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31 Days of Missionary Stories: J. O. Fraser: Pianist and Engineer Turned Missionary

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I first came across the name of J. O. Fraser in writings of Isobel Kuhn, whom I have mentioned here many times. The Lord used him to call Isobel to the mission field, and in later years he was her superintendent in China. Two good biographies of him are Behind the Ranges by Geraldine Taylor and a later one, Mountain Rain, by his daughter, Eileen Crossman. Both books contain many of Fraser’s letters and journal entries. They both appear to be out of print, but thankfully used copies and Kindle editions are available. His name is not as well known as Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael, but his remarkable life and character are well worth reading.

FraserJames Outram Fraser was born to a prominent English family in London in 1886. He was trained as both an engineer and a classical pianist. As a young man he came across a tract written to Christians urging them to give their lives to reach the lost in China. Something in it touched a heart prepared, and he at that time gave Christ “not the latch key, but the master key” of his life. He looked on that moment as his conversion.

After applying to the China Inland Mission and training, he went to China as a missionary. One market day in his village, he met some men from a tribe called the Lisu. His heart went out to them. They lived in the mountains of the area, six days journey northward. “I was very much led out in prayer for these people, right from the beginning. Something seemed to draw me to them; and the desire in my heart grew til it became a burden that God would give us hundreds of converts among the Lisu.” Workers were scarce in China: to go to the Lisu meant that James would have to go alone as an itinerant pioneer missionary traveling out to them from time to time as he could, and the Lisu villages were so spread out that he could not stay for long at one place. Other areas were more promising, but James felt led to the Lisu.

So he traveled to them and visited them. They were greatly open, friendly, cheerful, hospitable though living in poverty and squalor. James dressed as they dressed, ate as they ate, traveling on foot or by donkey up and down steep mountain ranges (and, by his description, thoroughly enjoying it!) He told them about the one true God. They listened well. Some were interested, but they lived in great fear. They did not worship idols. They worshiped demons themselves. They didn’t particularly want to or enjoy doing so, but they were trapped. The demons could quite literally make their lives miserable.

He learned much over time and with experience about how to work with the Lisu and about dealing with unseen principalities and powers. One article that came to him just when needed showed him “that deliverance from the power of the evil one comes through definite resistance on the grounds of the cross. I am an engineer and believe in things working. I want to see them work. I had found that much of the spiritual teaching one hears does not seem to work…The passive side of leaving everything to the Lord Jesus as our life, while blessedly true, was not all that was needed just then. Definite resistance on the ground of the cross was what brought me light….’Resist the devil’ is also Scripture (James 4:7). And I found that it worked. That cloud of depression dispersed. I found that I could have the victory in the spiritual realm whenever I wanted it. The Lord Himself resisted the devil vocally: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ I, in humble dependence on Him, did the same. I talked to Satan at that time, using the promises of Scripture as weapons. And they worked. Right then, the terrible oppression began to pass away.”

He also leaned much on the intercessory prayer of others. He asked his mother to gather some prayer helpers, folks who would definitely undertake for his ministry in prayer. He began to correspond with them about what he was learning about prayer.

Little by little the seed of the Word was planted and the ground of hearts tilled. Little by little battles were fought for spiritual territory the evil one had claimed for himself; little by little ground was won. Just when James was ready to conceded that God’s time was not now for the Lisu, he made one “last” trip through all the villages, and then it was that the Lord of the harvest brought forth a bumper crop.

He found that even with as little teaching as he was able to give them before having to travel on to the next village, they taught others all they knew. The Lord eventually raised up more workers, and the church grew in numbers and in grace.

James wrote to his prayer helpers,

They [the Lisu] have not yet grown to military age in this spiritual warfare; they are babes in God’s nursery, not warriors in God’s army. But you have centuries of Christianity behind you, you have had Christian education, Christian influence, an open Bible, devotional helps, and many other things to help you in your growth to spiritual maturity. So now you belong to those of full stature in Christ, who are able to ‘help with power against the enemy.’ The vast difference between you and them is that you are ‘grown up’ in Christ, while they are babes and sucklings; and the work of pulling down Satan’s strongholds requires strong men, not infants.

He was asking his supporters to treat their prayer as more than a sideline. “I am trying to roll the main responsibility of this prayer-warfare on you,” he told them. “I want you to take the BURDEN of these people upon your shoulders, I want you to wrestle with God for them.”

 I feel like a businessman who perceives that a certain line of goods pays better than any other in his store, and who purposes making it his chief investment; who, in fact, sees an inexhaustible supply and an almost unlimited demand for a profitable article and intends to go in for it more than anything else.

The DEMAND is the lost state of these tens of thousands of Lisu and Kachin — their ignorance, their superstitions, their sinfulness; their bodies, their minds, their soul; the SUPPLY is the grace of God to meet his need — to be brought down to them by the persevering prayers of a considerable company of God’s people. All I want to do is, as a kind of middleman, to bring the supply and demand together.

The Lisu language had not been reduced to writing, so James developed a script which later became known as the Fraser alphabet and eventually translated the New Testament and other aids into Lisu.

One unique mark of his ministry was that the work was indigenous from the beginning. According to Wikipedia:

Fraser maintained a consistent policy of training the Lisu converts (usually whole households and whole villages at a time) to be self-supporting and to pay for their own books and church buildings. They raised their own funds for the support of pastors, of wives and children of their travelling evangelists and of festivals and other occasions. Unlike other missionaries of his generation, Fraser would not pay local preachers to go out, or for building local church structures, and this was something that put the Lisu in good stead for the years of Japanese occupation and the Communist persecution, particularly during the Chinese cultural revolution. Nevertheless tens of thousands of them fled during this era to neighboring Burma and Thailand. Fraser also left church government in the hands of Lisu elders; very little imprint was made on them that had a home church character, other than the tremendous prayer support the Fraser organised back in England for the Lisu and his work.

He also established the Rainy Season Bible Schools (Isobel Kuhn writes much about these),  systematic Bible study during the times when they could not work at their farming.

When James returned from furlough, he was needed in a different area of China: those in charge felt his experience would be best suited to the needs of that region. He was greatly disappointed. F.B. Meyer prayed, “I can’t say I’m willing, Lord, but I’m willing to be made willing,”  and James seemed to know that kind of prayer as well. He “knew the barrenness of obeying reluctantly. Recognition that God’s will was ‘perfect and acceptable’ would be costly, but it was always fruitful.”

He had not planned to be married, but the Lord definitely led in his marriage at the age of 42. He was drawn more into the administrative side of the work as God raised up more laborers in the field, and they counted his help and guidance as greatly valuable. All were stunned at his death at the age of 52 from malignant cerebral malaria.

