We Have His Promise

“The love of Christ banished the terrors of the law.” Those were the words of John Geddie concerning his salvation at age nineteen in 1834. He tirelessly preached this same message of Christ’s love as a missionary in the New Hebrides islands for twenty-four years.

John was an avid reader; his favorite subject being stories of mission efforts and the desperate need of the Gospel in unevangelized areas. After completing secondary school at Pictou Academy in Nova Scotia, he studied theology. Small and slightly built, he was often referred to as “little Johnnie.” While at seminary, his health became so poor that he was told to give up his studies. He promised the Lord that if his health were restored, he would go as a missionary to a heathen land. On March 13, 1838, he was ordained and began pastoring a church on Prince Edward Island.

During his time as pastor, he promoted foreign missions which was a new idea to the colonial churches. Up to this point, they had sought financial aid for their own work, but had not considered sending out missionaries. It took several years and many pleas, but a mission society was finally formed. John and his wife were the first missionary volunteers. Their destination was Aneiteum, an island in the New Hebrides where people practiced cannibalism.

The Geddies arrived in New Hebrides in 1848 and soon felt the reality of their situation. They were on an island, surrounded by people from whom they had much to fear and whose language and customs they did not know. Geddie wrote, “We have His promise, at whose command we have come hither, ‘Lo, I am with you alway.’”

Their first task was to learn the unwritten Aneiteumese language. Then they began to print materials and teach the people to read. After three years and much labor, John had won a total of ten people to the Lord. Several times, while walking the trails, spears and clubs were thrown at him. He once faced an angry crowd of men who threatened to kill him for interfering as they strangled a young widow to death that she might “join her husband in the afterlife.” He unwittingly violated some cultural taboos and made the chieftain angry. But eventually the message of Christ’s love penetrated the hearts of the people and hundreds turned to the Lord.

As people were saved and their lives changed, John began to teach them and send them out to other islands with the message of the Gospel. People came from all over the region to see what had happened in Aneiteum. One group even brought a pig in the hopes they might use it to purchase a teacher to take back to their village. When John Geddie died on December 14, l872, a tablet was placed behind the pulpit of the church in Anelcauhat which reads: In memory of John Geddie, D.D. When he landed in 1848, there were no Christians here, and when he left in 1872, there were no heathen.”

Spring 2022

They Died Trying

Allen Gardiner paced up and down the street, ashamed to go into the bookshop and ask for a Bible. He had thrown aside his religious upbringing at the young age of fourteen for the rowdy life of a sailor, but now he needed answers. The letter that arrived, telling of his godly mother’s prayer for him before her death, struck his heart with a desire to read the Book that he knew held life’s answers. Secreted with the newly purchased volume in the quiet of a Chinese temple, Allen Gardiner came to faith in Jesus Christ.

With an earnest drive for missionary work, Gardiner went to South Africa in 1834 to win the Zulus to Christ. Although they were notorious for savagery, he brought about peace between the warring tribespeople and opened the door for missions among them. When war broke out between the Dutch settlers and the Zulus, it became impossible to continue the work, and he set his face toward South America.

As he traveled through the continent of South America, seeking to work with the native tribes, he was repeatedly thwarted by governmental regulations, Jesuits, or lack of funding. He also sought to go to New Guinea but was told, “You might as well try to instruct the monkey as the natives of Papua…they’ll never be any different.” Gardiner retorted, “They are men, not animals, and they are included in our Saviour’s command to preach the Gospel to every human being.” Though access was denied him, he did not give up.

He turned to Tierra del Fuego, knowing there was no government or religious system to deny his entry. Two previous attempts to land there had taught him that the Fuegians were violent and thieving. His team, totaling seven men, arrived in December of 1850. The mission began to fail the moment it started. Part of their supplies were left on the ship that landed them, and most of the rest was stolen by the Fuegians who also drove them from the coastline. The men took refuge in a nearby area but were unable to find enough food to survive. One by one, they starved to death. The scheduled supply ship returned twenty days after the last entry in Allen Gardiner’s journal.

