Trudie Kay Hedberg

She was born in Minneapolis, MN on Jan. 25, 1941. Quite sickly as a child, she always dreamed of being a nurse. Her dad wondered if she would survive to adulthood. Did she exceed human expectations! She had adventures in many countries and became a trainer of trainers in multiple aspects of life.

She grew up in a Christian home, but she decided to seriously follow Christ at 17 years old. She was on a hayride with a youth group and looking at the stars, it was as if God was asking her “Are you willing to do my will for the rest of your life? She said “Yes Lord. I want to do your will”. The next year she met and obtained ministry training with the Navigators. This began her life-long association with this non-denominational Christian ministry.

She graduated from St. Louis Park High school in 1960, and then went to nursing school in Minneapolis. This combination of ministry with nursing carried throughout her life. In 1964 she went to Sacramento for training in ministry and to work in a hospital.

One day there, her supervisor received a letter from Beirut, asking for a nurse to come to Lebanon to train young nursing students. Thinking she had too little experience to get this position, she applied anyway, asking God to open a door if it was for her. She got the offer!

She packed up and went to Beirut in 1966, training nurses at the CMC Hospital, getting introduced to the wonderful Lebanese culture. Students came to this hospital from towns and villages all over Lebanon and Syria, working for their room and board, and studying nursing. Trudie’s personal ministry was dramatic, she held investigative studies of the life of Jesus with the new students. She had a growing ministry, that saw nurses disciple others who helped others.

By 1971 the hospital work was being run by others, and Trudie saw a need and opportunity to help minister to students at the nearby American University of Beirut. But wars in the Middle East forces changes. So, she left Beirut in the war of 1976 and moved to Jordan to study Arabic. That step for language allowed her to work more with Arabs. With more Arabic in her life, in 1978 she moved to Cairo to work with a ministry there.

She was forced to move again when her parents were in a car accident in Arizona. She moved from Egypt back to the States in 1983 to help take care of her mom. Her dad died that year.

About a year later, Trudie and her mom moved to Pasadena to work with the US Center of World Missions helping a ministry to Armenian women and students from the Middle East. While in Pasadena, Trudie fulfilled a dream to adopt a little girl from India named Bekka. Trudie became a mom and loved her new family. Another shift in work occurred in 1991, so Trudie, her mom and Bekka moved to Colorado Springs to help the Navigators at their headquarters. While there she wrote a book, “Lifting the Veil” to help cross cultural workers understand Muslim cultures and to train them in use of storytelling. This book has been circulated to many agencies.

Her nomadic tendencies continued, and she had an opportunity in 1997 to move to Indianapolis to help with an orphanage that had Russian children. Here she also studied and became a Doctor of Naturopathy in 2001. She combined her health training and experience to open The Haven clinic health ministry for cross cultural workers and others experiencing burnout or health challenges. She was instrumental in healing numerous patients. This focus helped her health too, overcoming one bout of cancer.

It came time to retire from the Haven, so she closed it in 2015 and moved to Tucson, to join her sister Jackie. While in Tucson, she married Charles Hedberg. After he passed, she was able to write another book, “God’s Faithfulness, Trudie Crawford’s Story”.

On February 4, 2024 she went to a place she looked forward to, called her real home, where her nomadic travels would settle, to be with the Lord she followed. She is Safely Home.

She is survived by her daughter Rebekka Crawford, her grandchildren Noah and Ariana, all living near Indianapolis. She also leaves her brother Brian, sister Jackie in Arizona, and brother Steven in South Carolina.

Live Stream: The service will be live-streamed on Facebook Live. Please locate the Facebook page "East Lawn Palms Mortuary & East Lawn Palms Cemetery". Then ‘Like’ that page. Once we go live the day of the memorial, you will get a notification that we have gone live and you can see the video at that point. We turn the livestream on about 5-10 minutes prior to the start of the service.

We are in the Phoenix Arizona standard time zone starting at 4pm on March 8, 2024.

In Lieu of Flowers, please consider a donation to Hands of Hope, a pregnancy center the Trudie volunteered at, or the charity of your choice.

Hand of Hope donations can be made at: https://handsofhopetucson.com/donate/

Visit with the Family:

We will have a reception afterward and an opportunity to visit with the family.