In character he was known as a godly man with a quick mind, “ahead of his time” in missionary work and methods, kindly, humorous.  One traveling with him once said, “Mr. Fraser is a gentleman to his fingertips. There was nothing of lightness or flippancy. Wisdom governed him and every propriety was observed…He was the perfect gentleman in the dirtiest and dingiest Chinese inns…Every courtesy was observed. Every kindness was done. The depth of his inward life in Christ was never more manifest than in his attention to those hundred and one little things which make comfort for others.”

I discovered a DVD called Breakthrough: The Story of James O. Fraser and the Lisu People, but I have not seen it. Here is a trailer for it:

You can read more about Fraser online here:

About James O. Fraser (Overseas Missionary Fellowship site, formerly the China Inland Mission)
Quotes of J. O. Fraser
J. O. Fraser: Biographical Sketch
The Prayer of Faith

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

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Rosalind Goforth, a Woman “of Like Passions” As We Are

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ClimbingI mentioned Rosalind Goforth in the second post of this series and the unique ways God answered her very human and what we might consider mundane but serious needs for clothes for her children. After she had written Goforth of China, a biography of her husband, and How I Know God Answers Prayer (all or most of the text of this book is here, and it is free for the Kindle for a time here), she was asked to write something about her own perspectives and struggles after nearly a lifetime on the mission field. The result of that request is Climbing, her own story of answered prayer and personal struggles, one of my top three favorite missionary books. Being of like passions as we are, she very honestly and transparently writes of such things as overhearing two Chinese women talking about her quick temper and impatience and wishing she would live more as she preached. At first she was angry, but then realized it was all too true. She struggled with this for years, until much later the Chinese servants who had wanted to avoid her now wanted to be around her and serve her, wondering what had caused the change in her.

She tells of the work of God in many a life, of many funny experiences as well as trying ones, of multitudes of direct answers to prayer for helpers, for monetary and health needs, for protection, for grace and strength, even for everyday practical things like help to find a proper hat (after being criticized, sadly, by probably well-meaning women when she came home on furlough.)

Like any mother with young children, she struggled to have time alone with the Lord. She writes:

A devoted Christian missionary, Mrs. S, was holding a series of special meetings for our Christian women at Changte. On one occasion, this dear woman, who had no children, told me that I could never have the peace and joy I longed for unless I rose early and spent from one to two hours with the Lord in prayer and Bible study.

I longed intensely for God’s best — for all He could give me, not only to help me live the true Christian life but also for peace and rest of soul. So I determined to do what Mrs. S. had advised.

The following morning, about half-past five o’clock, I slipped as noiselessly as possible out of bed. (My husband had already gone to his study.) I had taken only a step or two when first one and then another little head bobbed up; then came calls of, “Mother is it time to get up?”

“Hush, hush, no, no,” I whispered as I went back, but too late; the baby had wakened! So, of course, the morning circus began an hour too soon.

But I did not give up easily. Morning after morning I tried rising early for the morning watch, but always with the same result. So I went back to the old way of just praying quietly — too often just sleeping! Oh, how I envied my husband, who could have an hour or more of uninterrupted Bible study while I could not. This led me to form the habit of memorizing Scripture, which became an untold blessing to me. I took advantage of odd opportunities on cart, train, or when dressing, always to have a Bible or Testament at hand so that in the early mornings I could recall precious promises and passages of Scripture (pp. 75-76).

One day when she was especially busy, she received a note from another missionary lady who was supposed to take a women’s meeting but found out she couldn’t and asked Rosalind to at nearly the last minute. She needed to nurse her baby, and she set her Bible up where she could see it. Her husband came in just then and said, “It puzzles me how you can address a meeting with so little preparation.” She responded, “Jonathan, if I had time like you, I could not expect to get a message in so short a time, but the fact is the Lord suits His help to me as a mother!” (p. 112). I’ve benefited from her studies on what God does with our sin and conditions for receiving strength.

I’ve been convicted along with her as she shares. During most of the time the Goforths ministered, the Chinese were quite suspicious of and disdainful toward “foreign devils.” To try to alleviate those feelings and establish relationships with the Chinese, the Goforths would allow crowds of the curious into their home to look around and to talk with them. This resulted in some agitation and disruption as well as theft of some of their belongings, but over all they felt it was worth it. Of one particular day, Rosalind writes:

The day had been an unusually strenuous one, and I was really very tired. Toward evening, a crowd of women burst through the living room door and came trooping in before I had time to meet them outside. One woman set herself out to make things unpleasant. She was rough and repulsive and– well, just indescribably filthy. I paid no attention to her except to treat her as courteously as the rest. But when she put both hands to her nose, saying loudly, “Oh, these foreign devils, the smell of their home is unbearable!”, my temper rose in a flash and, turning on her with anger, I said, “How dare you speak like that? Leave the room!” The crowd, sensing a “storm,” fled. I heard one say, “That foreign devil woman has a temper just like ours!”

Now, I had not noticed that the door of my husband’s study was ajar, not did I know that he was inside, until, as the last woman disappeared, the door opened and he came forward, looking solemn and stern. “Rose, how could you so forget yourself?” he said. “Do you realize that just one such incident may undo months of self-sacrificing, loving service?”

“But Jonathan” I returned, “you don’t know how she — “

But he interrupted. “Yes, I do; I heard all. You certainly had reason to be annoyed; but were you justified, with all that is hanging in the balance and God’s grace to keep you patient?”

As he turned to re-enter his study, he said, “All I can say is I am disappointed!“

Oh, how that last word cut me! I deserved it, yes, but, oh, I did so want to reach up to the high ideals he had. A tempestuous time followed alone in our inner room with my Lord. as I look back now, it was all just one farther step up the rocky hillside of life — just climbing! (pp. 45-46).

GoforthsThough the Goforths faced many personal hardships and losses, “Sometimes when letters would reach us from the homeland expressing pity for us, how my husband would laugh as I read them to him. ‘Pity,’ he would say, ‘why this is the most glorious life possible!’ Yes, it was indeed!” (p. 69).

(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: William Carey: “Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God.”

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CareyNo series like this would be complete without mention of William Carey, who is known as the “Father of Modern Missions.” In reading of his life, one cannot help but be struck by the providence of God in preparing and directing him and the perseverance of William Carey in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

He was born near Northampton, England in 1761 to a poor weaver. When he was six, his father was appointed a clerk for the Church of England. William loved to read, and in that day most books were only owned by rich people and clergymen; so with his father’s new appointment came many opportunities to borrow books. William was fascinated by tales of explorers and other lands. He was also very quick with languages. He taught himself Latin from an old book of his uncle’s that he found along with an old dusty Latin grammar book his father had found. Later on as a teenager, after finding a book of Greek, he found someone to teach it to him, and quickly picked it up as well.

