“You are a good man; we will not harm you.” Roger Williams was face to face with the fierce Native American warriors. There was fighting all around him, and the town was on fire.  Roger was an old man now, and the Indians still respected him. Perhaps he was the only white man in the colonies that they trusted. This time, however, his peace-making efforts had been swept aside.

Roger Williams was a pioneer in politics, theology, church-planting, anthropology, and linguistics. He is best known as the governor of Rhode Island, the founder of the First Baptist Church in America, and an early advocate of religious liberty. He is less known for laying the groundwork for missions among the Native American tribes of New England.

Born in England c. 1603, Williams was converted as a young man. In college, he studied theology, Greek, and Hebrew. His separatist views brought the persecution of the archbishop, and he sailed for America in 1630. Upon arrival, he discovered that the Puritans were not as separated from the Church of England as they professed to be. There was no religious liberty. The state enforced the doctrines of the church. They persecuted Baptists and Quakers. They treated the Indians as inferior and took their land by force.

Williams pastored two different churches during a five-year period. His own churches loved him, but the community hated him for his outspoken views.  He strongly opposed the unfair treatment of Native Americans, urging that the colonists pay the Natives for the land. He also preached the right of every man or woman to follow his or her own conscience in religious matters.

The Salem court sentenced Williams to banishment in the winter of 1635.   He fled on foot into the snowy forest. He walked 105 miles to an Indian village where he was accepted into their homes for the winter. The following spring, he was joined by his wife and ten of his friends, and together they founded Providence Plantation, and eventually Rhode Island colony.

Williams was a true friend to Indians and settlers alike. As a peacemaker, he saved the colonies on several occasions. He studied the Algonquin language and wrote a linguistic key called, A Key into the Language of America. This book also contained many pages of cultural notes, touching every aspect of culture—from salutations to death and burial. He laid the groundwork for Bible translation and the missionaries who would come after him.

Near the end of his life, Williams saw his own town of Providence burned to the ground and many of his friends killed in King Phillip’s War.  However, he lived to see peace restored and the town rebuilt.

Alexander Mackay was born in Scotland in 1849 and surrendered his heart to Christ as a young boy. Reports of David Livingstone, a fellow Scotsman and missionary in Africa, inspired young Mackay. He was interested in mechanics and building and went to engineering school, but he longed to serve God, too. In 1875, a letter published in the local paper spurred Mackay to action. The letter was written from Uganda by Henry Stanley: “King M’tesa has been asking me about the white man’s God… Oh that some practical missionary would come here…who can cure their diseases, build dwellings, and turn his hand to anything.”

Four months later, Mackay was on a ship for Africa. The first thing he did was build a road 230 miles through the jungle to Lake Victoria. Mackay identified his pioneer ministry with that of John the Baptist, preparing the way for the coming of the Savior. The road he built through the dense jungle was symbolic of the spiritual inroads he would make into the dark land of spirit worship. Mackay wrote: “This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself; and all that pass this way will come to know His Name.”

Uganda was one of the larger kingdoms in Africa. Mackay was welcomed into the court and invited to preach before King M’tesa himself. The king wanted to learn about the white man’s God because, in contrast to the Muslim slave traders, the white men he met did not exploit the Ugandans. The king and his court were impressed by Mackay’s skills such as carpentry and basic medicine. Men, women, and children began to repent and believe in Christ. Mackay began translating and printing portions of the New Testament. The king spoke of being baptized. But Mackay knew there was no repentance in his life as he was unwilling to give up his 300 wives, involvement in slave trade, and other cruel vices.

Opposition began to mount against Mackay because he preached against the king’s vices; and the Arab slave traders—who hated Mackay for interfering with their business—flattered the king and spread lies about Mackay. An era of persecution began with the beating and torturing of Mackay’s converts. King M’tesa died, but his son M’wanga was even more wicked.

Mackay toiled on and a few years later, at the age of 41, he succumbed to a tropical fever.  But within thirty years of his death, the king and tens of thousands of Ugandans were Christians, and the slave trade was abolished.

The patient stirred. Dr. Wallace tried to soothe him in his Tennessee-accented Cantonese. The patient was waking from an abdominal surgery. They alone were left in the upper story of the Stout Memorial Hospital in Wuchow, China. Everyone else had taken refuge in the basement when the air raid alarm had sounded. The year was 1938, and the Japanese were invading China. Just then there was an explosion on the roof directly above them—and doctor and patient were thrown to the floor! Miraculously, neither were hurt.

