Mother Mary C. Carruth

For sixty-nine years, Mother Mary C. Carruth stood beside Bishop Samuel L. Carruth — as his wife, and as co-founder of Holy Light Church of Deliverance.

The family began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When God called Bishop Carruth to pastor in Portsmouth, Virginia, she came with him, and Holy Light was built by the two of them together. In those early years she travelled with him throughout the country as he carried the Deliverance message from city to city, conducting revivals and raising their daughters as they went.

Ministries are usually remembered through the people who preach them. Holy Light is also the work of the woman who made a home inside it — and the clearest measure of her life is not a title but the family and the congregation she left behind.