William completed the schooling available to him at the age of 12 (only those who could afford to continued their formal education beyond that; William’s family could not.) William loved the outdoors and went to work on a farm; however, he got a painful rash on his hands and face whenever he was out in the sun. He tried to continue the work for two years, but finally had to give it up. It is likely that if he had continued on in that labor, he would have remained a poor farmer all his life. Instead, his father apprenticed him to a shoemaker. William was able to work with a book propped up nearby and continued to learn. The other apprentice was a “dissenter” — one who disagreed with much in the Church of England. They had some lively arguments, but in the end William became a dissenter, too, eventually becoming one of their preachers. After a few years, a congregation called him to be their pastor.

William was also able to teach school. His geography lessons spurred not only his love of learning, but his compassion for people in other lands who did not know Christ. His interest grew into a passion which compelled him to action.

Churches didn’t send out missionaries in the late 1700s — at least not Dissenting English churches. Many felt that the “Great Commission” was given to 11 disciples in the New Testament and wasn’t applicable in modern times. At a minister’s meeting, William tried to share his burden and vision for reaching the lost in other lands. He was told by an older pastor, “Young man, sit down! If God wants to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting you — or me!” He was soundly rebuked as a “miserable enthusiast.” This drove William to study to see if the minister was right, but he became more convinced than ever that they had a responsibility to the heathen. The more he studied about other countries, the more he felt burdened for souls lost in darkness: the more He studied Scripture, the more he saw evidence that the church was indeed called to spread the gospel.

Since the subject caused such dissension in public meetings, he began to talk with other pastors individually. He was urged to write a pamphlet and eventually was able to so, only the “pamphlet” turned into an eighty-seven-page book with a forty-two-word title. It became known as the Enquiry. In it, William addressed some common misconceptions:

Objection: How do we know that this command is still valid? Not even divine injunctions abide forever. They have their periods and pass, like the Levitical law.

Reply: Nay, divine injunctions abide till they have fulfilled their function. Who can think this command exhausted, with the majority of mankind not yet acquainted with Christ’s name?

Objection: But Christ’s command could scarcely have been absolute, seeing they never heard of vast parts of the globe — the South Seas, for example — nor could these be reached. Neither can we think it absolute today, with very large regions still unknown and unopened.

Reply: As they (the apostles) were responsible for going according to their strength into all their accessible world, we are in duty bound to speed into our much enlarged world. Indeed, we ought to be keen to go everywhere for Christ, till all closed doors are open.

Other sections of the book listed the history of missions in the world, the facts as they knew them about the world at the time (including the fact that an estimated 76% or 557 million souls were lost), practical considerations, and the duty of every Christian (to pray, to plod, and to plan).

Soon after his book was published, there was a ministers’ meeting. William brought his book and gave copies to those who were interested. At his opportunity to preach, he chose the text from Isaiah 54:2: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.” He urged the obligation of missions, concluding with the phrase famous to us now, “Brothers, attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God.” Some of the ministers were shaken. Yet later on, in the business meeting, there were no resolutions and no discussion about missions. When the meeting was adjourned, “William leaped to his feet. ‘Is nothing going to be done again?’” He compared them to the ten scouts of Moses. One man moved to reopen for business, and a majority agreed. Within minutes they passed a resolution: “Resolved, that a plan be prepared against the next ministers meeting at Kettering, for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the gospel among the Heathens.”

Opposition still abounded.  Some felt the church could not afford such a thing. Only two dozen of the congregations in their Association approved.

In the next months, William was led to offer himself as their first appointee. His wife flatly refused to go (though she eventually relented, a depression that began when her first baby died continued to grow. She was mentally unstable a good portion of her adult life.) His father was bitterly opposed. The East India Company feared missionaries would interfere with their trade and opposed them; in fact, William could have been arrested and deported except that a Dutch settlement in India took him in.

Though he had many hearers, there were no converts for seven long years. The first convert was bitterly persecuted, but his family and others to turned to Christ instead of away from Him.

William’s facility with languages led to translating the gospel into several. Other missionaries eventually followed, with churches and a school established. Thanks to one man’s perseverance and God’s grace to him, many were saved and a great work was done that not only impacted Carey’s world for God, but continues to have influence on believers today.

William Carey was a shining example of his own motto, “Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God,” but near the end of his life, when another missionary came to visit him and discuss his work, William said, “You have been speaking about William Carey. When I am gone, say nothing about William Carey — speak only about William Carey’s Savior.”

William died on June 9, 1834. The epitaph on his tombstone reads:

“A wretched, poor, and helpless worm
on Thy kind arms I fall.”

(Some information taken from William Carey, Father of Modern Missions by Sam Wellman.)

(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: The Cambridge Seven

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In 1883 Harold Schofield, a missionary doctor in China, surveyed the needs of his field and prayed in faith “that God would waken the church to China’s claims, that He would raise up men to preach His word. Above all that He would touch the universities and call men of talent and ability and consecrate them to His work in China. It seemed a prayer absurd enough except to faith” (p. 42). He did know know that God had begun answering his prayer “even while he was yet speaking,” and he didn’t live to see the answer: like those saints in Hebrews 11, he died not having yet received the promises, but God used him in faith and prayer.

This book details the answer to that prayer. The subtitle of The Cambridge Seven by John Pollock is “The True Story of Ordinary Men Used in No Ordinary Way,” an apt title.

A fairly short book at only 111 pages, it details the Lord’s leading in the lives of seven young men from their conversions to their departure for China with a brief synopsis at the end about what happened to each of them. C.T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, S.P. Smith, A.T. Polhill-Turner, D.E. Hoste, C.H. Polhill-Turner, W.W. Cassels were all Cambridge students who felt called to offer their lives as missionaries to China. They were from different backgrounds: some were wealthy, some were in the military, some were collegiate athletes — one of them a household name in his day; some were more “ordinary.” They were of varying abilities and gifts. Yet as God called them one by one, and it became known, and they shared their testimonies of salvation and surrender over England and Scotland, God used them in a remarkable way before they ever even got to China.

For many of them, the first stirrings toward faith in Christ came when D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey held meetings in England. Some of “their friends thought it a great joke that two uneducated Americans should be coming to preach to the University” (p. 29). But the Holy Spirit worked through His servant and His Word to convict their hearts and bring them to Himself. Others came from Christian families yet were only nominal believers until the Lord began to draw them to a closer fellowship and surrender to Himself.

Some of their families supported them: others strongly resisted the idea of their sons going to a foreign mission field, at least at first.