Bill Wallace heard God’s call to be a medical missionary at seventeen years of age while tinkering in his garage one summer afternoon. For the next ten years, he did not cease to prepare himself until he was an excellent surgeon in the residency program at Knoxville, TN. At that time, Dr. Beddoe, administratorof the Southern Baptist mission hospital in Wuchow, China, sent a desperate plea to the mission board: “We must have a surgeon!” Bill Wallace sent in his application for missionary service the same month.

Dr. Wallace was a humble servant, a man of action and not a man of words. But his presence brought a new vitality to the mission hospital. “The Chinese had heard sermons before, but [now] they began to see one, and that made the difference. ..Sometimes his soft, stuttering witness to [God’s love] was more effective than the most eloquent evangelist’s plea. ” The influx ofpatients increased by 50%, and there was spiritual revival. While Wallace was saving lives with his scalpel, God was saving souls.

The hospital survived the Japanese invasion, while Wallace, a handful of other missionaries, and the Chinese staff continued the work. Dr. Wallace operated day and night, sewing up the mangled bodies of the victims of war. Later on furlough, Wallace was asked why he would return to Wuchow. He simply said, “It’s where I’m supposed to be.” By the time Wallace was forty, the Communists were persecuting Christians. Many missionaries left. Wallace chose to stay. Now the beloved doctor who stood so tall for Christ was a threat to the communist agenda. They planted a gun under his pillow and arrested him. After weeks of public accusations, humiliation, and torture,the night guards beat him to death in his cell. Chinese Christians erected a shaft over his grave with the inscription, “For me to live is Christ.

1 Quotations from Bill Wallace of China, by Jesse C. Fletcher

Nathan Brown, the oldest of five boys, was born on June 22, 1807, to devout Baptist parents. At age nine, he was convicted of his sinful condition after attending local revival meetings, trusted Christ as his Savior, and was subsequently baptized in a stream.

Brown graduated from Williams College at the top of his class and married  Eliza Ballard on May 5, 1830. They moved to Brandon, Vermont, where he edited a religious newspaper. As he prepared to print letters from Adoniram Judson, the Lord  burdened him and his wife for Burma. “What Christian,” he wrote, “can read the late appeals from Mr. Judson, and not feel a desire to go? I cannot think of staying back.”   After seeking his pastor’s and parents’ advice, he resigned his job and entered Newton Theological Institution.  He and Eliza sailed for Burma under the Baptist General Convention on December 22, 1832.

Mr. Brown worked two years in Burma with Adoniram Judson. Then he was sent to Assam, India, where he translated the first Assamese New Testament, baptized numerous converts, planted Baptist churches, and appointed national assistant pastors. Due to shattered health, the Browns returned to the U.S. in 1855. Mr. Brown wrote, “One of the hardest partings (and I have had many) I ever experienced. The native women and girls wept as if their hearts would break. We sorrowed most of all that we should see each other’s faces no more. … If God in mercy restores my health so that I can again be useful, I will return and labor for them till life ends, with all my heart.”

Mrs. Brown died in 1871. Mr. Brown later remarried, and at age 65, he and his second wife went to Yokohama, Japan, to assist in church planting and Bible translation. Brown resigned from a translation committee that insisted on translating baptism with the Japanese word for sprinkle. He began his own translation, completing the very first Japanese New Testament in 1879. He died in Japan at age 77, leaving eight Baptist churches and numerous converts. The Bible he completed is an accurate translation and is still referred to today. May we also “labor till life ends.”

“As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain…” (Joshua 14:11-12a)

Work Cited: Brown, Elizabeth, W. The Whole World Kin: A Pioneer Experience Among Remote Tribes, and Other Labors of Nathan Brown.   

It was 1782, and George Leile didn’t see any other way: to escape slavery once more, he had to become another kind of slave. Years ago, his former master, Henry Sharp, had graciously freed Leile so that he could wholly pursue preaching the gospel in the Savannah area. But now that Sharp was dead, his family sought to re-enslave Leile. And so he struck a deal. To escape to Jamaica with his family, he would become the indentured servant of Colonel Kirkland.

Arriving in Jamaica in 1783, at the age of 33, Leile paid off his debt within a year and immediately set off to spread the gospel. The fiery preacher, who God had made so successful in Georgia, now had greater success than ever. He preached to the slaves and to the free; and with the help of some other immigrants, started Jamaica’s first black Baptist church. God’s hand was on his ministry, and within only a few years the church grew to over five hundred members! But such dedication to God often comes with a price, and his could have cost him his life.

