While teaching, she was very active in Sunday School and Womens Missionary Union (W.M.U.) work at Highland Baptist Church. She felt led to attend the W.M.U. Training School in Louisville, Ky., to receive special preparation for missionary work on the foreign field. She graduated in 1914.
A year later, on July 15, 1915, she received her missionary appointment from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Richmond, Va., and sailed for China on Oct. 8.
She became the first graduate of North Greenville University to go on an appointed mission.
She served 22 years in China. While there, she married Dr. Parks Harrison Anderson Sr., a fellow missionary, who lost his wife while giving birth to twins.
One twin survived, leaving Dr. Anderson with four young children to raise.
In later years, Parks and Paneuma Anderson had two children, Henry Lee and Theresa.
Soon after they retired and returned to the United States, Dr. Anderson passed away on March 9, 1955. Following his death, she made her home for a short time near Greer with her sisters, Ollie Barton and Mrs. Glover Dill.
She lived her last years as a resident of the Bethea Baptist Home, in Darlington, S.C.
She died September 8, 1975, at the age of 91, and was buried beside her husband in Woodlawn Cemetery near Greenville, S.C.
Although she loved her native mountains of the Dark Corner, their creator held a stronger mission for her in serving lost souls in faraway China.