberculosis, decreasing infant mortality, and helping the victims of land mines, principally among indigenous peoples displaced by the war.

Her effective, calm nursing also played a role in saving lives during a mortar attack at Khe Sanh. She had a special heart for children. She ended up adopting one such infant who was placed in her care and named him Paul. They left Vietnam in March 1975.

Following several years in the Philippines and Malaysia, Pat and Paul moved to Waxhaw, N.C. in 1987. Pat lived there until 2008, when she moved to Bonners Ferry, Idaho to live with Paul, Rebecca, Ada and Levi.

In 2012, Pat suffered a severe stroke, necessitating her move to Life Care in Sandpoint. During her last year, she appreciated visits from family and friends, sitting on the patio, listening to music by the aviary, and participating in the Sunday afternoon church service.

Throughout her life, Pat enjoyed tending flowers, watching animals, sewing, preparing meals, playing with children, listening to music, singing, reading, and corresponding with her many friends and family members.

She kept track of birthdays and special events, surprising nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends with cards of encouragement or books to read. She celebrated growth, nature, beauty, and creativity--starting orchids and other plants from cuttings, swimming the side stroke in the South China Sea, appreciating diverse languages and people, and relishing moments of watching her grandchildren play with Legos or draw.

She loved to put a puzzle together with her sister. Although she lost all her personal belongings more than once in her life, she was an archivist, bringing family members blankets from Kathmandu, jewelry from the highlands of Vietnam, or musical instruments and baskets made from bamboo.

She took thousands of photographs, documenting the many places she traveled and the lives of the people whom she knew. She loved sharing her experiences of the simple beauty in the world. She liked to watch it snow.

She introduced friends to Vietnamese food. She walked down the driveway to photograph the sun on the mountains.

Some of Pat’s many cherished Bible passages are Proverbs 3: 5-6, Philippians 4:6-7, and John 3:16. Pat loved her Saviour, Jesus Christ, as well as her neighbors, and she was loved and will be missed by all who knew her.

Paul asks that anyone interested in gifts in memorial of Pat direct them toward the Bru Assistance Fund, which his mother supported. Bru Assistance Fund, Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1-866-736-4387.

Family and friends are invited to sign Pat’s book at www.bonnersferryfuneralhome.com Arrangements are entrusted to the care of Bonners Ferry Funeral Home.