Missions in America

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

Love for the Unlovable

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.

Living Christ’s Love

“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?

“Our Gilmore”

“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

Answering the Call

“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

Yet Will I Trust Him

John Chamberlain had no idea what the future would hold when he embarked on his journey to India. With his ministerial education, his new wife, and his zeal to reach lost souls, he was ready to begin his missionary journey. His path seemed clear and straightforward. He would go to Calcutta and learn the Bengali language. He would work with William Carey and evangelize the lost Hindu and Bengal people. He would serve God with his family. Life does not always follow our plan, however, and this Baptist missionary soon found his faith and commitment tested.

Chamberlain and his wife set sail for Calcutta in August, 1802, and not long after his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Chamberlain was overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a father but soon was recorded as saying, “But alas! I saw not the cloud behind.” For, after seven short days, their daughter grew sick and died, and they were forced to commit her body to the sea.

I would like to say this is the hardest thing he endured, but it was just the beginning. He struggled with his health off and on, as did his wife. He saw many horrible things in Calcutta and the village of Cutwa. He saw women held down by large, bamboo poles and burned alive and the elderly left outside to die. His wife became violently ill and quickly passed away. He later remarried, but after only eight months his new wife went into labor and died during childbirth. He took her body back to Calcutta and upon arrival found that the son he had left in the care of friends there had passed away. Trial after trial, blow after blow, he was tested and tried. Yet he remained faithful.

Shortly after finding out about the death of his third child he quoted Job, saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Chamberlain never lost his passion for reaching the lost. He went from village to village evangelizing and talking to whoever would listen. Though he struggled greatly with his own health and eventually succumbed to tuberculosis at only forty-four years of age, he ministered tirelessly and tenaciously. He had an aptitude for languages and applied himself to translating the Bible into both Hinduwee and Brij. During the days when he was too sick to preach in the villages, he would sit at home and translate for hours.

He did not let discouragement or the fatigue that comes with sickness keep him from pursuing the calling of God. He chose to remain faithful, to remain passionate and to remain surrendered to God’s will for His life. He chose to trust. Many times we, too, get discouraged from the grind of life. Trial and heartbreak that come our way seem like obstacles insurmountable.  We must remember Psalms 18:2: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; . . .” Jesus has already promised His strength. All that is left for us to do is trust and lean on Him.

White Queen of Africa

Into the trepid jungle of Africa strode a young Scotch woman intent on spreading the gospel of Christ. She was a small, naturally timid woman, but nothing was too perilous when the cause of Christ was at stake.

Mary Slessor found Jesus as a slum child in a textile factory and instantly gave her life to Him. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, she had high dreams of evangelizing  the little black children of Calabar, Africa. When not working at the factory or studying, she was playing at teaching a class full of little black boys and girls. She prayed to be sent to Calabar. When she grew older, she took on a class of wild street children for Bible instruction. She wept for Calabar. She took on a Sabbath School class. Still she longed for Calabar. She worked at the mill, and cared for her family. On and on she labored, until the Lord gave peace and direction to follow her dreams. Inspired by David Livingstone she applied to a mission board and was accepted. On August 5, 1876, at age twenty-eight, she reached that ominous continent, Africa, “The White Man’s Grave.” Besides her experience as a mill-worker and  the training of her mission board, she had her faith in God and a small thin body absolutely committed to his will. She had made it to the Dark Continent!

Mary took God’s promises at face value, never halted by discomfort or danger. Nothing was greater than her courage or her faith in God, and that is what made her great. Openly challenging the power of chiefs and witch doctors, she hand carved the destiny of an entire country. She was able to abolish twin murder, wife murder, wholesale slaughter at the death of a chief, and numerous other demonic practices. She spent forty years untangling the feudal disputes of naked savages and winning them to Christ one by one, each conversion a victory felt by hundreds of lives.

Many wonder at the power Mary possessed, one who had no Bible college degree, linguistic training, or even a high school diploma. How was she able to accomplish so much? Her years in Calabar were not the effect of her greatness; no, they were the result of her determination as a teenager to be used of God. She saw not what she could do for Him, but the lives that needed touching, the souls that needed reaching. She saw them in Calabar, but first she saw them in Aberdeen. First she worked in Aberdeen. She was surrounded by hurting people, and she touched them.

God’s Lost and Found Department

“ ‘He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.’ I have been directed to these and similar passages again and again. I should like to put these truths to the utmost test… Seemingly God delights in many instances to place men in situations which magnify their weaknesses for the simple delight of showing Himself strong to all observers” (Unfolding Destinies by Olive Fleming Liefeld).                                  

Peter Fleming was raised in a Christian home but was not a believer  until age thirteen. In his youth he was respected for his spiritual maturity and knowledge of God’s Word. As a gifted athlete he had opportunity to pursue a career in sports. However, it was God, not sports, that had Pete’s heart.