Their death created worldwide headlines. Most condemned their “folly and failure” in the venture, but it stirred the heart of the church. A new mission team was sent and, after much turmoil, succeeded in winning many of the Fuegians to Christ.

Twenty years earlier, Charles Darwin had stated that it was “completely useless to send missionaries to savages such as the Fuegians, probably the lowest example of human race.” Darwin later saw for himself the difference the Gospel had made. He was astonished at a people so changed physically, mentally, and spiritually that he not only stated his belief in the regeneration of the people but contributed to the South American Missionary Society during the rest of his life.

Winter 2021-22

Cowboy Missionary

“I looked my guard over. He wore two belts of cartridges, a dirk knife and carried a rifle with a bayonet . . . I prayed, ‘Lord, you can handle him better than I can. You just put the fear of God in him and make him leave me here alone.’ Then I began staring at the guard as though I might eat him if he got too close. He began to get nervous; he twisted his hands and walked to and fro. In a few minutes, he started off. When he was about fifty yards away, he raised his rifle and cocked the hammer. I was looking at the shooting end. I could only pray, ‘Lord, if you don’t want him to kill me, just don’t let him pull that trigger.’ The Lord answered, for the bandit started off down the trail.”1

Born in north central Texas in 1885, the eldest son of a ranching family, Rex Ray learned early to work hard, to persevere regardless of his circumstances, and to hold to his responsibilities “come wind, come weather.” His father unexpectedly died at a young age, and Rex, at only fifteen years old, took over the responsibility of caring for his mother and younger siblings. Rex resisted the Gospel message as a teenager and entered college at the age of twenty intending to be a successful businessman. God had other ideas. Rex was saved during a revival meeting in a Baptist church. Later, after spending a week going to the cornfields every night to pray, he answered God’s call to the mission field.

Rex and his wife, Janet, served the Lord in China through the waves of turbulent attacks by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and takeover of communism in 1949. During that time, not only was Rex kidnapped by bandits, but he also ran blockades to provide supplies to the mission hospital and survived air raids and bombings. He buried his five-year-old daughter on the field. Through it all, he preached. Up and down the rivers and through the villages, thousands of precious souls heard the Gospel of Christ as he desperately gave the message of Christ while the doors were still open to do so.

When the doors to China slammed closed, Rex and Janet (their children now grown) answered the call to take the Gospel to war-torn Korea.

This only scratches the surface of what happened during Rex Ray’s forty-eight years on the mission field. His passion for the Gospel and his love for the Chinese and Korean people speak from every page of his autobiography.

In a letter to the Foreign Mission Board, published in the September 1928 Home and Foreign Fields, Rex Ray said, “Oh, that our voices could be multiplied into thousands to help rescue these millions who are lost, lost, lost! The Spirit of God is moving the hearts of the heathen. Oh, that He would awaken His children in Christian lands to the crying needs of this great harvest field! If Christian America fails to deliver God’s message to the lost of earth, what shall we answer the Master as these poor souls turn away from the gates of Glory into outer darkness?”

1Cowboy Missionary in Kwangsi, Rex Ray

We Are Going to Heaven

The anticipated knock at the door came suddenly. The rumors were true. The Communists had arrived to arrest them.

John and Betty Stam had met each other in a prayer meeting for China. Their friendship grew into love, but their applications for mission work put them in different corners of the country. Believing God’s work should come before human affection, they committed the matter to the Lord. Through a series of events, Betty ended up in Shanghai, the very place John had been stationed. Within two years, they were engaged, married, and had a newborn baby, beautiful little Helen.

On this particular day, a loud knock came at the door, signifying the Communists’ arrival. Although they had been warned, it was too late for the Stams to flee. The Communists barged into their home, demanded all their money, bound John, and took him to their headquarters. They later came back for Betty and baby Helen.

In a letter which John was allowed to write to China Inland Mission, he said, “We were too late. The Lord bless and guide you. As for us, may God be glorified, whether by life or by death.”

