View source for Solomon, Phoebe Sheela (Bisahu) (b. 1917)

Phoebe Sheela Bisahu Solomon, who was a [[Deaconess|deaconess ]]in the [[Mennonite Church in India|Mennonite Church in India]], and teacher in the [[Dhamtari (Chhattisgarh State, India)|Dhamtari]] municipal schools, was born 8 January 1917 in Lohara District, Rajnandgaon, [[Madhya Pradesh State (India)|Madhya Pradesh, India]]. She was the oldest child of Bisahu and Pyari Bai Prasad, [[Lay Evangelists|lay evangelists]] employed by the Pentecostal Missionary Bands Mission. After her mother died in 1920 her father remarried and moved to [[Korba Mission Station (Madhya Pradesh, India)|Korba]] to work for the [[General Conference Mennonite Church (GCM)|General Conference Mennonite]] Mission. In 1926 the family moved to Dhamtari where both parents served in rural evangelism. Phoebe completed her primary and middle school in American Mennonite Mission schools at [[Balodgahan Mission Station (Chhattisgarh State, India)|Balodgahan]] and high school in Jabalpur. She graduated from Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, the first woman graduate in the Mennonite Church in India.

Phoebe taught in the Garjan Memorial Middle School in Balodgahan from 1940 until her marriage to [[Solomon, Stephen N. (b. 1914)|Stephen N. Solomon]] in 1942. Then she transferred to the mission schools in Dhamtari where she taught both in high school and in the normal school. In 1954 she began teaching in the municipal higher secondary school where she remained until retirement in 1972. In 1942 she was ordained deaconess for the Sundarganj congregation and in 1962 represented the Mahila Sabha (Women's Fellowship) of the Mennonite Church in India at the [[Mennonite World Conference|Mennonite World Conference]] in [[Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)|Kitchener]], Ontario.
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