I appreciated the caution and care with which they approached their call. As D. E. Hoste “began to feel the urge to devote himself to the gospel. Nothing else seemed worthy,” his father “refused. He pointed out how recent was Dick’s faith, and reminded him that, though nothing could break its reality, the intensity of his emotions might be transient. To rush, on impulse, to such a binding decision would be foolishly wrong and might afterwards be regretted” (p. 43). C. T. Studd was listening to an address about the needs of China and “thought for a moment of rising in his place and offering for China on the spot. But he felt ‘people would say I was led by impulse.’ When the meeting ended he slipped away by himself and prayed for guidance” (pp. 69-70). I wince sometimes in our modern-day meetings when a speaker seems to feel he has to compel people down the aisle or else they’ll miss the will of God for their lives forever afterward. That may be true in some cases — there are moments of crisis when we need to make a decision for the Lord without hesitation. But as a general rule I’d rather people take time to pray and make sure their call is really of God than to respond to man-made pressure mistaken for the Holy Spirit’s.

China was not an easy field to go to then, if indeed it ever was. Some of these men were laying aside personal wealth and the possibility of brilliant careers and social prominence. But as they shared their call, they did not do so with woebegone countenances. They did not make it seem like a sacrifice: they made it seem like a joyous privilege. Perhaps that contagious joy was one of the things that drew a number of people to give their all to the Lord in their wake. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission through which they would be working, even allowed them to wait past their appointed time of departure because they were being called to more meetings in the British Isles to speak: he recognized that God was doing something unusual through them.

C. T. Studd is perhaps the most well-known of the seven in our day. One of his most well-known quotes is at the end of this section:

I had known about Jesus Christ’s dying for me, but had never understood that if he died for me, then I didn’t belong to myself. Redemption means ‘buying back,’ so that if I belonged to Him, either I had to be a thief and keep what wasn’t mine or else I had to give up everything to God. When I came to see that Jesus Christ had died for me, it didn’t seem hard to give up all for HIM. It just seemed common, ordinary honesty.

(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: Dr. John Dreisbach, Modern Missionary Statesman and Surgeon

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During the last week of November, 2009, one of God’s great missionary statesmen of our times passed on to be with his Savior and to be reunited with the wife he had missed for nine years. Dr. John Dreisbach passed away at the age of 87, just a few weeks after being diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.

John DreisbachBettie DreisbachI was fortunate to have attended the same church as the Dreisbachs for fourteen years. I had heard of them for years before that. Thirty years ago when I was a student at BJU, Dr. John and Bettie Dreisbach were legendary even then. The first time I heard Dr. John speak, a somewhat short, soft-spoken, grey-haired man who was not what you would call a dynamic speaker, I thought, “Is this the man I have heard so much about?” But oh, what a heart for God and for missions! His wife, Bettie, was, I’d say, a little feistier than he was, but they were both unfailingly kind, humble, gentle people who were completely sold out to do whatever God wanted.

One of my fondest memories of Dr. John was from a church picnic when, for some reason, all the missionary men on deputation or furlough (there were several in that church) were asked to don a headpiece with long dog ears attached and sing, “Do your ears hang low?” Though at first none of the men looked thrilled to be asked, Dr. John wagged his ears to the song along with the best of them. My oldest son still remembers a time Dr. John spoke in chapel and flung out a massive rolled-up snake skin that unfurled several rows over the heads of the children. I also remember when Mrs. Dreisbach spoke to the ladies about how to encourage an interest in missions in the home. They both possessed merry hearts and quick smiles. They were both genuine, transparent people who would cringe at words like “great” and “legendary” being applied to them, yet those words are not intended to magnify them but rather to show the extent to which God used them.

From Dr. Dreisbach’s memorial service I gleaned the following biographical information presented by Gospel Fellowship Association’s director, Dr. Mark Batory:

John was only four when his father and brother were killed by a lightning strike. John’s brother was fifteen years older and had been planning to be a missionary, and John immediately felt his brother’s mantle had fallen on him like Elijah’s had on Elisha. He was brought to conviction, repentance, and salvation at a revival meeting, partly because of a continuing temptation he experienced to steal marshmallow cookies from his uncle’s store.

He studied medicine with an eye toward being a medical missionary. He wanted his future wife to be already called to Africa before they met rather than just following his call. One day when he was uncharacteristically late to a Bible study, he came in to hear several students giving their testimonies. His ears perked up when he heard one young lady tell of her call to go to Africa, and though he could only see the back of her head, he knew she was the one for him.

Dr. John and Bettie were married in Panama in 1947. Dr. John had been a farm boy and hadn’t been to many weddings. He and Bettie had planned to be married at the end of an evening worship service at the church they had been attending. There were no typical wedding frills: no special wedding clothes, no attendants, no wedding pictures, and so forth. He was at that time on staff at a Panamanian hospital known for its work with leprosy patients, and the only vehicle available to him was the ambulance, so he took his new bride back to the leprosarium in the ambulance. Their house was built up on stilts, and some of the local men came and played drums underneath their house. The Dreisbachs dropped some candy down to the musicians, for which they delightedly played all the more. They then dropped some money down to them, hoping that would thank them and encourage them to stop, but they played all night long.

The Dreisbachs went to Nigeria in 1948 and worked in a leprosy hospital. Though they did outstanding medical work (Dr. John pioneered a surgery to restore usefulness to lepers’ hands and feet by using tendons from other parts of their bodies to replace the constricted ones, and he won many awards for his work), they considered their primary mission sharing the gospel. Dr. John was not a man given to exaggeration; he was very careful in what he said, but he estimated that about 25% of all those who came to the hospital left with faith in Christ.

They had been on the mission field in Nigeria for several years when, becoming concerned about compromise in their mission board and sensing a need for a change, they accepted an invitation from BJU in 1964 to come to be the campus physician and to develop a curriculum for medical missions. They also founded Project Compassion, medical missionary apprenticeship teams made up of nurses and others who had some kind of medical training. They took Project Compassion teams to 12 different countries over a period of 25 years to serve in medical evangelistic mission works.

Beyond the NightThey took a leave of absence from BJU to spend 8 years ministering to nomadic tribes people in the Sahara Dessert. The BJU film Beyond the Night comes from these years.

In 1990 Dr. John joined the staff of Gospel Fellowship Association. His beloved wife Bettie passed away in 2000 after 52 years of marriage. He continued to take missions trips to Africa, primarily to Cameroon. He had wanted to develop medical clinics there but was told by the government he was too old. He went as a consultant because his primary mission was to share the gospel.

