Ruthie Bassett
“Ruthie” Bassett knew at an early age that she wanted to be a missionary. When each child in her grade school Sunday School class was asked what they wanted to be someday, she said she wanted to be a missionary.
Ruthie was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a pastor, and her family moved several times throughout the Northeast during her childhood; she primarily she grew up in Clinton, Massachusetts, and Allentown, Pennsylvania. Her parents truly lived out the Christian message in their lives, and many missionaries spoke in her father’s churches, all of whom had an impact on her continued desire to be a missionary.
After graduating from KMBC, Ruthie spent the summer of 1968 in Haiti with the WGM Summer Career Corps (now Volunteers In Action). She held children’s Bible classes at the orphanage, helped with women’s meetings, and assisted the missionaries in any way she could. She received her BA from Central Wesleyan College (now Southern Wesleyan University) and then taught one year at an elementary school in the Philadelphia area before becoming a career missionary with WGM in 1970.