Category Archives: Missionary Anecdotes

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Mimosa

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Sometimes people who work in children’s ministries can get discouraged due to the seeming lack of fruit or the fact that they have some children just a few times and then never see them again. Mimosa by Amy Carmichael tells the story of a little girl who was marvelously changed by just a short encounter with the gospel.

When Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India she learned that some little girls were sold to the temples for immoral purposes. Whenever she could, she tried to rescue these girls, to talk their parents into letting them stay with her instead. One such little girl was named Star. She had been with Amy for a while when her father came, bringing her sister, Mimosa, with him, to try to take Star back. He met and talked with Amy and Mr. Walker, the director, and at one point even stretched out his arm to take Star — yet he felt he could not move, that some strange power was preventing him.

Mimosa saw this. Some of the workers had a short time to talk with her, not even time enough to present the gospel completely. Mimosa asked her father to let her stay: he would not hear of it.

Those who had met with Mimosa longed for her: she seemed intelligent and interested. They lamented that they had not had time to tell her more. “How could she possibly remember what we had told her? It was impossible to expect her to remember……Impossible? Is there such a word where the things of the Lord are concerned?”

Something of what she heard about a God who loved her stayed with her. She knew instinctively she could no longer rub the ashes of her family’s god on her forehead, as was their custom. The women in the house thought her naughty or “bewitched” and beat her with a stick. She was bewildered, but she knew God loved her, in spite of all she could not understand of her circumstances.

After she was married at age seventeen, she found she had been deceived by her husband’s family: He was “landless [and] neck-deep in debt.” It was no shame to be in debt: in that culture: “”If you have no debt, does it not follow that no one trusts you enough to lend you anything, and from that is it not obvious that you are a person of small consequence?” But Mimosa’s character could not endure it, though she had never been taught against it. She encouraged him to sell the land in her name, the only piece of land he had that he had given as a dowry, to pay off the debt, and then suggested they would work. He was amazed at such a thing, but agreed. His unscrupulous elder brother suggested they start a salt market and that Mimosa sell her jewels to get them set up: he would take care of it. He instead somehow misused the money. She gave some money to her mother to keep for her, but then her mother would not give it to her when she asked for it: her mother was angry with her over the loss of the jewels that had been passed to her. “Let thy God help thee!” she told her daughter.

Mimosa went out to pray: “O God, my husband has deceived me, his brother has deceived me, even my mother has deceived me, but You will not deceive me…Yes, they have all deceived me, but I am not offended with you. Whatever You do is good. What should I do without you? You are the Giver of health and strength and will to work. Are not these things better than riches or people’s help?….I am an emptiness for You to fill.”

Thus her life went. She was a derision because she would not worship the false gods or engage in idolatrous practices. She worked hard because her husband would not. There were times when she was weak and could not work that God worked in unusual ways to provide for her. She had three sons; then a snake bite left her husband blind and crazy. In a couple of instances she received a bit more information about the God she loved, and she clung to it and to Him.

Meanwhile, Star was concerned for her sister. She felt led to write to her and prayed someone would read the letter to Mimosa. A cousin did read it to her, as often as Mimosa asked him, but neither of them thought to write back to Star, so she and the ladies of Dohnavur were left to wonder and pray.

A mysterious illness which took the life of one of her sons caused the neighbors to torment her further with their words. They felt it was all her fault since she would do nothing to appease the gods. Mimosa replied, “ My child God gave; my child has God taken. It is well.” Though weak, ill, grieving, and alone, she still told God, “I am not offended with you.”

The years followed in much the same way. She had two more sons. The oldest one was taken by the father (who had regained something of his right mind) to another town to work but, to Mimosa’s grief, required him to rub the god’s ashes on his forehead.

She began to long that her children should have “what she had never had, the chance to learn fully of the true and living and holy God and themselves choose His worship.” It would take too much space here to tell how God wondrously worked out the all the details to go to Dohnavur, even, miraculously, her husband’s approval. Her sister, Star, was strongly burdened to pray for Mimosa and discovered later that was just the time when all of this was coming to pass. Twenty-two years after she first visited Dohnavur, she returned. It can only be imagined what she felt as she soaked up Christian fellowship, learned to read, studied the Bible, was baptized. After a time she went back to her husband, determined to win him. He was in a less tolerant caste, yet amazingly he did not put her away. Her life was not easy. “But then, she has not asked for ease; she has asked for the shield of patience that she may overcome.”

“Is not the courage of the love of God amazing?” Amy Carmichael wrote. “Could human love have asked it of a soul? Fortitude based on knowledge so slender; deathless, dauntless faith — who could have dared to ask it but the Lord God Himself? And what could have held her but Love Omnipotent?”

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For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Facing the Darkness

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For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

Last year I wrote about Don Richardson and his book, Peace Child. I wanted to include one passage that I thought was somewhat symbolic of what most missionaries, and indeed, what most Christians must face at one time or another if they want to shine light into darkness. This was written about Don’s first foray into the jungle in which he was going to work:

 The wildness of the locale seemed to taunt me. Something in the mood of the place seemed to say mockingly, “I am not like your tame, manageable Canadian homeland. I am tangled. I am too dense to walk through. I am hot and steamy and drenched with rain. I am hip-deep mud and six-inch sago thorns. I am death adders and taipans and leeches and crocodiles. I am malaria and dysentery and filariasis and hepatitis.