When Dr. John was finally told he could no longer travel because of his health, Dr. Batory suggested they tape a series of lessons in the Hausa language that could be used among the Hausa-speaking people in Cameroon. Dr. John had prepared 15 short lessons and preparations were underway to video tape his presenting these lessons. At the trial run, a faulty tape recorded only 30 seconds of the first lesson. Discouraged at first, Dr, Batory came to realized that God did not want to replace Dr. John with tapes or discs; God wanted people to take up the mantle.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to reconnect with the Dreisbachs when they were at a missions conference at a church we were visiting. I’ll never forget his speaking on the verse, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?“ (Psalm 78:19), and then sharing many instances of times God had provided in seemingly impossible circumstances. Neither will I forget the poem he read at that time, when he was in his 70s, titled, “Would you?”

If you had been to heathen lands
Where weary souls stretch out their hands
To plead, yet no one understands,
Would you go back? Would you?

If you had seen the women bear
Their heavy loads, with none to share
Had heard them weep, with none to care,
Would you go back? Would you?

If you had seen them in despair
Beat their breasts and pull their hair
While demon powers filled the air,
Would you go back? Would you?

If you had seen the glorious sight
When heathen people seeking right
Had turned from darkness to the light,
Would you go back? Would you?

If you had walked through Afric’s sand
Your hand within the Saviour’s hand
And knew He’d called you to that land,
Would you go back? Would you?

Yet still they wait, that weary throng.
They’ve waited, some, so very long.
When shall despair be turned to song?
I’m going back. Wouldn’t you?

– Author unknown

So far as I know, no one has written a biography of the Dreisbachs yet, but I hope someone does. May God raise up many like him to take his place.

Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.  Luke 10:2

(Edited by Priscilla Dreisbach)

(Photos courtesy of the Dreisbach society at FlickR)

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

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Eric Liddell: Olympian and Missionary

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liddell The world knows the name Eric Liddell as the winner of the gold medal for the 400 meter race in the 1924 Olympics (portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire). Many know, further, that he did not originally train for that race: he had trained for the 100 meter race, but, dismayed to find that the race was to be held on Sunday, the Lord’s day, he refused to run it and was allowed to switch to the 400 meter. Perhaps fewer still know that he was born to missionary parents and went back to China as a missionary himself.

The biography Eric Liddell by Catherine Swift (Men of Faith Eric Liddell(series, Bethany House Publishers) details his parents’ testimony and early experiences in China. (Incidentally, this book includes the best concise exposition that I have ever read of the famed Chinese Boxer Rebellion, in which many missionaries were killed or driven from China.) Eric was born Jan. 16, 1902, in Tientsin in North China. His parents were originally from Scotland: Eric’s first visit there occurred during his parents’ first furlough when Eric was five.

At this time missionary children were usually educated in boarding schools, so Eric and his older brother Robbie stayed behind at the London Missionary School when their parents went back to China. Eric was thin, in frail health, and very shy at first, but flourished under the headmaster’s practice of his motto, “Healthy minds in healthy bodies.” Although gaining confidence and overcoming much of his shyness, he remained a relatively quiet personality. He began attending voluntary Bible classes in his teens, never taking part in the discussions, but thinking over them when he was alone.

He played cricket and rugby well and especially enjoyed running (interesting since there was concern during an early childhood illness that he might never run), winning many athletic honors: yet he was known for his humility and his not letting any of it go to his head.
Eric had a rather odd running style: “He had a habit of running with his head rested back on his shoulders, gazing up at the heavens instead of where he was going. His knees came right up as though he was trying to hit his own chin, and he lifted his feet far too high off the ground. His arms waved about sporadically and his fists punched at the air, making him look more like a boxer than a runner.”

During Eric’s college years he became well known for his running. At one point some students began evangelistic work in the area and had a particularly hard time reaching the men. One student thought of asking Eric to speak, thinking what fame he had would attract the men. Though he hated “the limelight,” Eric agreed to go. He very quietly and humbly spoke of God and his love for Him and trust in Him. That experience awakened in him a desire to more openly share His Lord with others and began a public ministry.

When Eric began training for the 1924 Olympics in Paris, it never occurred to him that the match would be held on Sunday, as well as two relays he could have competed in. When he saw the schedule, long before the event, he simply felt he could not participate and violate his convictions and dishonor the Lord and His Day. He did not make a big fuss about it — but others did. He received much criticism and was even accused of being a traitor to his country. The authorities tried to get the schedule changed, to no avail, then they asked Eric to compete in the 200 and 400 meter races instead. On Wednesday of the Olympic Games, Eric ran in the 200 meter race, winning a bronze medal, which no Scotsman had even done. Then on Friday, as he was leaving his hotel for the 400 meter race, his regular masseur handed him a slip of paper. Later in a quiet moment, Eric unfolded the paper to read, “In the old book it says, ‘He that honors me I will honor.’ Wishing you the best of success always.” This reinforced to Eric the word he had been resting on, “Whosoever believeth in me shall not be ashamed,” and encouraged him. To everyone’s surprise, he not only won the gold medal in that race, but set a new world record.

Just a few weeks later he publicly announced his plans to be a missionary in China, teaching at a college in the city in which he was born. He spent another year in England, holding campaigns and studying theology.

Eric ministered in China for several years, married, had two daughters and was expecting a third while unrest brewed: nationalists and Communists were fighting each other while the Japanese were creeping in. Eventually the Japanese gained control of their area and were talking about sending all missionaries to internment camps. Eric sent his wife and daughters to Canada. The Christians who were left found creative ways to get around the ban on church services, such as inviting each other to “tea” on Sundays. Just a few weeks before Eric expected to leave, all British and American missionaries were sent to an internment camp several miles away. Eric quietly ministered there in many ways. In another book, A Boy’s War, David Michell, who was a boy in the internment camps at the time, tells of his memories of “Uncle Eric,” as he was known to the children. Eric fell ill and gradually grew worse: eventually he and others knew from his symptoms that he had a brain tumor. His last words were, “It’s complete surrender,” a phrase he had used often in his life and ministry.

The world was stunned to learn of Eric’s death at the age of 43 just a few weeks before World War II ended. Memorial services were held in many places. His life still reaches out even now, nearly 60 years after his death, as an example of quiet, humble servitude and a life that honors God.

Here is a video of Eric Liddell’s and Harold Abraham’s races in the 1924 Olympics:

And this is pretty neat: Day of Discovery took Liddell’s three grown daughters back to China for the first time since their father had sent them to safety in 1941:

One quote of Liddell’s that I have in my files is “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.” I don’t remember the context in which he said these words, but they are a fitting epitaph to his life.

(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: Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story

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I reviewed this book a few years ago, but I felt that I must include it in this series. This is a current missionary story published in 2000.

rainforest.jpgJungle Mom (who now blogs at Livin’ la Rita Loca) is a missionary that our church in SC supported, and she recommended to me the book Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story by Mark Ritchie. If I understand correctly, the Yanomamo territory bordered the Yekwana Indians that the she and her husband worked with, and the they knew many Yanomamo and their ways and some of the people in this book.