While studying philosophy at the University of Washington, Peter made a friend named Jim Elliot. Jim’s influence on Pete  was tremendous, and they both followed God’s call to Ecuador. In 1954, Pete married his childhood sweetheart, Olive. God put a burden on their hearts to take the Gospel to the Waodani (Auca) Indians, a tribe well known for their brutality.

Pete, Jim, and three other men spent three months dropping gifts from the air and planning their first attempt to make contact with the Auca. They finally landed their plane in Auca territory on January 2, 1956. For several days, the missionaries enjoyed visits from three Auca Indians. Hopes were rising that the Indians would realize they wanted to be friends.

However, on January 8, 1956, a group of spearmen attacked the missionaries at the beach, killing all five men. I wonder if, as Peter Fleming faced death at the hands of the people he was trying to reach, he thought of the statement he had made years earlier. I wonder if he knew that in his death, the ultimate magnification of man’s weakness, God would be shown strong to millions of observers. Through the weakness of five men, God raised up a mighty army of laborers to enter His harvest fields, including some who eventually saw the Auca people evangelized.

Regardless of what weaknesses must be revealed, may we be willing for God to use our lives to show Himself strong!

Called from the Cobbler’s Bench

In 1783, above a cobbler’s bench in England, there hung a large hand-made map of the known world. As the young cobbler worked, he prayed for little-known lands full of people who were ignorant of the Gospel. Between shoe-making, school teaching, and itinerant preaching, he found time to teach himself Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Dutch, French, and Italian. In 1789, eager to spread his vision of the need for organized world missions, he went to  pastor a large church in Leicester.

In spite of indifference, resistance, and even public rebuke, he presented his burden tirelessly, finally gaining the attention of the Baptist world in a sermon on world missions of which the keynote was “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” As a direct result of this sermon the Baptist Missionary Society was formed “for the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen.” Thus William Carey is known as “the father of modern missions.”

Unselfishly, Carey proposed the name of a Christian doctor as the first missionary to be sent by the board. However, when the board determined that he should go with Dr. Thomas, Carey was overjoyed. For forty years Carey labored in India both preaching the Gospel and translating the Bible. God so gifted and enabled him with an incredible talent for languages, that he was involved in translating the Scriptures into forty different languages, eight of which included the entire Old Testament. Although Cary suffered the loss of three children, was widowed twice, often hindered by the government, and frequently suffered financial loss, those around him were strongly aware that his confidence was firmly established in God. In the midst of his difficulties Carey testified, “I have rejoiced that God has given me this great favor ‘to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ I would not change my station . . . for all the wealth of the world.”

From a cobbler’s bench God chose a man to rekindle the fire of evangelism in the church. God delights in using the humble, the obscure, and the unlikely to fulfill His purposes—all He needs is someone willing to obey.

Information taken from William Carey: Father of Modern Missions by Basil Miller.

“The Lord is faithful, Who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.”
II Thess. 3:3

Winning One Tribe

“From the very first, I wanted to go to the most primitive people in the world and so was thrilled when God gave me the privilege of going to West Papua.”*  So writes Margaret Stringer, who served for thirty years among people who never heard the name of Jesus before 1980. After ten years on the southern coast of West Papua (1964-74), Margaret went to Senggo, an island village where mission work had just begun. As a linguist, she was there to help translate the Bible into the Citak language, but the team at Senggo had another assignment for her. Several villages had just been discovered further upriver—practicing cannibals who had recently killed four men from an oil company. The team sent Margaret with two Christian Senggo men to learn whether these villages spoke Citak, or some other language.

There was no place for the helicopter to land, so the pilot hovered above the ground while they jumped out. Until his return they were surrounded by cannibals who might, or might not, speak a language they knew! They were pulled into the longhouse by enthusiastically shouting men, but it was several minutes before Margaret could identify their speech as a dialect of Citak.

Margaret recalls, “I had never before eaten rat, but when a crowd of affectionate headhunters said, ‘Eat it, eat it,’ I didn’t feel like arguing.” This was the beginning of a long and interesting friendship with the Vakabuis people. From 1980-85 several long visits were made to the Vakabuis, with Senggo Christians preaching to the people in their own language. Floods, tribal wars, and the short tempers of the Vakabuis made the work slow and difficult. Within a year the people would ask, “What was the name of the Man who healed the blind man?” but it was four more years before the first Vakabuis were saved. Finally, a Senggo pastor was able to live among the Vakabuis people, and the church began to grow. Ten years later, the New Testament translation was complete. Margaret writes, “The most rewarding experience was the joy and privilege of translating the New Testament into the Citak language.” Margaret Stringer remained on the field until 2004 when she returned to the United States. But there are still tribes in the heart of West Papua that have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are waiting for the missionaries of this generation to go!

*From Cannibalism to Christianity by Margaret Stringer