“Your idealism means nothing here. Your Christian gospel has never scrupled the conscience of my children. You think you love them, but wait until you know them, if you can ever know them! You presume you are ready to grapple with me, understand my mysteries, and change my nature. But I am easily able to overpower you with my gloom, my remoteness, my heedless brutality, my indolence, my unashamed morbidity, my total otherness.

“Think again before you commit yourself to certain disillusionment! Can’t you see I am no place for your wife? I am no place for your son. I am no place for you…”

The voices of the leafy arena seemed to swell and then fade into the masses of creeping tendrils and twisted vines…

It’s only a bluff, I thought. This swamp is also part of my Father’s creation. His providence can sustain us here as well as anywhere else. Then the peace of God descended on me, and suddenly this strange place became home! My home! I turned to Ken and John and said, “This is where I want to build!”

That, in turn, reminds me of a poem I just recently rediscovered from Gracia Burnham’s book To Fly Again. I wrote about Gracia last year as well.

His lamp am I, to shine where He shall say,
And lamps are not for sunny rooms,
Nor for the light of day;
But for the dark places of the earth,
Where shame and wrong and crime have birth,
Or for the murky twilight gray
Where wandering sheep have gone astray;
Or where the lamp of faith grows dim
And souls are groping after Him.
And as sometimes a flame we find,
Clear-shining, through the night
So bright we do not see the lamp,
But only see the light:
So may I shine — His light the flame,
That men may glorify His name.

~ Annie Johnson Flint

 

31 Days of Inspirational Biography

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For the past few years Myquillyn Smith (The Nester) has hosted 31 Days on her blog, a writing challenge wherein bloggers can choose a topic to write on every day in October in 9 different categories. It has gotten so big that this year it has its own site: 31 Days. You can find more information at What is 31 Days?

I really enjoyed participating for the first time last year with 31 Days of Missionary Stories. I decided this year to write about 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. I was originally going to call it Christian Biography, but rather than just give you an overview of someone’s life that you can find on Wikipedia, I want to share what inspired me about that person’s life. It may be an overview in some cases, or it may be one incident.

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Reading Christian biographies has been one of the most influential activities of my life: I’ve learned so much by seeing faith in action, growth, example, victories as well as defeats, all of which has aided me in my own walk with the Lord.  I hope to share some of that with you.

I got several comments last year about how much time it must take to write these posts: most of them will come from newsletter articles I’ve already written. For nine years in a previous church I compiled a newsletter for our ladies’ group with a biographical section, for the same reasons listed above, and the Lord has opened the door for me to do something similar in our current church. I’ll be editing and tweaking them, but for the most part I won’t be writing these “from scratch,” so it is not taking as much time as it might appear to be.

I hope you’ll join me! As I post each day, I’ll put the links on this post so that they’ll all be in one place.

And in the meantime you might check out the 31 Days site and see if you’d like to participate. Let me know if you do!

Day 1: Frances Ridley Havergal’s Response to a Rude Waitress.
Day 2: If I Perish. Refusing to bow down to falsehood.
Day 3: A Sense of Him: One of Isobel Kuhn’s “Second Mile People”
Day 4: Facing the Darkness.
Day 5: Lady Huntingdon. Saved by an “M”
Day 6: One Woman Against the Reich: The True Story of a Mother’s Struggle to Keep Her Family Faithful to God in a World Gone Mad.
Day 7: Bill Maher, “Missionary to the Handicapped”
Day 8: Mimosa: Great Faith From Small Seeds.
Day 9: Dr. Sa’eed of Iran.
Day 10: Margaret Paton, Missionary to Cannibals in the South Sea Islands
Day 11: Walter Wilson, Caring Ambassador For Christ.
Day 12: Georgi and Natasha Vins, Christianity Behind the Iron Curtain
Day 13: William Tyndale, Bringing the Scripture to the People at Risk to Himself
Day 14: Anne Bradstreet, Puritan Poetess
Day 15: The “Uncommon Union” of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards
Day 16: Sarah Edwards As a Mother
Day 17: Rosaria Butterfield: How a Leftist, Feminist, Lesbian Professor Who Hated Christians…Became One.
Day 18: Darlene Deibler Rose learns “faith stripped of feelings, faith without trappings”
Day 19: Corrie Ten Boom Repurposes a Concentration Camp
Day 20: Louis Zamperini: Olympian, POW, Christian
Day 21: Ann Judson, Brave and Faithful First American Woman Missionary
Day 22: Margaret Baxter, Overcoming Natural Fear to Face Persecution and Hardship
Day 23: Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon
Day 24: Rosalind Goforth: How I Know God Answers Prayer
Day 25: Rosalind Goforth Learns Submission
Day 26: Rosalind Goforth As a Young Mother Tries to Find Time For Bible Reading
Day 27: The Last CIM Missionaries in Communist China
Day 28: Charlie Wedemeyer, Living With ALS and Giving Hope to Others
Day 29: Nabeel Qureshi: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity
Day 30: A list of several other good biographies
Day 31: Why Read Biographies?