Taken twelve miles on foot to Miashea, the location for their execution, the Stams spent the night in the home of a wealthy man who had fled to safety. John was chained that night, but Betty was given enough freedom to tend to the baby. The next morning, they were led to the execution site. When asked by the postmaster where they were going, John replied, “I don’t know where they are going, but we are going to heaven.” They were both executed by beheading in front of a terrified crowd.

The Christians in the city fled to the mountains and stayed in hiding for two days. A Chinese evangelist, Mr. Lo, ventured back into town, but the people were too fearful to tell him who had been executed. After much effort, he discovered it was the very missionaries he had been working with and that their baby had been left behind.

Mr. Lo searched the house where the Stams had spent that last night. It had been ransacked, but during his search he heard a soft cry. Baby Helen had been left in a sleeping bag by her mother along with a few supplies and ten dollars. That money was used to finance the trip that carried her to safety. Helen was taken to a missionary in another city, and today she lives in the US with her husband and family.

The Cookie Lady

“I would I had a thousand lives that I might give them to…China.” —Lottie Moon

Lottie looked all around her to see that the people whom she loved so dearly were starving to death. She didn’t have much to give them, but what she did have, she gave. But now Lottie’s health was failing; her weight was down to fifty pounds. Fellow laborers felt it was time for her to go home. At the golden age of seventy-two, she boarded a ship headed for the United States and home, but she never made it out of Asia. On Christmas Eve 1912, Lottie Moon died on board the ship in the harbor at Kobe, Japan.

To some, this woman’s dedication was a miracle. If you were to ask her relatives if they thought she would die for Christ, they would have scoffed. Lottie Moon, at the height of four feet three inches, was an unruly child, full of mischief and rebellion. She made it a point to make a mockery of the Gospel and her family’s Baptist faith.

While Lottie was in Virginia attending Albemarle Female Institute, a local Baptist church hosted a revival meeting. Some of Lottie’s friends invited her to go, but she refused. They got together to pray for her by name, and God answered. She went to one of the services to appease those friends but had no idea what was about to occur. That evening, when she could not sleep, Lottie fell to her knees and trusted Christ as her Saviour. Her family noticed an immediate change in her.

Lottie’s sister, who had already served in China, pleaded with Lottie to consider overseas service. This, coupled with God’s leading, took Lottie to China where she would serve Him faithfully until she died forty years later. She became one with the Chinese; she learned their language, dressed as them, ate as them, and poured her very life into them.

Missionary men could not minister to women in China; only women could reach Chinese women. One way in which Lottie evangelized them was by taking little tea cakes or cookies to them. That got the attention of both the women and the children! They called her the Cookie Lady and listened to her. She traveled many miles to witness and proclaim Jesus. As a result of her faithfulness, hundreds of converts came to Christ. She pleaded with the churches in the States to send more laborers and more funds to help with the much-needed ministry in China, but they could not see the burden as Lottie saw it.

Lottie lived, worked, breathed, and died in the service of her Lord. She is an example of what a true servant of the Lord is; one willing to sacrifice everything and leave all to follow Christ. What an example for us to follow! He is worthy of our all!

Vanquishing the Darkness

Lavern and Evelyn RodgersA bomb wrestled through the air, while the loud cracks of the blast set homes ablaze. The people of war-torn Japan sat in the darkness of an uncertain eternity. Soon after, former Navy man Lavern Rodgers and his wife, Evelyn, arrived with the good news of the Gospel.

In 1945, Lavern Rodgers first heard his Macedonian call through the exhortation of General Douglas MacArthur who, quoting Matthew 5:44a: “Love your enemies,” made the appeal for 15,000 missionaries to come to Japan. Lavern Rodgers knew that in order to follow God’s call on his life, he would have to replace his personal hatred for the Japanese with God’s love for them. He wrestled with the Lord. Would he do the unimaginable and go tell His enemies about Christ? Knowing he could never win a fight with God, he surrendered.

To prepare, he attended Bible Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, where God spoke to him through a quote from William Carey: “Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God.” With these words ringing in his ears, he and his wife, Evelyn, took the rocky boat voyage to Japan in September 1950. After thirty-three days, the Rodgers finally arrived in the bombed out city of Yokohama. Even Shizuoka, the city where they began their first work, was 60% destroyed. In the midst of these depressing surroundings, they kept their eyes on Jesus.