This book is not for the faint of heart, however. It is not gratuitous, but it is graphic and very frank in its dealings with demonism, violence, and the treatment of women. It is told through the eyes of “Jungleman,” a powerful shaman. It is interesting to see things through his perspective (told by him to the author, who wrote them down and confirmed the incidents with others).

He tells first of all of the Yanomamo policy of revenge. Any incident calls for revenge from the family or village sinned against, which usually involves a raid on the offending village, clubbings, and capture and group rape of women. The extent of the raid can vary — in some cases two opposing warriors take turns clubbing each other over the head or across the chest. In more serious offenses every male is killed and the remaining women are assaulted multiple times and then carried off to become wives of the raiding village. If a captured woman tries to run away, she is beaten or killed. Children of the raided village are often brutally killed, occasionally captured.

Such raids did not satisfy the revenge, however: it sparked more revenge. Any remaining men or any relatives who lived in other villages were then expected to exact revenge on the raiding village. A war once begun never stopped. In between raids, villages were afraid to go out into their gardens or out to find food, always fearful of an ambush. Sometimes they broke up camp and wandered in the jungle looking for food. Sometimes mighty warriors woke up with nightmares, haunted by the cries of those that they killed. Yet they could never admit this: fierceness was the most valued characteristic in a Yanamamo male.

Gradually white nabas (their word for non-Yanomamo) began to appear in the jungle. They “talked like babies” but sometimes had useful things to trade. The Indians quickly learned, however, through hard trial and error, that all nabas were not the same. Some were interested in trading, some were interested in helping, but some were evil and interested in exploiting (they knew some earned money by taking and selling pictures of them [one even told them to take off their clothes so the pictures he took and sold would be more “authentic”] and stories about them, but there were others whose exploitation was much, much worse). There were a few, however, who said they were followers of the one the Yanomamo regarded as the great enemy spirit. They said the Indians misunderstood Him, that He loved them and had a better way to live. The Yanomamo were naturally suspicious, but they kept interacting with them because of the items they would trade or because of the medical help, and later because of the peace they exhibited. Jungleman and others’ spirits became troubled every time they were near the village where the nabas lived and begged the shamans not to ‘throw them away.”

To me there were several major benefits to this book. One was the fascinating look into Yanomamo culture. One was the immense power of the gospel to miraculously change lives in those who receive it. It was thrilling to read of those who came to believe and how they changed and grew and began to understand the ways in which they had been deceived.

Another major value of this book is the truth that these “primitive” peoples are not living happy lives frolicking in an idyllic Eden. I don’t know if you realize this, but there is a large and growing segment of the population who believes that such people should be left alone to Western influence all together and especially Christianity. As I said in another post months ago, these people deserve as much chance as anyone else has to hear the gospel and have the choice to change their ways.

The following is an interview between “Doesn’t Miss” (their name for the author), Keleewa, the missionary who interpreted, and a Yanomamo called Hairy on pages 180-183:

“The naba wants to know why you want to change the way you live out here in the jungle,” Keleewa said to Hairy after Doesn’tMiss talked.

Hairy was surprised at the question. “Because we’re miserable out here. We are miserable all the time. The people from Honey [predominantly Christian village] came here and made peace with us many seasons ago and their village keeps getting better. We want that for us. If it means throwing spirits away and getting new ones, we will do it. [This is not something said lightly. Many were under the impression that they would be killed if they tried to get rid of their spirits.] But we need someone to teach us these new ways.”

Hairy didn’t have spirits because he was not a shaman. But he followed everything the spirits told his shaman. I knew my spirits would be very irritated if Hairy quit following the spirits. No one who has killed as often and as long as Hairy could ever stop it…

Doesn’t Miss talked with Keleewa for a while. Keleewa paused and thought how to say what the naba said. Then he told Hairy, “He says there are many people in his land that don’t think that he, or any of us, should be here helping you at all. They say that you’re happy here and that we should leave you alone. He wants to know what an experienced killer like you would say to them.”

Hairy grew even more serious. “I say to you, please don’t listen to the people who say that. We need help so bad. We are so miserable here and our misery never stops. Night and day it goes on. Do those people think we don’t suffer when bugs bite us? If they think this is such a happy place out here in the jungle, why aren’t they moving here to enjoy this beautiful life with us?”

Doesn’t-Miss was quiet. Then he got out of his hammock and walked down the trail…When he was too far away to hear, Hairy said to Keleewa, “Is he stupid? Doesn’t he have eyes? Can’t he see these lean-tos we call houses? Can’t he see us roam the jungle every day, searching for food that isn’t here, so we can starve slower? Can’t he see that our village is almost gone, that this move we are making now is our last hope to stay alive?”

Keleewa was slow to answer. He knew Hairy wouldn’t understand what he was about to say. “Most nabas think just like him,” Keleewa told Hairy, and shook his head because he knew he couldn’t explain why.

“Nobody’s that stupid,” Hairy snapped. “They must hate us. They think we’re animals.”

Later Hairy asked Keleewa what they had to do to get a white naba to come to their village and live with them and teach them about Yai Pada (God), offering to clear an airstrip. Kelweewa promised that if they cleared an airstrip someone would come. That day Hairy and his people began clearing the jungle, and Hairy “remembered the wife he had killed. ‘I don’t want to treat women like that any more,’ he thought. ‘I don’t want my children to be killers like me. I want them to follow the spirit of this man of peace. I want us all to be free of our past. I want to sleep again’” (p. 230).

Another time (page 202) an antro (Yanomamo word for the kind of naba who took pictures of them and wrote about them) scolded an Indian named Shortman:

“Don’t you ever speak to me in Spanish! You are a Yanomamo and will always be a Yanomamo. You have no business throwing away your true ways and trying to copy nabas with their clothes, watches, motors, and now even changing to Spanish! Don’t ever speak to me in Spanish again! You want to talk to me? Use Yanomamo.”

“What’s that in your lower lip there?” Shortman asked…

“That’s my wad of tobacco,” the antro answered.

“Where did you learn to chew tobacco that way?” asked Shortman.

“I learned it from your people.”

“You saw us chew tobacco that way and you tried it and you liked it. So you copied us, didn’t you?”

“That’s right,” the antro said, with some pride in his Indian ways.

Shortman shrugged. “If you can copy us,” he paused with a puzzled look, ”then we can copy you.”