Book Review: Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

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Ida Scudder grew up in India as a sixth child and only Scudderdaughter of missionary parents in the late 1870s. Her father was a doctor in a poor section of the country where frequent famines and epidemics took their toll. Ida decided early on that she did not want to live in India. The smells, the poverty, the diseases all seemed too much, especially after Ida’s family went back to the US on furlough. When her parents went back to India, Ida was left with an aunt and uncle, but when they decided to go to India, too, Ida was sent to a boarding school. Though she felt lonely and abandoned, she became known for her pranks.

She had to withdraw before graduating because her mother was ill and her parents needed her help in India. Ida was determined that she wouldn’t stay longer than necessary. One night someone came to the door seeking medical assistance for his wife, who was in labor and was having trouble. Ida had answered the door and went to send for her father, but the man stopped her. In their culture at that time, a man would not be allowed to attend a woman in labor, not even a doctor. The man asked Ida to come, but she was untrained and couldn’t help. The man turned away. That was hard enough, but the scenario was repeated two more times that night with two different men. Ida learned the next morning that all three women had died during the night. Ida was deeply affected and realized that her plans and dreams were trivial. She told God that if He wanted her to, she would spend the rest of her life in India helping these women.

She returned to the US, but finances were a problem. Medical school at that time would cost about $150 a year, and she only had $10. It had only been about fifty years since the first woman doctor had begun practice, so it was still a new idea to people. Even churches were hesitant, but one Woman’s Auxiliary Board, after hearing about the night that three women died for lack of female help, decided to support Ida. She enrolled in the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, but when Cornell University opened its doors to women medical students, she transferred and graduated from there.

She returned to India with dreams of helping her father in his practice, but his life ended unexpectedly due to cancer. It took a while for people to open up to Ida, but eventually they did. She established what she called roadside clinics to go out to where the people were diagnose and treat them. She eventually became convinced that she needed a school to help train women to be nurses, and then another school to train women doctors. How God provided funds through a Depression and two wars was miraculous.

Ida was active throughout her life. Once when a friend wanted her to take a real vacation to relax, she decided to go hiking through mountains, and loved it. She received many awards for her medical work and initiatives and remained in India until she died in 1960 just before her 9oth birthday.

I had first read of Ida years ago, but I couldn’t remember which book: I think it was probably The Story of Dr. Ida Scudder of Vellore by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, because the church library that I used at that time had other books by Wilson that I had read. I had wanted to talk about her story for my 31 Days of Missionary Stories, but all I could really remember was that one night when the three men came for help, and that Ida had gone on to become a doctor. I wanted to reacquaint Ida Scuddermyself with her life, so this time I read Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge both because it was a shorter book and because it is part of a Christian Heroes Then and Now series for children that I wanted to check out. I’d still like to go back to Wilson’s book some time, but this one is a good resource.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Granny Brand

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Granny BrandI first came across Granny Brand by Dorothy Clarke Wilson some 25-30 years ago after reading the same author’s biography of “Granny’s” son, Paul Brand,  Ten Fingers For God. At that time the ladies’ group of the church we attended had an extensive collection of missionary biographies that we could check out at the monthly ladies’ meetings. It was through that venue that I read both books, so I did not own them. I thought about both of them when I was doing the 31 Days of Missionary Stories, but it had been so long since I had read them, I thought it would be better to wait to discuss them til I had a chance to read them again. I found used copies and enjoyed revisiting Granny’s life. The book about Paul was actually written first, and the author met his mother in the course of her research and wanted to write about her, too. Granny agreed at first, and then changed her mind and started to write her own book, and finally gave permission but asked the author to wait until her death.

Granny Brand began life as Evelyn Harris. She was born the ninth of eleven children into a strict but loving well-to-do Christian family in 1879. She had “the eyes and soul of an artist,” and all through her life would stop to paint or sketch beloved sites. But though she loved her art, it didn’t fully satisfy. She had been raised doing charitable works, but she wanted to do more. Various events turned her eyes towards missions, especially a booklet by a young missionary named Jesse Brand, who ministered in India. Not coincidentally, that very same Jesse Brand came to speak at her church. She was over 30 when she told her father she was called to missions. He had wanted to keep at least some of his daughters close by and brought forth various arguments as to why she should stay, but finally, “He understood. It was his own stern creed of obedience to a higher Will that she was determined to follow” (p. 34).

Though at her farewell party someone remarked that “She looks more like an actress than a missionary” (p. 35), it didn’t take her long to lay aside her finery and immerse herself into the work and life in India. There she unexpectedly met up again with Jesse Brand, though he was assigned to another area. When they parted, they began a correspondence which blossomed into love, and when he proposed, she agreed to join him in marriage and his work.

