Amazon Vida is mourning the passing of American missionary Sue Graham at the age of 95 on Monday, November 11 in Waxhan, North Carolina, United States.

Amazon Vida’s founder, Pastor Eduardo Lessa, the father of Pastor Elmer Lessa, was already working with the Satere when he was introduced to this missionary couple in the 1960’s while they were visiting Parintins.

God had a great work in mind when he coordinated the introduction between Pastor Eduardo and the Grahams. Sue and her husband Alberto Graham, would learn about the Satere from Pastor Eduardo and dedicate the rest of their missionary careers to working with the Satere.

Pastor Eduardo allowed the couple to stay in his home as their base of operations when they began their work that would eventually progress into the Grahams being fully accepted in the reservation and they would be adopted as family.

As missionaries for Wycliffe Bible Translators one of the main goals of the Grahams was to have a Bible in the Satere language. This would be a lot of work that would be complicated by the fact that the Satere did not have a written language.

First they had to learn the spoken language and then they needed to create a written language so that they could eventually work on translating the Bible into the newly created language.

With the help of Pastor Servo Miquiles, the first pastor of the First Sateré Church, in Vila Nova I, the New Testament was finally completed in 1986. Unfortunately the work on the Old Testament wasn’t finished before Alberto died on October 07, 2010.

Sue would continue to lead the work to complete the entire Bible in the Satere language in May 2017 which was finally published after more than 50 years of hard work in 2018.

We praise the Lord for the life and great legacy of this missionary couple and sympathize with family and friends at this time of sadness for her earthly farewell, but take comfort in the certainty that Sue and Al Graham are at rest with the Lord.

Learn More: How Much Do You Honor God's Word?