With the Church of England well established on the island, there came a time when the Anglican planters rose up in opposition to Leile’s work. They often interrupted his meetings, and persecuted him and his congregation in various ways. Eventually, he and his preacher friends were imprisoned. Accused of preaching “sedition” among the slaves and against the Church, they faced capital punishment. Most, including Leile, barely escaped the death sentence; but sadly, one was hung.

God encouraged Leile, however, and he did not quit. He continued to pastor the congregation, and trained men to preach the gospel in the more remote areas. Influential friends in Britain secured the funds for his ministry; and eventually, they even erected a permanent building for the congregation.

Leile, the first Baptist missionary to Jamaica, died in 1828. But the work God had begun with him in Jamaica bore yet more fruit! In the same spirit as Leile, the church had sent out over fifty missionaries to Africa by 1842. That’s how God works: He used a man born a slave in America, and sent him to Jamaica, to one day set captives free in the land of his forefathers.

“Picture a teenage girl in a school cafeteria…. She’s slouched in a chair popping bubble gum. The whole world passes her by, yet she doesn’t even notice. Why? Because she’s tuned in to that little thing in her hand—a cellphone. Most likely she’s texting, instant messaging her friends, or browsing Facebook. Picture a young man on a computer in an internet café somewhere in a third world country. Or how about a young college freshman browsing the web on a laptop? The new generation coming along is radically different from you and me. I’m a young man myself and can barely recognize or connect with this new generation. But what if we could present the gospel to each of these people through their medium of communication? ….We can!” (~Jared Rowe)

This is the need Jared Rowe saw, and the vision God gave him. When most people saw a predicament—a problem of the modern generation—God showed Jared a possibility. All his life, he had been intrigued by computers and set out to learn their inner workings. As the world of the web was opened up to him, he saw potential for the Gospel, and an idea was born—to “reach the masses right where they are”.

Together with his brother-in-law, Marlin Zimmerman, he created the iMissionaries website, designed to enable you to evangelize through the internet. With 16 major social media sites around the world and 1.5 billion active users on Facebook alone, it’s an open mission field that reaches into the places most people can’t go with the Gospel—from American schools to closed Muslim nations. iMissionaries walks even the most basic computer user through a simple process to place Christian ads on Facebook and other social networking sites. People around the world can click these ads and read Christian material in their own language. In the short time these ads have been being placed on Facebook, thousands of people have clicked and viewed these materials in such countries as Algeria, Iraq, Thailand, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Singapore.

However, while we do encourage you to check out iMissionaries.org and get involved in placing ads around the world, iMissionaries is only a product of a deeper motive. A greater challenge—a more far-reaching action—is that of thinking outside the box. Climb out of the rut of the typical perception of missions and use what tools you do have—no matter how unconventional—to reach out with the Gospel. Ask God, “What can I do?”

Fourteen-year old Attie Bostick sat in rapt attention, listening as her older brother, a missionary to China, preached on Mary anointing the feet of Christ with the most precious thing she had. “She hath done what she could.” Attie could not forget those words and years later would say, “That day God spoke to me, and said that I would not be doing all I could unless I was willing to go to China, too.”

Attie was born in 1875 (the sixteenth of seventeen children) on a rural farm in the foothills of North Carolina. Despite “the humbleness and crowded conditions of the home,” her parents “still found time to take in and entertain preachers and missionaries whenever they were in the vicinity.” This early contact influenced the hearts of three Bostick children toward missions.

Attie arrived in China in the summer of 1900, when the Boxer Rebellion was at its height. Hundreds of missionaries were killed during this time, and many fled the country. Attie stayed unharmed in Shanghai with a missionary family until the danger was over, then  joined her brother (G.P.) at Taian in Shandong Province. Later, she worked in Pochow with her brothers and then at Kweiteh. Attie served as a Baptist missionary with the Gospel Mission  and  the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board for a total of 43 years.

The church and school that was started in Pochow is still in existence today, and the number of souls who have come to Christ has multiplied greatly. She wrote of the work in Pochow: “The work for 1935 included holding revival meetings, instructing candidates for baptism, and teaching the Bible in several churches. Although muddy roads made travel difficult, many Chinese attended these meetings. Some women who still had bound feet walked as many as fifty miles to hear the gospel message.”

On December 8, 1941, at age 66, Japanese forces arrested Attie and  interned her for two years before releasing and repatriating her to the U.S. In a farewell letter to a Chinese Christain, she wrote, “God’s grace has abounded and He who watches over the sparrow has abundantly cared for me.” Truly, God abundantly cared for Attie through all 43 years she served Him in China.

