Eva of Friedenshort
(October 31, 1866 – June 21, 1930)

Eva von Tiele-Winckler was born in southeastern Germany into a family of nobility and wealth. Eva had a conversion experience at the age of 17 after reading John 10. She established a home called Friedenshort, meaning an abode of peace, for women who desired to follow and serve the Lord. With these sisters she opened homes for orphans, widows, and the poor and infirm. By the end of her lifetime, over 40 homes had been established in Germany through her labor. These sisters also preached the gospel in women’s prisons and set up homes where these women could live when discharged from prison. Although she was brought up in wealth, Eva lived a simple life and used her wealth for others’ benefit. She eventually sent a number of sisters to China to serve with the China Inland Mission, and others to Guatemala, Africa, and India. She was helped in her spiritual pursuit through contact with Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis, Hudson Taylor, the Welsh Revival, and the Keswick Convention.

Sister Eva enjoyed fellowship with all true believers. She would not let sectarian attitudes or doctrinal differences hinder her fellowship with other saints. The hymn from which the verse below is taken describes the church’s divisive condition and the writer’s longing to find believers who live in oneness, not letting doctrines and practices divide them. It is a sober reminder to us that our divine birth is a common birth and that Christ’s death has torn down all that divides believers.

-Del Martin

“Where is the truth?” I asked; for this I longed:
None answered right ‘mid all the answering throng;
For ever side by side lay light and shade.
“Where is,” I cried, “the one communion pure?
Where is the Church in which, clear-traced and sure,
The Spirit’s very likeness is portrayed?”

– Eva of Friedenshort