Their wedding night was typical of her response to life: they started on a long journey to Jesse’s home, first 5 miles in wagon drawn by a pony, then in a dholi. I tried to find an image online to share, but none of them looks like the picture in the book, which shows a long length of canvas with poles through openings on both sides, which were carried by four men. The passenger would recline along the length of the fabric and be jostled up and down, back and forth, hanging onto the poles while the men walked…or ran…up and down steep mountain paths. First the heat wilted her clothing, then a deluge drenched her, the higher mountain air chilled her (no one had told her she might need warmer clothing there). Then they walked over a narrow trail with thorns tearing her skirt and branches slapping her face. Finally they trekked across a muddy rice field, and when they arrived, she thought, “Life is not going to be easy. It’s good all this happened. I may as well know it now.” “But she had not come here for an easy time. She had come for love of God, and of these hill people, and of the man whose strong arms were now lifting and carrying her over the threshold” (p. 48).

Jesse was a man of many talents, with skill in medicine, building, and planting, all put to use in ministering to the people and helping them improve their lives. Evelyn’s medical skills were more homeopathic, but they worked together smoothly. One boy was saved early on, but it was six long years later before any other converts. A priest who had actively opposed their message and work became ill and asked them to take his children when he died, as they would otherwise be left to die. His own “swamis” deserted him in his hour of need, and he now believed “Yesu-swami” was the one true God. His conversion and the Brands’ care of his daughter began to crack the door open for the gospel, and eventually more believed and a church was started.

Jesse and Evelyn took in many more children, had two of their own, and had many fruitful years in the “mountains of death,” until, nearly 14 years after their marriage, Jesse contacted malaria, which turned into blackwater fever, and died.

Evelyn was devastated and, after making arrangements for the work, went back to England for a time. But she was called to India, not just to Jesse, and wanted to go back. There were five mountain ranges that she and Jesse had dreamed of bringing the gospel to, and she wanted to continue on.

The mission board had a policy against sending a missionary back to a field that another missionary had taken over because of the understandable rifts that could arise, but Evelyn argued that this work was begun by herself and Jesse and much of their own money had been poured into it. They had built it up with their own hands. The board relented and let her go, and though she loved being back in her beloved hills, and the people loved having her, indeed “this five-year term…was filled with tensions and frustrations.” The missionary couple who came to take over the work “were capable and dedicated, but they were not Jesse Brand, and of course their methods were there own. It was inevitable that differences of opinion should arise between them and one who for sixteen years had been co-creator, co-manager, co-builder of every enterprise in the beloved complex – one who, moreover, could be neither meek nor silent when she felt a principle was at stake” (p. 113).

Meanwhile Evelyn did want to press on to the other ranges. She took camping trips to scout them out. Long used to simple, even stark living, all she could see was the exciting possibilities, while some of those she took with her could only see the hardships. But she persevered. The board wanted her to retire at 68, but after a year she resigned from the board and remained in India independently. She was 84 when she moved to her third mountain range. She continued taking in children, caring for the sick, fighting the production of kanja (marijuana), riding a pony from village to village, and sharing the gospel. She added two more mountain ranges to the original five she wanted to reach. Somewhere along the way people started calling her “Granny Brand,” though she scoffed at the thought of being old until relatively late in life.

She experienced sicknesses, broken bones from falls, and when carriers accidentally knocked her head against a rock and she never regained her balance afterward, she walked with the aid of two long sticks. Whenever she was in the hospital, she disobeyed orders to stay in her bed and went from room to room via wheelchair or pulled herself along the floor to visit other patients, share the gospel, and encourage them.

When her 95th birthday was approaching, she was afraid people would praise her for continuing to work at her age. She wrote to her son, Paul: “I am not wonderful.  I am just a poor, old, frail, and weak woman.  God has taken hold of me and gives me the strength I need each day.  He uses me just because I know that I have no strength of my own.  Please tell the people to praise God, not me.” God took her home before that birthday, but those words would continue to express her desire.

She wasn’t perfect and never would have claimed to be. She was opinionated, feisty, independent, and strong-willed, all qualities which can good but can also be a problem in some situations. But because she yielded herself to God, He transformed her and used her to touch many lives for His glory, in her lifetime and still today.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Missionary Books for Children

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When I was making a list of Christian missionary biographies that I have read and benefited from and could readily recommend, it occurred to me that I ought to make a similar list of missionary books written for children. It has been a long time since I read missionary books for children, but I read several both for my own and for gifts for nieces and nephews. But though many of these are still in print, they are not recent, so if you have any to recommend, please feel free to list them in the comments. Some of these are true stories, some are fiction based on true stories, some are biographies, a few may be totally fiction.

These I haven’t read personally but I know enough about the publisher and/or author to believe they would be good:

In addition, though these aren’t written specifically for children, I think they’d be easily understood by children. An older child could probably read them alone, but these books might be especially fun to read together as a family:

  • Cowboy Boots in Darkest Africa by Bill Rice (I read this to my boys during the brief time we home schooled and they enjoyed it quite a bit.)
  • Mimosa by Amy Carmichael

In fact, probably a great many on my original list could be read as a family, but I would definitely hold off on Peace Child and Spirit of the Rainforest as they are quite graphic, though not gratuitous.