Quotations from: Called To China: Attie Bostick’s Life & Missionary Letters From China

Ellie sat on the rough church bench clutching a small paperback book in her hands. Her brilliant white smile revealed her excitement as she spoke to me in Melanesian Pidgin, the trade language of Papua New Guinea. “This story strengthens my heart!” she exclaimed. The irony of her simple words silenced me for a few minutes. Ellie and I had just finished reading two chapters in a Pidgin biography of George Müller—a man who had been born two hundred years ago on the other side of her world but whose story was still living.

Most American believers know Müller only as the man who, through prayer, supported hundreds of orphans in England. But for many, his story dies there and is set on a shelf as admirable but impossible to replicate. As materialism engulfs our culture, believers increasingly look to their modern “stuff” to fulfill their needs. However, if we seriously look at Müller’s principles for living in complete dependence upon God, his stories of answered prayer will light a blazing fire of faith in our hearts, just like they did for Ellie.

George Müller grew up in Germany and was saved at the age of twenty; however, through the stories and encouragement of many missionary friends, he traveled to England at twenty-three to join the London Missionary Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. Müller learned English and Hebrew and planned to go to Israel, but God closed all doors leaving England and began to teach Müller to seek direction daily by faith.

Over the years, Müller refused to receive a salary from the churches that he pastored and determined to discuss his needs with God only. As the orphanage ministries began, Müller also refused to go into debt or use money that had been appropriated for other needs. Through unusual sources and uncommon circumstances, God always supplied the answer to his prayers. And whatever was bestowed upon Müller personally, he faithfully gave it to God’s work. For over sixty years of ministry, he was merely God’s steward.

The story of this man of prayer is really only one out of millions that could be told. George Müller responded to others’ testimonies of God’s faithful provision and thus encourages hearts around the world. We in turn can respond and leave a legacy, for that is the power of the story of one.

Solomon Ginsburg asked his father—a Jewish rabbi—this question when he was only thirteen. Despite being soundly slapped in the face, his interest in the prophesy of Isaiah 53 did not die. As a young man, Ginsburg left his native Poland for London, England. There, a fellow Jew found him on the street and explained Jesus as the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah. After reading the New Testament, Ginsburg trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior, but was promptly disowned and cursed by all his relatives. He bore it gladly, recalling that Christ had been made a curse for him. Even several assaults by orthodox Jews in London could not dissuade him from his new-found faith.

As Ginsburg considered what the Lord would have him do with his life, he remembered the Jews’ biggest stumbling block to accepting Christianity. They pointed to the Catholics who worshipped and prayed to idols, and proved to their children that no people who broke one of the Ten Commandments possessed the “true religion.” Now that Ginsburg knew the truth about the saving blood of Jesus, he decided to spread the glorious news in Brazil, a bastion of Roman Catholicism.

Ginsburg first spent several months in Portugal studying Portuguese until he was fluent in both the language and the beliefs of the Roman Catholics. He wrote two tracts and dispersed hundreds of copies before he departed for Brazil, literally fleeing from Portuguese Jesuits. To support himself in Brazil, Ginsburg printed and sold Bibles, tracts, and other material everywhere he could. Using his Jewish business skill of persuasion, he accosted Catholics along the road, on the train, in prisons, and even coming out of Mass. As Ginsburg simply preached Jesus and His cleansing blood, soon hundreds and then thousands trusted Christ. He traveled from town to town holding open-air meetings or playing hymns on his little organ in the middle of the marketplace. When one of Brazil’s most notorious murderers asked Ginsburg to come to his house to tell him more about Christ, Ginsburg gladly went, though many warned him of the great risk. Hearing the gospel, the man fell down weeping over the guilt of his sin and confessed Christ as his Savior.

In thirty years of ministry, Ginsburg helped to establish 820 self-sustaining Baptist churches with over 20,000 members. Although his family had forsaken him, and he faced persecution even in Brazil, the simple joy of knowing his Messiah carried him through it all.

For more information, visit wholesomewords.org/missions/iginsburg.html.

After Maude Cary heard of the heathen in Morocco, no physical or spiritual trial could deter her from joining the missionary work in North Africa. Just before her twenty-third birthday, Maude and four other co-workers embarked for Morocco with the promise to spend their life’s energies evangelizing the Muslims and Berbers. As they departed, they sang, Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go; Anywhere He leads me in this world below; Anywhere without Him dearest joys would fade; Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid. Surely there would be opposition and heartaches, but Maude thought only of exciting campaigns to bring the gospel to wild tribes!