The Lord opened up amazing opportunities for church plants to begin. They were able to start churches in nine different cities between 1950 and 1967. Lavern Rodgers said that “Planting churches is like planting trees. They are foundational to a Biblical ministry. These are our trees.” But building a church in post-war Japan was not going to be an easy task. He and his friends had to tear down buildings and reuse the scraps to build their first church in the city of Shizuoka. This was a great lesson for the Japanese people, because it taught them to use what God provides.

Many young Japanese would soon attend the services. A girl named Sachiko Saigo Yasuba described the church as having a warmth and brightness she had never experienced. As a struggling wife, she came looking for pity but instead found a warm greeting from Evelyn Rodgers who took her by the hand and showed her the Romans Road. Sachiko was amazed to learn that she did not know God. This was the reason she had so much trouble and wrong in her life! Overcome with the knowledge of her sin, she wanted to throw herself on the Lord and no one else. With open arms, she received the Lord as her Saviour that day, and all the darkness became light.

Lavern Rodgers is ninety-three years old and still resides in Japan. He once said, “There is nothing more rewarding in life, than going where God’s finger points.” Will we go where God’s finger points us? Or will we, like Jonah, refuse to go? We must spread the message of Jesus, for only His light can vanquish the darkness!

Scriptures for Sranantongo

Bob and Liz PattonIt was September 1986 and the Pattons’ plans were drastically changed when Dr. Patton opted to move to the city rather than join forces with the liberal group in control of medical practice in the interior of the country. It had been just two weeks since the couple had moved to Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo, when civil war broke out in the interior. Had the couple stayed in the interior, they would have been cut off from their mission while in only the beginning stages of language learning. God had a definite plan for them in Paramaribo.

Upon graduating from the University of Rochester in 1971 as an Internal Medicine Specialist, Robert Patton had embarked for Liberia, Africa, where he served as professor and head of Internal Medicine at the University of Liberia until 1976. More importantly, it was there in Liberia that he accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour in 1974. Surely, he never imagined then where God would later lead him and what monumental tasks he would accomplish in just twenty-four years.

In 1986, the Pattons found themselves in Suriname learning the national languages of Dutch and Sranantongo. For the first five years he was in Suriname, Dr. Patton taught at University Hospital in the mornings and dedicated his afternoons and evenings to soul-winning, language learning, church planting, training national pastors, and establishing various ministries. During this time, Dr. Patton grew increasingly frustrated with the limited scriptures available in the Sranantongo language. He was using a Moravian translation of the New Testament from the 1800s, but its imprecision and antiquity made it a less than desirable version upon which to build a ministry. Furthermore, Dr. Patton longed for a translation of the Old Testament. In 1991, God showed him clearly that he should resign his teaching position and begin translating.

Dr. Patton approached this very serious project with fear and trembling. He worked carefully and steadily to translate a Bible faithful to the Received Text into Sranantongo. The translation team included himself and six natives. First, Dr. Patton studied the scriptures under consideration, consulting a conservative commentary when necessary for clear understanding; then he made a preliminary translation and passed it off for independent review by two nationals (separately). Two more cycles of revision by Dr. Patton and review by other nationals then followed. After a final revision, it was considered complete. The entire Bible was translated by 1997 and published by Bearing Precious Seed in 1998.

God blessed the Pattons’ diligent work. Not only is their Bible translation the most sold version of the Sranantongo Bible in Suriname, but it has also been shared through their radio programs. Dr. Patton has synthesized commentaries using his translation notes and their corresponding scriptures. These commentaries are helpful resources for national pastors and have also been broadcasted via radio.

You can read more about Dr. Patton on his website, teachingmissions.com.

