Rev. Telie Dover Greer

Telie Dover Greer was born in the Ozark Mountain village of Zion, Arkansas, on July 7, 1916. Her birth name was Roxie Artelie Dover, but the name Roxie was only known by her relatives. Telie rhymes with freely, and Telie lived freely and gave her life freely for the work of the Lord.

When Telie was a baby, an elderly man named Titus knocked on the door of the Dover house and asked to pray for the baby. Titus prayed and proclaimed that the baby girl would preach the gospel all over the world. This prophecy was unbelievable to the family, yet twenty years later Telie was an international evangelist. Her ministry took her to all fifty US states and every province of Canada. She visited over fifty countries, and many miracles and healings occurred in her meetings.

When Telie was nine, she had a vision of India. In her vision, thousands of Indians were falling off a mountainside, and Telie was the only one who could save them. She knew God had called her to be a missionary to India. In 1933, Ben Green preached a one-month revival in a small Oklahoma town. Only one person received the baptism of the Holy Spirit: the seventeen-year-old Telie Dover. He later said the revival had cost him $100, but that the conversion of Sis Telie was worth every penny.

Telie tried to go to India in 1936, but due to complications with her visa she was not able to leave. She accompanied Mother McCarty to the New York harbor and told the veteran missionary that they would soon be together in India. However, Telie did not make it to McCarty’s mission until 1947. By that time, McCarty had passed away.

William Turner wrote that Telie was "conspicuously bold, bluntly outspoken, beautiful but happily un-genteel as the occasion required … Telie was willing to go anywhere, under any conditions, in order to preach the gospel. She waded through muddy streams, hiked for miles on jungle trails of the Himalayan foothills, [and] survived the bite of a deadly poisonous viper” (from India to the World: The Missionary Pilgrimage of Harry E. Scism).

There was a group of Presbyterian Revivalists who had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and separated from the Presbyterian church. They had received several prophecies and interpretations of tongues saying, “I will send you an American woman who will teach you.” Somehow they heard of Mother McCarty and wrote to her. McCarty was dead, but Telie Dover received the letter and traveled one thousand miles to the Lushai Hills of Assam in northeast India. She baptized their leader, Zakamnova, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He baptized eight other men, and they baptized a thousand others. Within one year they had established 100 churches and had a constituency of 10,000 members. She contacted Ellis Scism, the newly arrived UPCI missionary to south India, and arranged for him to visit the northeast Indian church. Today there are over 100,000 Jesus Name Pentecostals in northeast India. Additionally, the first United Pentecostals in Myanmar, Bhutan, and Bangladesh were converts of the UPC of North East India.

In 1956, when Telie was forty years old, she married Talmadge Greer, and they returned to India. Their first son, Landis, was born in 1957. The baby’s health required them to return to the United States, but Sister Telie continued to pray for her “beloved India.” The couple later served as missionaries in Central America, and Telie continued to travel and minister until she was in her eighties. She passed from this life on June 10, 2002.