Within the first few weeks in the city of Fez, the mud, physical labor, language study, and tedious household chores began to choke Maude’s spiritual fervency. She wrote that life no longer seemed “what it was on the way to Fez. The Saviour’s face does not seem so real.” In addition to her inner struggle, Maude’s co-workers chided her for pride, inattention, and idle talk. After two years, she felt that her work had been a complete waste even though she had fluently learned Arabic.

However, the Lord had already prepared many fiery trials to purify her faith. The wild Berbers, who had once seemed so enchanting, now repeatedly attacked the cities, sometimes protecting the missionaries and other times nearly killing them. Maude dreaded quitting and, instead, plunged into more work with a constant prayer for humility. She taught Bible classes for Jewish and Muslim children, translated hymns into Arabic to sing for willing ears, visited the rich and the lowly until her shoes fell apart, and tended to ill co-workers even through her own weakness.

Once the French had subdued the Berber tribes in 1910, Maude used her new fluency in Berber to set up new mission stations over the next several years. Co-workers came and went, but soon a steady trickle of converts were discipled and began ministering alongside their beloved missionary. Although an engagement to a fellow missionary fell through, Maude continued faithfully. She took only two furloughs in fifty years and was one of the four single women who continued the mission stations through World War II. The fantasy had long since passed, but Maude Cary found purpose and rest in Christ.

Anywhere with Jesus I am not alone; Other friends may fail me, His is still my own: Tho’ His hand may lead me over dreary ways, Anywhere with Jesus is a house of praise.

“A missionary who truly wants to see the gospel flourish and spread on the foreign field will work toward the end of seeing nationals won to the Lord and trained for the ministry to reach their own people.”

That is exactly what Sonny and Beverly Fritz did. Theirs was the work of many hands—national hands—and most importantly, God’s hand. God had used a very short mission trip to Mexico to set a fire so great in Sonny’s heart that he would give his entire life to God’s work among the Mexican people. His wife followed with an identical zeal. In 1965, after only a year and a half of deputation, they took their few belongings and their daughters to a new life in Monterrey. Working closely with the Ashcraft family, Sonny eagerly began witnessing as soon as he could; Beverly and the girls threw themselves into the lives of the women and children around them. They were careful not to Americanize the people they won to the Lord. They immersed themselves in the language, the culture, and the lives of people with such fervor that one man remarked, “To us they are truly Mexican!”

Within only a few months of being in Monterrey, Calvary Baptist Church (Iglesia Bautista Calvario) was established. Soon it was put under the leadership of José Silva, their language helper and a faithful servant of the Lord. When José left to start a church in another area, Sonny asked Roberto Arellano, a man saved in his village through the work of another missionary, to take José’s place. The church has grown immensely over the years. By 2004, fourteen pastors and three missionaries had been called out of Calvary. It was often noted that the Fritzes “never [imposed] their own plans and methods on  the pastor or church, but rather [encouraged] and [gave] advice when asked.”

By 1984, the ministry had grown to the point that Sonny knew they needed a way to train more nationals to pastor the churches that were being planted. This would ensure the ministry’s continued life and growth. So, in their own home, they began New Life Baptist Seminary. This too, in time, was put under the oversight of a Mexican national, their son-in-law Ruben Murillo. By 2004, it had produced 111 graduates. Today, many of the men and women that the Lord has touched through the Fritzes’ ministry are taking the gospel to their own people.

Quotations from Hearts for Mexico, by Pam Leake

Born in 1941 in Duncan, Oklahoma, Thomas Laymon Sloan, M.D., grew up during the post-depression years. His unbelieving father permitted Tom’s mother to take him to church regularly. He was saved at age seventeen when a pastor led him to the Lord. Tom was a quiet but radical young man, criticized by some as an eccentric fanatic. He graduated as a pediatrician and planned to enter the medical field, until God changed his plans.

Billie Jean Ashcraft was born during WWII. Her mother was a believer. Her father was a drunkard until, when she was six months old, he was saved.  Eight years later, he became pastor of a church in Waxahachie, Texas, where Billie was saved at age eight. During her teen years, her family moved to Mexico as missionaries. The change was difficult, but in time she sensed God calling her to be a missionary in Mexico, and to that she gave her life.

Tom met Billie on a short-term missions trip in Mexico where their initial attraction began. Shortly after, Tom felt called to minister in Mexico and changed his plans accordingly. Tom and Billie married in 1969, and they arrived in Mexico in 1972. Their personalities were incredibly different: Tom was a quiet man and a poor speaker, while Billie was a fun-loving, almost reckless young woman.