There are probably some I have forgotten, and there may be some newer ones that are good as well. Most of these are as adventuresome as any fictional story your children might read with the added benefit of examples of Christian faith and action that glorifies God and draws people to Himself.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

New lyrics to “So Send I You”

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When I was a teenager, the hymn “So Send I You” was sung sometimes when a missionary was there to speak at a service or, more often, at a service when the emphasis was a call to “full-time” Christian ministry. I didn’t think the lyrics  were depressing at the time: they just seemed like a serious and sober look at a calling that would probably be hard. But they do seem to emphasis the hardships and neglect the joys:

So send I you to labor unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing-
So send I you to toil for Me alone.

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken,
O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,
To bear the burdens of a world aweary-
So send I you to suffer for My sake.

So send I you to loneliness and longing,
With heart ahung’ring for the loved and known,
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one-
So send I you to know My love alone.

So send I you to leave your life’s ambition,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labor long, and love where men revile you-
So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend, tho’ it be blood, to spend and spare not-
So send I you to taste of Calvary.

As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.

Evidently the author, Margaret Clarkson, eventually recognized the lack of balance in the hymn and penned new lyrics later in her life.

She was born into an unhappy home, was bed-bound with juvenile arthritis when she was three, and suffered migraines and vomiting. Pain was a constant companion, but she was able to attend school and become a teacher. She couldn’t find a position until she accepted one at an isolated mining camp, where general loneliness was a factor, but spiritual loneliness especially overshadowed her as she said she had no real Christian fellowship for about seven years. “So Send I You” was written at this time, colored by her loneliness and pain, and probably pretty accurate for her circumstances at the time.

Some years later, though still battling pain, she found other teaching positions and began having her writing published. She came to believe “So Send I You” was one-sided, and wrote new lyrics that she felt were more biblically balanced between the trials and joys of the Christian life under-girded by God’s grace:

So send I you-by grace made strong to triumph
O’er hosts of hell, o’er darkness, death, and sin,
My name to bear, and in that name to conquer-
So send I you, my victory to win.

So send I you-to take to souls in bondage
The word of truth that sets the captive free,
To break the bonds of sin, to loose death’s fetters-
So send I you, to bring the lost to me.

So send I you-my strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, my perfect peace in pain,
To prove My power, My grace, My promised presence-
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.

So send I you-to bear My cross with patience,
And then one day with joy to lay it down,
To hear My voice, “well done, My faithful servant-
Come, share My throne, My kingdom, and My crown!”

“As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.”

It does make a difference where our focus is.

A longer biography of Margaret is here.

I found a simple but nice rendition of the new lyrics here (I’m not familiar with the singer):

I had wanted to include this in the 31 Days of Missionary Stories, but ran out of days. 🙂 I hope it’s a blessing to you.

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Pedestals?

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We’ve come to the 31st post of this 31 day series (I started a day late, thus ending Nov. 1), and I am feeling a little like the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11, verse 32:  “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of” David Brainerd, David Livingstone, Ida Scudder, William Borden. Henry Martyn, Ann Judson, Margaret Paton, and many more. Maybe from time to time I’ll post some of their stories, although I am sure you could find some information about them online.

I’ve tried to bring a variety in this series of “classic” missionary stories and newer ones, some from the jungle, some from the city, etc. I suppose if I had thought and planned for this enough ahead of time, I could have done them in chronological order. As it was I just went from day to day with whichever one was on my heart.

mission_biosI wanted to leave you with a list of missionary biographies I have enjoyed. Some are older and out of print, but I have had great success buying used books for just a few dollars via Amazon.com (this isn’t a commercial for them – I am not in their affiliate program, though I should probably check into it, as much as I link to them!) Any links in this list are to previous posts here on this blog.

Before I get to that list, I wanted to leave you with a quote of Elisabeth Elliot in A Lamp for My Feet:

Pedestals

A student asked me whether I thought it was a problem that we tend to place missionaries on pedestals. My answer was that indeed we do, but servants of the Lord ought to be models of the truth they proclaim. Paul was bold enough to say, “Be followers of me” (l Cor 4:16).

At the same time let us always remember that the “excellency of the power” (2 Cor 4:7 AV) is never ours but God’s. It is foolish to imagine that the missionary, or whoever the hero is, is sinless. God uses sinners–there is no one else to use.

Pedestals are for statues. Usually statues commemorate people who have done something admirable. Is the deed worth imitating? Does it draw me out of myself, set my sights higher? Let me remember the Source of all strength (“The Lord is the strength of my life,” says Ps 27:1 AV) and, cheered by the image of a human being in whom that strength was shown, follow his example.

Admittedly some of the older missionary books make missionaries look a little more saintly and unflawed. I think perhaps the authors didn’t want to gossip, or perhaps they assumed everyone knew everyone else had flaws without having to lay them out for everyone to see. Perhaps because “love covers over a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), they didn’t feel at liberty to divulge those of their subject (I’ve found many an autobiography to be much more frank about the author’s failings.) But I do understand it does help us to relate better to someone when they seem more real to us, as flawed as we are, and even the Bible tells us how people failed as well as how they followed the Lord. I’ve known some people who didn’t like to read missionary biographies because they thought they were too perfect: just understand that they’re not, they would never claim to be, and be inspired by the rest of their story.

