Sarah Mallett (Sarah Boyce) 1761- 1846 Sarah Mallett was born in Loddon in 1761. She first took an interest in religion at the age of nine when her mother asked her: ‘who made you?’ Sarah answered, ‘God’ and immediately had an earnest desire to know God and why he had made her and indeed all humanity. By 1786 Sarah felt strongly called by God to preach in the local Methodist preaching house in Long Stratton. At that time, John Wesley was happy with women teaching Sunday school classes, but preaching was a totally different matter. Sarah was persistent in following God’s call to preach and in 1787 was authorised by Wesley as an itinerant preacher. At that time, she was the only woman to receive this authorisation. Initially she preached mainly in Norfolk and Suffolk. A lack of chapels meant much of her preaching was in the open air, in barns or from wagons. In due course, Sarah was encouraged by Wesley to preach and lead worship further afield and to study the Bible. He wanted people to have a personal religious experience which he believed would transform both them and society. Effective and charismatic leadership was essential. Sarah married another preacher, Thomas Boyce in 1793. They ministered together until her husband’s death in 1813. The 1803 Wesleyan Conference effectively banned women from preaching believing that ordinary people were not supportive of women preaching and that there was no shortage of men to preach. However, Sarah continued to follow God’s call, preaching in London and central England on a six-month preaching tour. Sarah was still in active ministry, serving God at the age of seventy-five and had a strong belief of the importance of people living out their personal faith in their daily life. Two years before she died, she wrote: "I want [people] to take religion into their families, into their shops, into the market and into the field... I rejoice to hear the Lord is raising up many that have great zeal for the Lord and are using their money, their influence, their talents, their time to send the gospel into all lands and bibles in their own language." Sarah faithfully preached the good news of the gospel for fifty years as a pioneer female preacher, but no obituary was written about her after her death. She believed that faith in God should be lived out and shared with others as part of people’s everyday lives. How can we live out and share our faith in the places we spend our time from Monday to Saturday? Rev’d Coryn Stanforth