Summer 2020

Steadfast Through Trials

A Fire in my Heart

Rochunga Pudaite 1927-2015“My grandfather was a headhunter. But by God’s grace, today I am a heart-hunter.” -Rochunga Pudaite

Determined to see more of the village won for Christ, little Ro set out and began witnessing to the renowned ‘wild’ people of the Teisieng village in Manipur, India. With a heart full of prayer and fierce determination, Ro went to the first home. The man wanted nothing to do with the ‘dead man Jesus’. Most Christians would have walked away downhearted, but a little boy with a fire in his heart was not so easily deterred. He marched to the next house; his hands clenched in determination. Around a fire, three men sat, and to Ro, they were like three giants needing to be felled. Standing silent for a moment, he gathered his courage and asked permission to proclaim the name of Jesus. “WHERE IS MY DAO?” a man shouted as he sprang to his feet.

Ro’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. A dao was a knife used by mountain people for generations for many things, but one use was head hunting. Ro turned and ran out of the house and down the road. He heard someone calling to him asking him to wait, but he dared not stop, lest he be killed. But his short legs were no match for a grown man and he was soon overtaken. “Someone from another village has been coming around and telling me about Jesus, and I wish to hear more. Come with me and tell me about Jesus,” the man begged him.

Ro feared this was some sort of trap, but he trusted that the Lord would go with him. For an hour he spoke the name of Jesus to the man, who eventually said these words, “I want to give my name to Jesus.” Ro knew that this was the real thing; the man was giving himself completely to the Lord. He was the first Christian, the first follower of Jesus, in this so-called wild village. Rochunga’s heart was filled with joy and rejoicing. He had led his first soul to the Lord.

God took this young man with a heart for the Hmar people of India and used him to translate the Bible into their language. Rochunga Pudaite came from a village of former headhunters and let the Lord use him in a way that no one thought possible. God is a God of extremes; He can use the least of the least for His honor and glory.

Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies. —Psalm 60:12

(For further information about Rochunga’s story, read God’s Tribesman by James and Marti Hefley. Watch Beyond the Next Mountain, a film about Rochunga on YouTube.)

Winter 2019-20

What the Zealous Can Do

David Brainerd Missionary to the American Indians 1718-1747

With a cry of pain, the horse lurched forward causing her master to topple to the ground. David Brainerd stood, brushed himself off, and looked to see what had happened. The mare lay in agony on the ground, her leg snapped in two. David was beyond despair as he knew the inevitable must take place. With two Native Indians and a fellow missionary looking on, David raised his weapon and killed the faithful horse. He and his travelling companions then trekked thirty miles to the next house.

Such was the life of a young man who gave his life to see others won to Christ. Literally working himself to death, David Brainerd made it a point throughout his life to see to it that men, women, children, old and young, could have a chance to know Jesus.

David Brainerd was a young man with a heart for missionary work. He once said, “I never, since I began to preach, could feel any freedom to enter into other men’s labours and settle down in the ministry where the Gospel was preached before.” He wanted to do something for God that had never been accomplished.

After spending much time as a young man struggling with his salvation, he gave himself to prayer and sought the face of God to know how he might be saved. On July 12, 1739, while walking in the forest, David Brainerd gave his heart to the Lord and was gloriously saved. He became a zealous and fervent witness for his Lord. Although at times he suffered from depression, self-pity, and loneliness, he always righted himself in the Lord.

When his desire to serve the Lord returned, he was too zealous for some, and after calling his Yale professors less than zealous, he was expelled. After battling disappointment and bitterness, he learned to give it to the Lord, and he instead devoted his life to God’s service. An excerpt from his life journal reads, “I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altogether devoted to Him; I wanted to wear out my life in his service and for his glory.”

Although his ministry was full of many heartbreaks, hardships, sicknesses and unexplained difficulties, David Brainerd served the Lord for five years with over one hundred converts. He also did some Bible translation into an American Indian language. When ill health incapacitated him, he returned home and spent his last days with the Jonathan Edwards family. Even then his zeal was infectious. At the young age of twenty-nine, David Brainerd breathed his last on this earth. And as he entered heaven’s portals, may we not say he was eagerly welcomed?

God takes what we think is of little worth and uses it for His honour and His glory. He can use the weak or the sometimes depressed to serve Him. So, dear Christian, do not give up. Keep serving the Lord! He will be everything that you need!

Fall 2019