The Mary B. Coffey Memorial Fund
The Mary B. Coffey Memorial Fund was launched at her funeral on March 13th, 2020. According to her wishes, all donations to BTUSA for the fund will be used towards Bible College projects, primarily the Trust's sponsored college in Bangladesh.
$100,000 more by Dec. 31
David Coffey writes:
One person hugely responsible for enabling our service has been Mom--Mary Coffey. In spite of cardiac problems (brushed off with: “it’s nothing a resurrected body won’t cure”), she co-taught two Bible classes per week until February 10th, 2020.
Back in 1909, when Mary was a baby, everything was different. Theodore Roosevelt was leaving the White House to make room for Howard Taft. There were no computers, the automobile industry was in its infancy and nothing much ran on electricity. By age 13, Mary proudly drove her father’s Model T Ford, but the indelible influences on her were legal and spiritual studies.
An excellent student in school, Mary wanted to go to law school in an era when some Southern families would rather their girls go to a good ‘finishing school’. Fearing that she would be ‘virtually finished’, Mary married Otis Coffey, a promising young educator and coach. She chose well as during his lifetime Otis was American football coach of the year in 1953 before going to then Pakistan (Dhaka) where he established 15 commercial colleges and coached four Pakistan Olympic teams in track and field events. His international work allowed Mary to travel the world eighteen times and study many cultures.
Mary met with presidents, kings, and even Queen Elizabeth. She experienced changes of societies brought about by political upheavals with the rise of Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism in the ‘20s, ‘30s and 40s empowering authoritarian rulers who walled in societies and walled out ideas. Following her personal conversion to Christ at age 33, Mary turned her full attention to Bible study which has lasted 77 years. She concluded that only the experience of ‘knowing Christ’ and studying His life deeply could liberate humankind from the shackles of legal and political bondage.
Mary held that Christians must resist establishing worldly kingdoms remembering Jesus’ declaration: “My kingdom is not of this world”(Jn. 18:36). Rather they must “go into all the world and preach the Gospel:” (Mk. 16:15)
To the last day of her life, Mary continued to pray for the people of Bangladesh. When she died, the principal of the Bible College there wrote,
'We lost our dear mother who kept praying for us by calling our names. We will meet her in glory.'
