Árdís - 01.01.1964, Page 34

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ÁRDÍS
During her early years Ólafía became an active worker for
women’s rights (Hið íslenzka Kvenfélag) and for a university in
lceland. Her efforts for temperance took her to various parts of
lceland. Once during the middle of winter she went across the
country to Seyðisfjörður on horseback and on foot for the cause
of temperance.
Around the turn of the century she went to America for the
cause of temperance. During her stay in America she met numerous
people, among them Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist, and
Frances Willard, the founder of the Womens Christian Temper-
ance Union. Among the friends she came to love and esteem was
Rev. Jón Bjarnason of Winnipeg.
As a child Ólafía had a growing faith, but, unfortunately, as
she grew older, she lost her childhood faith. Nevertheless, she
continued to search for God. During a visit to her parents in the
beautiful Skaftafell district, she was so impressed with the
majestic work of the Creator that she said, “If God exists and has
made all this, He must be wonderful; if God exists, I long to
know Him.” She uttered a simple prayer, “God, if there is a God,
teach me to know Thee.” Later Ólafía wrote in her remarkable
autobiography, From Darkness io Lighi, “I soon forgot this prayer,
but God heard it and answered it in his good time.”
Ólafía gradually became sensitive to the call of God. Through
conversation with friends, among them Rev. Sigurbjörn Á. Gísla-
son; through reading the Bible and sermons of the “prince of
preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, Ólafía gradually came to hear and
heed the call of God.
Listen to the words of one who sought and found. “I fell to
my knees . . . and asked God that Jesus would be my Saviour,
would take away my sins, and that I might in the Son have
everlasting life.”
After this Ólafía’s supreme desire was to serve God. Although
she traveled to such places as England and Switzerland for the
cause of temperance and women’s rights, Ólafía finally (in 1903)
went to Norway to receive the “white ribbon” and to devote the
rest of her life to helping the unfortunate women of Oslo.
Her first abode was a small house in the poorest section of
Oslo. Here girls who had fallen to the lowest depths, girls who