Somehow the shamans could “see” when another person had spirits, and they had identified some of the evil nabas as having spirits that the nabas themselves didn’t know about. At one point when Shoefoot, leader of Honey village, came to America with the author, he “identified the signs and symbols of many of the spirits right here in our ‘civilized’ culture. He has no problem understanding the Columbine High School massacre or any other killing spree. The spirits of anger and hatred that own and drive a person are spirits he has known personally. He knows what it means to kill under the influence of something or someone. So when a student asks…”Why can’t you get rid of your spirits without converting to Christianity?’ his answer is simple. ‘I don’t know any other way to get rid of the spirits that are destroying us. And no other shaman does, either’” (p. 251).

(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: Mary Slessor and the Power of a Woman’s God

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When I first started reading missionary biographies as a fairly young Christian, I think I had the impression that they all came from perfect Christian families. After a while I learned that there is no such thing. 🙂 But I also came across Mary Slessor’s biography. Her father was an alcoholic, like mine was, and it it encouraged me that someone with a similar background could go on and serve the Lord wholeheartedly.

SlessorMary Slessor was a girl in Aberdeen, Scotland in the 1800s. She had a godly mother and a drunken father. Her father could be violent, raging, throwing much-needed food into the fireplace, locking her out of the house to spend the night on the streets. Even after his death Mary carried the shame of his drunkenness on her shoulders.

She had been interested in missions for several years, particularly a country in west Africa called Calabar.

The great Scottish missionary David Livingstone was Mary’s hero. She’d read Missionary Travels, hardly stopping to breathe. A second time. A third time. He was a Scot, just like her. He was the second oldest of seven children, just like her. He had been poor, just like her. He had even worked in  textile mill many years, just like her! How many times had she told herself, Then cannot I be a missionary just like him? Yes, to Africa just like Livingstone.

But then how many times had her heart ached when she remembered what a godly father Livingstone sprang from? His father presented him from infancy with a “consistent example of piety” so priestly, Livingstone claimed, that his father could best be depicted only by the father Bobby Burns described poetically in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.” Unfortunately, Mary remembered every stanza Burns composed about that Bible-living patriarch, including the conclusion: “From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs.”

(From Mary Slessor, Queen of Calabar, by Sam Wellman.)

 Livingstone’s death had a profound impact on Mary’s life, convicting her that she had hesitated long enough. She sought much counsel about giving her life as a missionary, wrestled with whether her family could get by without her income, was convinced and encouraged by her mother that the family would be all right, and finally offered herself to the Foreign Mission Board. She didn’t specify that she was interested in Calabar, however, for she wanted to leave that as a final test to make sure she was following God’s leading and not her own. She wasn’t sure if she would be accepted as she had little education and no skill except as a mill worker. Yet the board called her and told her Calabar has asked for more teachers. She was brought to Edinburgh for training and sailed for Africa in 1876. She faced the unknown, jungle animals, jungle diseases, and abhorrent practices with faith and courage.

Soon after landing in Calabar she began to realize the difficulty and seeming impossibility of the work to which she had committed herself. She saw huge, hideous alligators sun ning on the mud banks and swimming in the streams… She saw the barracoons where the captured Negroes were penned until the slave-ships arrived. She found herself in a land where terrified prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their guilt under some accusation, where wives were strangled or buried alive to go with their dead chief into the spirit-world, where heartless chiefs could order a score of men and women  to be beheaded for a cannibal orgy and sell a hundred more into the horrors of slavery. What could one frail, timid woman do, confronted by such an appalling situation? Overwhelmed and depressed, she knelt and prayed, “Lord, the task is impossible for me but not for Thee. Lead the way and I will follow.” Rising, she said, “Why should I fear? I am on a Royal Mission. I am in the service of the King of kings.”

Mary rescued hundreds of twin babies thrown out into the forest, prevented many wars, stopped the practice of trying to determine guilt by the poison ordeal, healed the sick, and unweariedly told the people about the great God of love whose Son came to earth to die on the cross that poor sinful human beings might have eternal life. The Master she loved and served so ardently crowned her labors by permitting her to establish a number of churches and to see hundreds … [converted].

(From Blazing the Missionary Trail by Eugene Myers.)

 She didn’t go to just one African village. She continually felt called to go deeper into Africa despite warnings of dangers from headhunters and cannibals. A chief warned her, “You are going to a warlike people. You are likely to get killed on the way. Anyhow, they would not listen to what a woman says.” Mary answered, “When you think of the woman’s power, you forget the power of the woman’s God. I shall go on.”

I discovered yesterday a video called “One More River: The Mary Slessor Story” in two parts (here and here, each about a half hour long) that appears to be something of a documentary from Scottish TV about her life. I’ve only watched the first part so far, and there is a great deal of dead time, but it is still pretty interesting. I especially love how it starts out: “If you think all Victorian women were ladies in lavender crinolines swooning at the sight of a mouse, think again.”

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

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Gladys Aylward: The Small Woman With Big Faith

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AylwardGladys Aylward felt she was called to China as a missionary: yet, as she sat in an office of the China Inland Mission, the principal of the Women’s Training Center told her he felt she could not learn a difficult language like Chinese at her “advanced” age of almost 30. He did tell her there was an elderly couple just returned from China who needed assistance, and she agreed to go help them. Their talk of China continued to fan the flame of interest, and after hearing about many older single women missionaries in China, she decided to try to go to China on her own and be of help to one of them.

She went back to her former employment as a parlor maid to earn money to go. Her new employer had been an adventurer with a library full of books, many of them about China, some of which he had written himself. She was able to feast her soul on these and on study of God’s Word after her work was done. She was especially encouraged by the story of Nehemiah, wanting to go on a mission for God while he was the king’s cupbearer; she saw a parallel to her own situation. By making herself available to other manors to work during her time off, the Lord blessed with providing the finances to go; meanwhile, she had contacted a lady missionary and received word that she wanted her to come.

On October 15, 1932 (81 years ago today) She set off on a harrowing journey to China which included riding a train until it could go no farther due to fighting in Russia, having to walk back to the nearest station alone, spending the night huddled up under her luggage during a Siberian winter, having her passport stolen with the occupation changed from “Missionary” to “Machinist,”  with the help of kind strangers narrowly missing being sent to a work camp against her will. Finally arriving at her destination after several days and various means of travel, she found the lady she was to work with, Jeannie Lawson,  and the building she wanted to make into an inn badly in need of repair and cleaning. When they were finally ready, but with no customers after several days of advertising, Jeannie told Gladys to go out and grab the lead mule of the passing mule train and lead it into the inn, and the rest of the mule pack, with the muleteers, would follow. This Gladys did several times until the muleteers began coming out of their own preference. A Chinese cook, Yang, prepared meals and told rather mixed-up versions of Bible stories until  the muleteers were comfortable enough with Jeannie and Gladys for them to tell Bible stories.

After some months of this work, and many of the muleteers becoming Christians (even some who weren’t Christians passed the stories along to others), Jeannie suffered a severe fall from which she never recovered.