Their story is one of strong commitment to God and to each other. The story of the five churches that were started, the nine men saved who became faithful pastors, the jail ministry, and the thirteen missions that came of their work in Mexico cannot be told apart from the story of their life together as the man who loved and served God with all his heart and the loyal woman who served by his side. Tom contracted Parkinson’s in 1981, and in the twenty-four year battle that followed, Billie remained his faithful lover and caregiver until Tom’s death in December 2005. During those years, they stayed on the field and stayed in love; suffering strengthened their love.

Tom and Billie had eight children who love the Lord, most of whom are missionaries around the world. The Sloans’ story reminds us that God uses ordinary people who answer the call to love God and one another with a pure heart fervently.

“..I can’t tell the story of Tom’s life without telling mine… He was who I was, and he made me who I am.”  Billie Sloan

“Should I tell you I do seriously think of leaving my native dwelling, my friends and companions for ever; would you upbraid me?” Harriet Atwood asked her sister in a letter. “[God] now offers me an opportunity of visiting the Heathen.” She then poured out the great conflict of her heart—the choice between living a normal life at home among friends or accepting the proposal of Samuel Newell, an aspiring missionary. Samuel was bound for India with Adoniram Judson; and in the year 1811, a life of missions was practically exile.

As Harriet struggled, friends accused her of wanting nothing more than adventure and a great name for herself. “But God commands me!” she rejoined. “I would not oppose it. . . lest I should be found fighting against God, discouraging missions, and preventing the Gospel being spread among the Heathen.”She accepted Samuel’s proposal, and they departed with the Judsons for India in February 1812. In June they reached Calcutta, but as the East India Company was “violently opposed to missions” they were ordered to leave. While awaiting passage, Harriet described what was then known as Bengal. She wept to see the people worshiping dumb idols. “Miserable wretches!” she wrote. “O that American Christians would form an adequate idea of the darkness which covers this people! Do Christians feel the value of the Gospel?”

The Newells left on a ship bound for the Isle of France, whose governor favored missions. Harriet gave birth to a girl who lived only five days and was buried at sea. They arrived at the Isle of France, but Harriet had already contracted tuberculosis, and her health rapidly declined. “I have never regretted leaving my native land for the cause of Christ,” she told Samuel. And on the evening of November 30^th, Harriet passed away, just nineteen years old.

Her many writings were later sent to America where they were published. Harriet was the first American to give her life in missions, and her memoirs were so full of truth and passion for God that many people were brought to Christ; and many went to the foreign field, having read Harriet’s dire entreaty:

“As we value the salvation which a Savior offers; as we value his tears, his labors, and his death, let us now seriously ask what we shall do for the salvation of the benighted heathen. If we are not permitted to visit them [ourselves]…yet we can ardently pray for them. And not only pray for them, but by our vigorous exertions we can awaken a missionary spirit in others.”

Quotations from Memoirs of Mrs. Harriet Newell

Jacob Bower was born to Christian parents who practiced regular morning and evening worship. His mother died when he was only six. The desire to see her in Heaven and the belief that only good people go there caused Jacob to live a virtuous life. But at age nineteen, he was influenced by Universalism which taught that God would save everyone. He later wrote, “I came to the conclusion that, if all the world are to be saved, I certainly would be included, therefore I was sure of salvation.” This false doctrine caused him to throw off his conviction of sin and spend five years in drunkenness and immorality.

God used Jacob’s father and the witness of a Baptist preacher to again bring conviction. It was “as if a book had been opened,” and Jacob now saw a “God who is so holy that he cannot allow sin, however small it may appear, in the sight of men.” The “crumbly foundation of Universalism gave way” and Jacob passed many anxious days in despair. His terror was heightened by what became known as the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811. There were three major shocks and over two thousand vibrations over a period of almost two years. The Mississippi River flowed backward. Widespread devastation caused people everywhere to seek God.

As Jacob thought upon Christ’s suffering and death on the cross for sinners, he suddenly realized that “If it was done for sinners, it was done for me.” As he believed this truth, peace entered his tortured heart. Jacob sought the company of other Christians and in March 1812, was baptized at Hazel Creek Baptist Church in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. He felt an urgency to warn others of the danger he had lately escaped and soon realized the Lord was calling him to preach the gospel.

Jacob suffered many hardships as he preached throughout Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. He was ill, yet he pressed on. He was impoverished, and though those who “pretended to love him so well” would not help him, he continued to preach. He was dismissed by the churches that did not believe in his missionary endeavors, but he persisted in preaching the gospel where ever he found listeners.

