Annie Skau Berntsen

Annie Skau Berntsen (Chinese: 司務道 ), also known as Sister Annie (29 May 1911 – 26 November 1992) was a Norwegian missionary who served in China and Hong Kong.

After training as a nurse, she worked at both the Ullevål Hospital in Oslo and at the Dikemark, a psychiatric hospital in Asker.

By the age of 27, she had joined the Norwegian Missionary Association (Det Norske Misjonsforbund).

On 23 December 1938 Annie arrived in Shaanxi, a province in northern China.

She remained in the country until the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1950.

At 190 cm, she was often the tallest woman the Chinese locals had ever seen before.

However the defeat of the Kuomintang made it impossible for foreign missionaries to remain in China, so she was forced to leave in 1951.

From 1952 she coordinated relief work among Chinese refugees in Hong Kong.

In 1953 she helped co-found a tuberculosis sanatorium with Helen Wilson, a missionary from Scotland.

In 1963 she was appointed as a First Class Knight of St. Olav.

She married Reidar Berntsen in Norway on 25 June 1966, and continued her missionary work in Hong Kong on Haven on Hope Hospital and Mission Covenant Church, until her retirement in 1978.

A 29 December 1975 Time magazine cover story named her as one of the world's "living saints" in a list that included Mother Teresa, Schwester Selma, Hélder Câmara, and Matta El Meskeen.

Her brother Bjørn Skau, was a former Norwegian attorney general.

In 2013 the Haven of Hope Hospital celebrated its 60th anniversary providing services specially designed for elderly people with chronic illness living in the community.

Annie became a national hero in Norway when her life as a missionary was told on the Norwegian program "This is Your Life" (Dette er ditt liv).