Another thing to keep in mind when you read biographies is that you might come across things you disagree with: for instance, there was a time when most missionaries, especially in more remote fields, would send their children to boarding school at a certain age because there were no other schools available. With the advent of an abundance of home schooling materials and a change in mindset over the years, most would find that unthinkable now. I wouldn’t try to justify, condemn, or defend the practice: just understand that that was the way it was then. Probably some of the very problems and sorrows inherent in that practice led to the changes we have today. Similarly, a lot of older missionaries, especially in primitive areas, would hire servants. This wasn’t so they could live a class above the people they were ministering to: it was just simply to help the missionaries with the everyday tasks that in that time and culture could literally take up all of their time, especially as, being new to the field, they might not know how to do some of the things. Hiring some helpers freed them to minister more. Also, in that way they could help a new convert whose family might have turned against them. In addition, you might find some language we would not regard as “politically correct” these days, but we can’t expect them to have the sensibilities and sensitivities that have developed over hundred of years.

Some years ago when I read 50 People Every Christian Should Know by Warren Wiersbe, I was struck by the fact that the 50 he mentioned, though they agreed on the core, fundamental doctrines, like the inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of Christ, the way of salvation being by grace through faith in Him, etc., they were on either side of a multitude of fences on other issues, yet God used each of them. That doesn’t mean those issues aren’t important: each of us is responsible to study them out before the Lord. But people can differ on some side issues and still be friends and love God and be greatly used by Him.

On the other hand, we can get too enthralled and feel we need to do everything just like they did. When I started reading biographies as a young Christian, I would read how one person had their devotions, think that was a great idea, and then do the same — until I read the next book and saw how someone else did it differently. 🙂 Some of them might have employed some practices that would be good to try, if we feel led, but we don’t need to feel compelled to copy everything they did.

On to the list. I have read all of these (some multiple times) in the last 35 years:

I compiled a list of missionary books for children here.

I know I have also read biographies of William Borden, David Livingston, David Brainerd, and Ida Scudder, but that was before the days that I wrote these things down and I can’t remember which books I read about them. And there are probably some I am forgetting. But there are some wonderful, inspiring, challenging stories there, and I hope you can find and read some of them.

I’ve enjoyed much this 31 day series, but if I do it again I think I’ll do 31 one-liners or quotes or something a little shorter. 🙂 Thankfully some of these were written years earlier for a ladies’ church newsletter and only needed a little tweaking, and some had appeared on the blog before, but some were new or were woven together from a couple of other posts. It has been so good, though, to go back over these stories of how people walked with God and how He met with them and ministered through them. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series as well.

(You can see a list of other posts in the 31 Days of Missionary Stories here.)

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Supporters Back Home

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I can’t conclude this series without mentioning the support system a missionary needs back home.

Older woman prayingIf you ask almost any missionary what he or she mostly needs from the churches and individuals who support them, the first response would be “Prayer.” David Hosaflook, missionary to Albania, writes in Gospel Meditations For Missions, “The ‘Gospel-destitute areas’ see us as criminal combatants, not friends (Colossians 4:2-4). We’re up against reigning principalities, religious powers, radical politicians, and recurring persecution. We get attacked from the front, from the rear, from the sides, and, yes, even from within (2 Corinthians 7:5).” He continues, “Sure, pray for our safety (Romans 15:30-31, 2 Thessalonians 3:2), but please don’t exert all your time there. Jesus made it clear that mission work is exceedingly unsafe, so we’re already past that hump. We’d love to avoid pain, but not at the expense of boldness; Christ must be lifted up at any cost (Philippians 1:20-21). So pore over our prayer letters (and reply once in a while). And when you pray, pray the prayer that Paul requested: that the word of the Lord would spread quickly and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1). That’s the crux of the matter. That’s the reason we came.”

When you read missionary biographies, you come across numerous instances of a definite answer to prayer at a certain time that someone was praying. Here are just a few examples:

In Goforth of China, Rosalind Goforth tells how her husband Jonathan had a terrific struggle with the language, though he put in many hours studying. When he preached, the Chinese would point to his colleague, Mr. Donald McGillivray, and ask him to preach because they couldn’t understand Goforth. Things came to a crisis one day. Jonathan told his wife, “If the Lord does not work a miracle for me with this language, I fear I may be an utter failure as a missionary!” Rosalind writes that he looked heartbroken, then picked up his Bible and started off to the chapel.

Two hours later he returned, saying, “Oh, Rose! It was just wonderful! When I began to speak, those phrases and idioms that would always elude me came readily. The men actually asked me to go on though Donald had risen to speak. I know the backbone of the language is broken! Praise the Lord!”

Rosalind goes on to write, “About two months later, a letter came from Mr. Talling (his former roommate, still in Knox College), saying that on a certain evening after supper, a number of students decided to meet in one of the classrooms for prayer, ‘just for Goforth.’ The letter stated that the presence and power of God was so clearly felt by all at that meeting, they were convinced Goforth must surely have been helped in some way. On looking in his diary, Mr. Goforth found the students’ prayer meeting coincided with the experience recorded above.”

