Another Valley, Another Victory
Valetta Steel Crumley’s lifelong journey with suffering
Raised in a Christian home, Valetta accepted Christ when she was 12 and incorporated the teachings of the Bible into her daily life all throughout her experience at a Christian high school.
“I wanted to obey God,” she said, reflecting on her perspective of faith as a youth.
After her schooling, Valetta married Henry Steel who was diagnosed with cancer and, later, temporarily in remission. In response to the recovery, the married couple began searching One Mission Society for ways to share the Gospel message. This calling led to them being assigned as regional directors for the OMS Portland, OR, region, and shortly after, the offices in the former OMS headquarters in Hollywood, CA.
“We knew OMS was a spirit-filled, Bible-believing mission and knew some of the missionaries,” Valetta said when discussing her and her husband’s dive into missions, “They said, ‘You don’t quite meet the conditions, you have an illness, but we feel God has a place for you.’”
Years after fulfilling his call to missions, Henry died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which left Valetta in the expansive California city with her two children, Leon and Lorna and asking what she should do next.
“As I prayed, I began thinking, ‘What job could I do that would help the most people come to Christ?’”
The answer: staying in missions. Valetta focused on her own call from God, keeping her in the OMS office and working with prayer letters for the OMS vice president until the organization moved to Greenwood, IN, in 1966. This move transitioned Valetta into a life season that housed the deaths of her two remaining children in a tragic and unexpected car accident. (Another son, Danny, had died of leukemia at age 2 in 1955.)
Once again, Valetta was placed in a time of grief and suffering, as well as introspectively asking the question of where she would go from there. After invitations to various Bible studies to share her testimony, OMS missionary Ed Erny invited Valetta to Taiwan to serve and help write her impactful story of God’s prevalence in hardship.
While serving cross culturally in Taiwan, Valetta experienced various tests of the faith. One test included an attack from a home invasion in which an intruder raped her, who now sits on death row for the murder of as many as 14 individuals. This tragedy sparked an interest in working with women who had experienced rape and abuse, as well as witnessing to her rapist’s family.
“I began to realize that God uses even these kinds of things, and I believe that he triumphed over the evil and took the fear out of my heart”
After bouncing from cross-cultural missions to mission recruitment in the United States, in 1994, Valetta married Dr. Al Crumley. She began to rebuild a life with her new husband, including retirement and traveling to more than 20 countries, sharing their testimonies and Valetta’s books, until Al’s death in 2019.
Stemming from her lifelong wrestling with suffering, Valetta has published three books titled, Thrice Through the Valley, Another Valley, Another Victory, Another Love, and finally, Another Valley, Another Victory.
“The road of suffering has been a journey for me,” said Valetta. “The question of suffering is a big one, and God is the answer to it.”