Jacob Bower started fourteen Baptist churches. To cite just one year of his itinerate ministry (1834), he rode over three thousand miles, preached over two hundred sermons, baptized fourteen, ordained two ministers, and constituted two churches. This pioneering home missionary is little remembered today, but his faithfulness helped make America great and will be rewarded by God.

Quotations from The Autobiography of Jacob Bower

In 1887, Amy Carmichael heard the founder of China Inland Mission (Hudson Taylor) speak, and her life was never the same.  Born in 1867, the oldest of seven, she grew up in privilege.  Her father, a mill owner, provided a comfortable living, and she spent much of her childhood gleefully riding her pony along the shores of Northern Ireland.  Her family attended the Presbyterian church where she received Bible training, but it was an encounter with a poor elderly woman that caused Amy to consider her Christian walk. As she stopped after church to help the woman with a heavy bundle, the Holy Spirit reminded her, “Every man’s work shall be made manifest…it shall be revealed by fire…” (1 Corinthians 3:13). Gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay, and stubble—was she building that which would last for all eternity? This question haunted her.  She spent the rest of the day alone with God, and when she emerged, her life had a new purpose.

In 1885, her father died, and their financial situation changed drastically.  Her family lost their mill, and she had to work to help support her younger siblings.  At her place of employment, she began ministering to “shawlies,” girls who wore shawls on their heads as they were too poor to afford the hats worn by women of the day.  She was ridiculed by her friends and her church for stooping to these “common people.”  But this is one of the characteristics that marked Amy Carmichael; people were classless in her eyes.  She only saw their needs, both the physical needs and the needs of their hearts.  She set up temporary buildings where she held fellowship meetings, aiding poor factory workers and teaching them the Word of God.  God was laying the groundwork for the future He had for her.

In 1892, Amy heard God’s call to carry her burden across the sea.  She initially applied to minister with China Inland Mission, but she was rejected due to her frailty.  Wealthy, powerful friends sponsored her, and after short-term trips to China and Japan, at the age of twenty-eight, she found herself in India.  Health problems resulted in severe migraines causing temporary blindness and weeks in bed.  “Am I too frail for this work?” she asked herself. But certain of God’s call on her life, she persevered and eventually established one of the most well-known Christian missionary works, the Dohnavur Fellowship.

Upon arrival in India, Amy initially participated in a women’s traveling evangelistic team, but as she became more familiar with India and its Hindu culture, she came to an alarming realization.  Very young girls were given or sold to the Hindu temples and made to serve and entertain male Hindu worshipers.  These temple prostitutes were mistreated and often thrown into the street once pregnant.  Amy took them in, clothed and fed them, and introduced them to the Bread of Life.  Influenced by her spiritual mentor, Hudson Taylor, one special distinctive of her ministry was that she wore Indian clothes and required the same of all who served with her.  They ate Indian food and used Indian furnishings.  It was important to her, just as it had been to Hudson Taylor, to live as the people and not impose her European culture on them.  Her missionary service to the people of India lasted over fifty-five years with no furlough ever taken. 

A spirit of service and a love for those who others considered “unlovable” always dominated Amy’s ministry.  In 1931, she suffered a severe fall that crippled her and kept her bedridden for twenty years.  During that time, she wrote and published over thirty-five books.  She remained bedridden until her death at the age of eighty-three.  When friends buried her in her beloved India, they honored her request that no marker be put on her grave. In her writings, she penned the poignant truth that above all, mission work offers one thing and one thing only—a chance to die.

“Dr. Becker, I recognize that fellow! He has a bad reputation. You shouldn’t trust him out of your sight!”

“Maybe so,” Dr. Becker replied, “but he’s one of our most trusted staff members now.” Then turning to the African in question he asked, “Why has your life changed since coming here?”

The man explained, “Many missionaries have preached Jesus Christ to me, and many missionaries have taught Jesus Christ to me, but in the munganga (healer) I have seen Jesus Christ.” Dr. Becker, the munganga, was known for caring for the poor and unloved as Jesus himself did.

Before he went to the Congo, Dr. Becker taught a boys’ Sunday school class where he influenced John B. Kuhn who later became a missionary to China. In 1929, Dr. Becker left his home and doctor’s salary to be a missionary in the Congo, 12,000 miles away. He became well known for his widespread medical work, his leprosy research, and his medical discoveries.