 Another time when Mr. Goforth was on furlough in London, “he was taken to see an invalid lady. She told Mr. Goforth that when she heard of his proposed meetings in Manchuria, she felt a great burden laid upon her to pray for him. She then asked him to look at her notebook, in which was recorded three dates when a special sense of power in prayer had come upon her for him. A feeling akin to awe came upon Goforth as he recalled those dates as being the very days when he had witnessed the mightiest movements in Manchuria.”

Isobel Kuhn wrote once of a difficult situation in one of their churches in China that could have caused great division, but worked out better that expected. Some months later they learned that someone was specifically burdened to pray for them at that time.

Sometimes it is daunting to begin to pray for a whole list of the missionaries your church supports without using generalities, and there are certainly things you can pray for them as a group (like Colossians 1:9-14 or Philippians 1:9-11). But you could also pray more particularly for one missionary a day (one friend’s family used to keep a stack of missionary prayer cards and rotate them them as they prayed for one missionary a day during family devotions) or choose just one or two that you want to keep up with and pray for and write to. Some churches have an “adopt a missionary” program for that purpose. My own tendency is to stop and pray for someone right when I receive their prayer letter or an e-mail request so I don’t forget later on.

Besides prayer, there are a number of thing one can do to help and be a blessing to missionaries. Some years ago I attended a Bible conference in which a man named Ronald Van Hee preached a message called “The Doctrine of Escorting” from III John 5-8: “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; Which have borne witness of they charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth.” He said the words “bring forward” in Greek mean: “to escort, to conduct, to send forth, to accompany, to bring on one’s journey, to aid in travel, fitting him out with requisites” and can be found in other passages (Genesis 18:16; Acts 15:3, 21:5-6; I Corinthians 16:5-6; II Corinthians 1:16; Romans 15:24; and Titus 3:13) using the phrase “being brought on their way.” It has the idea of providing what they need to enable them in their travels. It might include having them in your home while they are on furlough or deputation, providing a meal, loaning a car, giving gift bags of travel-friendly toys to the children or gift cards to the family to a restaurant or store, etc. I knew of one church that paid for an eye exam and new glasses for a missionary who particularly needed it, and of mechanics in the church doing some needed repairs to a missionary’s car. Some churches have a missions closet ministry for their missionaries to stop in when they visit: I wrote the details of a one of our former church’s missions closet ministries here. They are kind of falling out of fashion now, giving way to a W-Mart gift card, which may be just as well. But they can be fun. It was such a blessing to see a missionary pick up something I had bought at random for the closet and hear them say, “We were just needing this!” What a blessing it is to know that however we can help a missionary along the way, “we might be fellow-helpers to the truth.”

This kind of ministry, as well as any other, needs to be conducted sensitively and prayerfully. You might wonder, for instance, if the missionaries you invited to stay with you would rather stay home and rest or go out and sight-see. It just depends – on their personalities, on what else they’ve had going on, etc. If in doubt, just ask, or present options: “Would you all like to  rest this afternoon, or would you enjoy doing….?”  Some friends who are Indian missionaries to India said that when they are in the States, many people like to take them to Indian restaurants, when they’d really love to eat American food while here. In Rosalind Goforth’s book Climbing, she tells of many well-meaning people trying to help them while on furlough who put her in awkward positions (she wasn’t trying to complain: she was asked to relate these stories, and they are really eye-opening). In that day missionaries were much longer than four years between visits back home, and there was no Internet to keep up with what was going on in the rest of the world and no Western stores to buy clothes in before they came home, so the styles might have changed drastically since they last came. One lady offered to outfit Rosalind for their time on furlough, and everything she bought was what she apparently thought was a very proper black. Someone told Rosalind she looked like she was in mourning, but she didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings. Another lady bought her a hat that caused another friend to exclaim, “Rosalind! Why are you wearing that thing!” The situation is a little different these days, but we need to be gracious in what a missionary has on and wise and sensitive in what we offer them. We also need to be careful that we don’t embarrass them: one friend told me a ladies’ group “honored” her by having her stand holding an offering plate while they filed by and put offerings in. While she appreciated the thought and the willingness, that was such an awkward way to conduct a love offering.

The high cost of postage has made it difficult to send things to missionaries on the field. Churches we have been in have had various methods of sending things to their missionaries: one focused on a couple of missionaries a month, another sent Christmas packages, both after asking ahead of time what they might need, what things they can’t get on their field, etc. (I remember at the time they couldn’t get chocolate chips or construction paper in South Africa, so we always sent those items to those ministering there. I don’t know if they can get them now.) But when the Post Office did away with the lower mailing rate that went by ship and went to air mail only overseas, sending a simple box of kitchen items began to cost much more than the contents were worth, so we had to resort to sending money instead. But there still might be little things that could be sent that aren’t so expensive. Always check with your missionary or their mission board and the Post Office before sending any kind of package: some have to pay customs rates on their end, making any kind of package expensive to receive, and every country prohibits certain items being sent in the mail.