Shortly thereafter the local Mandarin told Gladys that the government had outlawed the long-held practice of foot-binding and asked her to go throughout his district to inform people of the new law and to inspect the women’s feet. After some consideration Gladys agreed to go, but warned him that she would speak of the Lord Jesus Christ to the people. He had no problem with that, and thus the Lord provided an unparalleled and unexpected way to evangelize the area with government escort.

At one time Gladys was officially summoned to a prison: the prisoners were rioting and killing each other, and the soldiers were too afraid to intervene. The warden wanted Gladys to go in and stop the fighting, because she spoke of a God Who was all-powerful and would protect her! Gladys realized the truth of what she proclaimed was on trial, so she agreed to go into the prison. By the grace of God, the prisoners listened to her. She saw that they were near-starving and had nothing to do with their time, and she was able to speak to the warden on their behalf and also to start visiting them with the gospel.

Once Gladys came face to face with a woman on the street trying to sell her ill, malnourished child. She tried to speak to the Mandarin about it, but he refused to interfere and told Gladys not to, either.  But she couldn’t leave the child in her plight, so Gladys “bought” her. That eventually led to her taking in a number of children through various means.

In 1936 Gladys became a Chinese citizen.

In 1938 the Japanese bombed and overtook the city, causing survivors  to flee. At this time the Mandarin became a Christian.  Eventually Gladys took over 100 orphans by foot over  mountains, then waited for miraculous provision of a boat to cross the Yellow River to an orphanage in Sian.

A film of her story was made during her lifetime, entitled The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman as herself. Gladys called it “lie upon lie.” It upset her greatly that Hollywood changed details and names: there was a significant meaning to the inn’s real name, The Inn of Eight Happinesses.  Worst of all was the depiction that she had dumped the orphans in Sian to go live “happily ever after” with a Chinese colonel.

She passed away at the age of 67, a shining example of overcoming obstacles by God’s grace.

Sources: Gladys Aylward, Missionary to China by Sam Wellman and Gladys Aylward by Catherine Swift.

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

31 Days of Missionary Stories: Amy Carmichael and Singleness

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If you’ll indulge me one more anecdote from the life of Amy Carmichael, the following vignette is excerpted from a chapter entitled “Singleness Is a Gift” from the book On Asking God Why by Elisabeth Elliot.

Amy CarmichaelWith all her heart she determined to please him who had chosen her to be his soldier. She was awed by the privilege. She accepted the disciplines.

Loneliness was one of those disciplines. How–the modern young person always wants to know–did she “handle” it? Amy Carmichael would not have had the slightest idea what the questioner was talking about. “Handle” loneliness? Why, it was part of the cost of obedience, of course. Everybody is lonely in some way, the single in one way, the married in another; the missionary in certain obvious ways, the schoolteacher, the mother, the bank teller in others.

Amy had a dear co-worker whom she nicknamed Twin. At a missions conference they found that in the posted dinner lists, Twin and a friend named Mina had been seated side by side.

“Well, I was very glad that dear Mina should have Twin,” Amy wrote to her family, “and I don’t think I grudged her to her one little bit, and yet at the bottom of my heart there was just a touch of disappointment, for I had almost fancied I had somebody of my very own again, and there was a little ache somewhere. I could not rejoice in it. . .I longed, yes longed, to be glad, to be filled with such a wealth of unselfish love that I should be far gladder to see those two together than I should have been to have had Twin to myself. And while I was asking for it, it came. For the very first time I felt a rush, a real joy in it, His joy, a thing one cannot pump up or imitate or force in any way. . .Half-unconsciously, perhaps, I had been saying, ‘Thou and Twin are enough for me’–one so soon clings to the gift instead of only to the Giver.”

Her letter then continued with a stanza from the Frances Ridley Havergal hymn:

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for thee.

After writing this, Amy felt inclined to tear it out of the letter. It was too personal, too humiliating. But she decided the Lord wanted her to let it stand, to tell its tale of weakness and of God’s strength. She was finding firsthand that missionaries are not apart from the rest of the human race, not purer, nobler, higher.

“Wings are an illusive fallacy,” she wrote. “Some may possess them, but they are not very visible, and as for me, there isn’t the least sign of a feather. Don’t imagine that by crossing the sea and landing on a foreign shore and learning a foreign lingo you ‘burst the bonds of outer sin and hatch yourself a cherubim.’ “

Amy landed in India in 1897 and spent the first few years in itinerant evangelism. She began to uncover a secret traffic in little girls who were being sold or given for temple prostitution. She prayed that God would enable her find a way to rescue some of them, even though not one had ever been known to escape.

Several years later, God began to answer that prayer…and in a few years Amy Carmichael was Amma (“Mother”) to a rapidly growing Indian family that, by the late 1940s, numbered about 900. In a specially literal way the words of Jesus seemed to have been fulfilled: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

In answer to a question from one of her children who years later had become a close fellow worker, Amy described a transaction in a cave. She had gone there to spend the day with God and face her feelings of fear about the future. Things were all right at the moment, but could she endure years of being alone?

The Devil painted pictures of loneliness that were vivid to her years later. She turned to the Lord in desperation. “What can I do, Lord? How can I go on to the end?”

His answer: ”None of them that trust in me shall be desolate” (from Psalms 34:22 KJV). So she did not “handle” loneliness–she handed it to her Lord and trusted his Word.

“There is a secret discipline appointed for every man and woman whose life is lived for others,” she wrote. “No one escapes that discipline, nor would wish to escape it; nor can any shelter another from it.”

Her commitment to obedience was unconditional. Finding that singleness was the condition her Master had appointed for her, she received it with both hands, willing to renounce all rights for his sake and, although she could not have imagined it at the time, for the sake of the children he would give her–a job she could not possibly have done if she had had a family of her own.

Many whose houses, for one reason or another, seem empty, and the lessons of solitude hard to learn, have found strength and comfort in the following Amy Carmichael poem:

O Prince of Glory, who dost bring
Thy sons to glory through Thy Cross,
Let me not shrink from suffering,
Reproach or loss .…

If Thy dear Home be fuller, Lord,
For that a little emptier
My house on earth, what rich reward
That guerdon* were.

 *recompense; something earned or gained

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

Other posts about Amy Carmichael:

Isn’t “No” an Answer?
What We Wanted All the Time.
Missionaries’ Letters to Mothers.
It’s the Little Things.
The Melting Point.
“Thy Calvary Stills All Our Questions”
From the worlding’s hollow gladness.
Make Me Thy Fuel.
Shadow and Coolness.
With All Our Feebleness.
Amy Learns to Die to Self.
A Book of Amy Carmichael Poems.