Dr. Becker understood that sharing the gospel required more than the right choice of Swahili words. The gospel needed to make sense in an African context. In the story of Lazarus, he depicted the rich man smoking his long pipe and sitting with his legs crossed in a chair in front of his hut. The Africans understood that only a very rich man would own a chair, and having his legs crossed indicated boorishness. When Dr. Becker taught Bible stories, he drew stick figures as visual aids. The Africans who could not read were thrilled and begged for copies so they could remember the stories. Dr. Becker saw them later using the stick figure pictures to accurately share the same stories.

Dr. Becker and his valued African staff often treated as many as 2,000 patients a day. But though very busy, Dr. Becker always took time to share the gospel. Once, a patient said, “This morning the evangelist talked so fast and my head went so slow. Do you have time to tell me more about Jesus?” Dr. Becker could hear the footsteps of a nurse in the hallway who doubtless had a question for him, and probably many other hospital staff needed him. There were other patients to see, an inspection of the leprosy camp to do, and letters to write; but he answered, “Yes, I have plenty of time to talk to you.”

The Bible tells us that we are to be Christ-like. Do we show Christ’s love as well as speak about it? Dr. Becker simply used his life to witness. It was evident to the people that Dr. Becker lived what he taught. He truly gave of himself to them. Are our hearts equally burdened for souls so that it is constantly on our minds to share the gospel?

“Finding his contact with civilization was hindering him in his strenuous efforts to master the Mongolian language, he resolved…to persuade some Mongolian to receive him as an inmate of his tent…Gilmour feared nothing, but strode cheerfully over the plain making for the first tent he saw on the horizon.”¹

For twenty-one years James Gilmour worked among the Mongols of Northern China. After centuries of Buddhism, they were very contented with their way of life and saw no reason to turn from it. It was therefore ten years before Gilmour saw his first convert. This man was saved at a roadside inn, then after a twenty mile walk, prayed with Gilmour and left him at the crossroads.

Over an eight month period, Gilmour recorded preaching to around 24,000 people, treating 6,000 for illnesses, selling 3,000 Christian books and distributing 4,500 tracts. The literature distribution among this nomadic people covered over 180,000 square miles and was a task too large for any one man. During that eight month period, two people openly professed Christ.

What could drive a man to continue under such unspeakable odds? What could compel him to continue when his followers were turned away by the bad testimonies of other missionaries? What kept him going when his beloved wife lay in the grave and his dear boys were in England? God gave him passion, He gave him purpose, and He gave him the strength to carry on.   God also gave tears to stoic Buddhist lamas when they heard of the death of “our Gilmour.”

Gilmour was able to start three small churches among the Mongols of China and was known among them all for his faithfulness in spreading the gospel. Near the end of his life he said, “Lately I am becoming more and more impressed with the idea that what is wanted in China is not new lightning methods so much as good, honest, quiet, earnest, persistent work in old lines and ways.” This was spoken by the man whom everyone admired for his courage and adventurous life. He was a servant of Christ, that’s all.

¹Lambert, John C., Missionary Heroism (San Antonio, TX:Vision Forum, Inc.,2005-06)8

“I shall never go into the ministry until God takes me by the scruff of the neck and throws me in.” Most Christians would be surprised to know that these words were spoken by Oswald Chambers, author of the devotional book “My Utmost for His Highest.”

When he wrote these words, Oswald Chambers was in art school, preparing to turn the world of art upside down by being a witness for Christ to an exclusive group of people. He was a gifted artist and probably would have done well, but God closed door after door in his face and called him in another direction.

Chambers wrote to a friend, “the repeated and pointed shutting of doors that seemed just opening . . . leads me to consider most earnestly before God what is His will.” Shortly after this he wrote, “my whole being is ablaze and passionately on fire to preach Christ. All my art aims are swallowed up in this now. . . . in the midst of a keen consciousness of complete unworthiness, my soul cries out within me—Here am I, send me.”

Once Chambers surrendered to the call of God, God began to use him mightily. After ministering as a traveling preacher and as the principal of a Bible training college, Chambers entered his last and greatest field of service—reaching British and Australian soldiers from a Y.M.C.A. tent in Cairo during W.W.I. Although seasoned workers predicted that the soldiers would never attend religious meetings, the tent was packed with hundreds of men every week. Many of the entries in his devotional book come from the talks given in that meeting tent. The Chambers also kept a continually opened house where they were able to reach thousands of soldiers. Chambers died at just forty-three, but hundreds of thousands have been inspired to earnestly seek God because of his little book, “My Utmost for His Highest”.

When God clearly directs, the choice is simple: to obey, or disobey. Are we seeking God’s will, or stubbornly searching for an open door in an area where they all close in our faces?

Quotations from Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God by David McCaseland