She Teaches Me Still

She Teaches Me Still, Andrew T. Le Peau. Fill Us Publishing (ISBN: 9798993671819) 2026.

Summary: A memoir, by her husband of 47 years, of Phyllis Strong Le Peau, a nurse, campus minister, writer, and church leader.

Reading this memoir made me wish I’d known Phyllis Strong Le Peau better during her life. Although we were colleagues in the same collegiate ministry, we worked in different areas on different teams and only occasionally crossed paths. But two things I can say about her that come up over and over in this biography was that she lit up any room she entered. And while joyous and fun, she was a person of great depth evident in her probing Bible studies and care for people.

In some ways, her generous and welcoming spirit belies her roots. She grew up in a separatist fundamentalist church in a suburb of East St. Louis. But her life was rooted in an intact family with parents who loved her, and while steeped in the Bible. she was able to recognize the central focus on God’s redemptive grace. Thus, she extended that grace in welcome to all she met.

Le Peau traces her educational journey after high school through nursing school, her work as an ER and pediatric nurse, and her work with Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF). She always engaged with ministry with peers and patients. Working in an interdenominational ministry, she began to question the separatism of her youth. That work also brought her into contact with her future husband. NCF was a division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. As it turned out, Andy worked with InterVarsity on the same team as she. He traces their courtship from a 1974 “not-a-date” lunch to a September 1975 wedding.

Marrying Andy meant another big change for Phyllis. During their engagement, Andy accepted an editorial position and InterVarsity Press in the Chicago area. Phyllis returned to nursing. Following chapters chronicle the growth of their family (she was several years older than Andy and so they did not wait long), successive moves to three houses on the same street, and Phyllis’s first study guide–one on Habakkuk I used with a number of groups!

An invitation to spend a summer vacation in Michigan with friends led to the next adventure of their lives. They quickly fell in love with their cottage on the lake in Fremont. This included Phyllis’s struggle to water ski! Then they learned that the owners were selling. They wondered about buying it. Phyllis’s “Andy let’s do it” settled matters. It meant a lot of work, but created a place of welcome for family, friends and other renters.

Opening themselves to hospitality was just something Phyllis did. Andy was an opposite in many ways but he joined her in turning homes and cottages into welcoming places. This part of the book included stories of the ways she was “crazy fun.” All of this was a manifestation of an infectious love for people–family, students, coworkers, people in their church. In her later years, Phyllis returned to InterVarsity as a staff director and then as an evangelism influencer, working with many younger colleagues.

Retirement led to a new season of influence, working with a national ethnic reconciliation effort in her denomination, until a slow growing lung cancer suddenly exploded in 2021. One of the most moving moments in the book was her passing, when Andy told her “it’s okay for you to go be with Jesus.” The final chapter, “Remembering” looks back over their years and all the ways “she teaches me still.”

Andy Le Peau is a gifted writer, but I can’t imagine writing the memoir of one’s wife. Yet I think he succeeds in a way that offers an honest tribute to a remarkable woman. He doesn’t pass over foibles but handles them lightly. The person he portrays is one in the grip of God’s grace, extending his care to all she met. I mentioned at the beginning that I wish I’d known Phyllis better in life. Thanks to this memoir, I think I do now and she also teaches me.