Another big encouragement to missionaries is just to read their prayer letters and be aware of what is going on with them, not only so you know how to pray, but also when you talk to them or write to them, you can ask intelligent questions that let them know you’re truly interested and aware of their work. Many missionaries have web sites or Facebook pages or send their prayer letters out by e-mail, making it easier than ever both to keep up with them and to jot them a note.

Of course, missionaries need financial support as well, both for everyday living and for special projects and needs, and as I mentioned yesterday, sometimes a short-term mission trip can be a help and encouragement. Such a trip needs a lot of information-gathering and prayer beforehand to make sure that the time you are coming and what you want to do is actually a help and not a problem for the missionary. While they love to receive visitors, they have busy times as well: you wouldn’t want to arrive to work on a building project right in the midst of their VBS or camp week, for example.

I hope this gives you some ideas and encouragement about how to pray for and bless your missionaries.

I’ve had the second stanza of this poem in my files for ages and have used it many times, but I just discovered yesterday that it is part of a larger poem. It’s a little old-fashioned, but it does convey how much our prayers support those in the ministry.

A Missionary Appeal

Oh, dark is the land where the Evil One reigns,
And strong is his citadel there!
Oh, deep are his dungeons, and heavy the chains
That his long enthralled prisoners wear!
What can brace up the arm and confirm the weak knee,
The Strong One to meet and o’ercome
Like the message of cheer wafted over the sea:
“There’s somebody praying at home!”

There are times when the enemy seems to prevail,
And faintness creeps over the heart:
When courage and confidence quiver and quail
At the glance of his fiery dart.
There are times when, exhausted, we can but stand still,
When the sword-arm hangs nerveless and numb,
Ah, then to the soul comes a whisper so chill;
“Are they weary of praying back home?”

Oh, brothers, ye toil in the twilight, perchance:
Remember, we wrestle in night:
Cry unto the Lord, would ye have us advance
And claim for us heavenly might.
Then, back to the arm will its vigor be given,
And lips, that in anguish were dumb,
Shall shout, as the foe from his stronghold is driven:
“‘Tis because they are praying at home!”

Then away to the mountain top! Lift up your hands!
Let the strong breath of prayer never cease!
Only thus, as ye follow our Captain’s commands,
His kingdom shall grow and increase.
If ye, while we fight, “strive together by prayer,”
The hour of vict’ry will come,
When we in the vanguard our gladness will share
With those who are praying back home

~ Author Unknown

(You can see a list of other posts in the 31 Days of Missionary Stories here. Since I didn’t start this series until Oct. 2, I have one more post tomorrow to wrap up.)

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Not Only Preachers Are Called to be Missionaries

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“Missionary work” isn’t always just preaching and soul-winning.

In 1891 when Mary Slessor was in Scotland on furlough, she told a church, “We need dedicated, affectionate women missionaries who are not afraid to work. After all, whitewashing a wall or patching a roof is almost as important as teaching a child to read or conducting a church service. And we want women who can tend a baby or teach a child to wash his face and hands — as well as teach him to read and write. We want women with tact who can smooth things over or even cheerfully ignore a snub if they have to. These women must be willing to work anywhere, do any job for Christ. Smile and persevere. In the wilds like Okoyong, we must teach the first principles of everything!” (Mary Slessor, Queen of Calabar by Sam Wellman.)

After Amy Carmichael became aware of the plight of children being sold to temples for immoral purposes, she felt led to intervene to rescue those children. Then, of course, those children needed to be cared for. There was a Tamil proverb which said, “Children tie the mother’s feet,” and she found that to be true, and began to question whether God had really called her to be a “nursemaid” when there were so many other needs and ways she could be used. “It was then that she read the words from John 13, how the Lord of glory ‘took a towel and girded Himself.’…never again did she question whether her gifts were being wasted. She knew that the Master never wastes the servant’s time.” (Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton)

Mr. Houghton also writes that, “Occasionally someone suggested that character-training of boys and girls…or, still more, the erection of buildings to house them, was not evangelistic work, and therefore not worthy of support.” Amy wrote, “Well, one cannot save and then pitchfork souls into heaven…and as for buildings, souls (in India, at least) are more or less securely fastened into bodies. Bodies cannot be left to lie about in the open, and as you cannot get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.”

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Photo courtesy of morgueFile.com

I’ve been glad to see contractors taking people to mission fields for short-term building projects in recent years and teachers going overseas to minister, sometimes to a missionary family’s children, sometimes in a school or even a college. One friend teaches composition in the music department of a college started by missionaries. Medical missionaries have been going for a long time: doctors, nurses, and all the other personnel needed to run a clinic or hospital. Some fields have, or need, printing ministries. We knew one woman who started a crisis pregnancy center in an Eastern European country. Some people go as “tentmakers,” an idea taken from Acts 18: 1-4, where Paul worked at making tents for a while with Priscilla and Aquila. These folks might work at a secular job to support themselves but then help in a church or ministry.

Of course, missionaries train some of the people there on the field for some of these positions just as they train them to become teachers and preachers and workers in the church.

A former pastor once said something to the effect that we need to send not just preachers and evangelists to the mission field but rather “the whole body of Christ” — those gifted in other areas of ministry as well.

(You can see other posts in the 31 Days of Missionary Stories here.)