Missionary Stories
by Joyce Reed
Does God lead children to yearn for the mission field and hope to go? Will God use people in missionary service who let sin ruin their testimony? We can look to George Grenfell’s life for answers.
George was born in Sancreed, England, August 21, 1849, and the family moved to Birmingham when he was three years old. He began attending Sunday School at Heneage Street Baptist Church at ten years of age and was saved and baptized at fifteen. Early on, he was interested in African missions, being influenced by men of the church and a book by David Livingstone.
In 1873, George was approved for missionary training, and in November 1874, the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) accepted him for service in the Cameroons, West Africa. He set sail with Alfred Saker, his hero. Because Alfred and George believed in self-sustaining economic life within a Christian community, they taught practical skills to the young men of the missionary community.
George married Mary Hawkes in 1876. Tragically, she died in 1877 after giving birth to a stillborn child. Desperately lonely, troubled, and confused, George began a series of exploratory journeys inland looking for the best route to the interior. In 1877, the BMS sent George and Thomas Comber on an exploratory journey of the Congo River with the idea of establishing a mission station. Unfortunately, on August 20, 1878, George resigned from the BMS. Rose, his Jamaican housekeeper was pregnant with his child. They married and named their child Patience. Was God through with George?
Thomas Comber made thirteen unsuccessful attempts to establish a route between Sao Salvador and Stanley Pool. However, it was even more important to establish a depot on the mouth of the Congo River, so Thomas requested the BMS reinstate George to run it. On April 23, 1880, the board reinstated him with restrictions. They would never have reason for regret.
George assembled a purchased steamer which was launched in 1884. He made six explorations of the upper Congo, preaching everywhere he went. George’s vision was to evangelize the whole Sudan Belt, and he made great contribution to that end.
Will God call children to the mission field? George’s life answers a resounding, “YES!” Can a child of God still serve in God’s work after backsliding and losing testimony? Yes, George served God for the rest of His life!
What are you letting hinder you?
Spring 2026
by Rex Cobb
I met Joe Moreno in 1975 when he visited BBTI. I was a missionary student preparing to do what Joe had done for nearly thirty-five years, reach the most unreached people groups. For him this meant finding and making friendly contact with the Ayorés, a savage Bolivian Indian tribe. We students stayed up almost all-night listening to Joe’s stories and asking questions. We did not fully realize we were in the presence of a truly great man. However, Joe would not call himself a missionary, probably because he had only a sixth-grade education and perhaps due to his material status. His wife had left him and his three young children.
Joe was born in Texas, and Spanish was probably his first language. By day he was a mechanic and by night a carouser. At twenty-four years old, he moved to Mount Pleasant, Michigan, where his life of debauchery would continue for six more years.
A group of mission-minded men and women in the Mount Pleasant area had learned of the helpless condition of the Ayoré Indians and were making plans to reach them. The leader of the group, Cecil Dye, was pastoring a church in Mt. Pleasant and had also begun a youth club with a strong emphasis on missions. Joe heard Cecil preach the Gospel and was gloriously saved. His life was instantly transformed, and he began witnessing to everyone. When he heard of Cecil’s mission plans, Joe said, “I can carry a missionary’s suitcase. I can go and be Cecil’s flunky! ” Read the exciting story in the book, God Planted Five Seeds, by Jean Dye Johnson, published by Ethnos360.
In November 1942, this newly formed group (that became known as New Tribes Mission) was founded by Paul Fleming and Cecil Dye and moved to Bolivia. The group consisted of Cecil and Dorothy Dye, Bob and Jean Dye, Dave and Audry Bacon, George Hosbach, Eldon Hunter, and Joe Moreno. Joe’s children, as was the practice of the group, were placed in a mission boarding school. Joe’s knowledge of Spanish was a great help to the group, and he also began reaching out to the Spanish-speaking people.
In June 1943, after much prayer, planning, and preparation, Cecil, Bob, Dave, George, and Eldon took to the jungle trails, seeking to make friendly contact with the Ayorés. The Ayorés had killed numerous so-called civilized ones, and civilized ones had killed many Indians and enslaved their children. The army and the railroad company wanted the Indians tamed or killed—it probably did not matter which—so they were in favor of the missionaries’ efforts. The group walked over thirty miles of mountains and cut through one hundred miles of dense jungle looking for Indian trails and footprints. When they found Ayoré campsites, they left gifts. Eventually the Indians left gifts for the missionaries. It is believed they made contact on November 19, 1943. They were never heard from again. Their wives and others hoped that they had only been taken captive, not killed, but it would be another five years before reliable testimony from the Indians who killed them eliminated all doubt. Their bodies were never found, but a few durable personal items proved the native’s account.
Joe was evangelizing Spanish-speaking villages and did not accompany the five men. After the group’s disappearance was obvious, Joe became the leader of the mission and dedicated himself to two things: finding the men if they were alive and making friendly contact with the Indians. Thus, Joe undertook the forward thrust of the mission. He would leave the base camp for weeks and sometimes walk hundreds of miles looking for Ayoré trails and campsites. Friendly contact was finally made after five years.
As we talked with Joe that night in 1975, he told of the Ayoré practice of burying alive an old person who could no longer keep up with the nomadic tribe. He tried to stop this, even by getting into the hole with the person. They either pulled him out or began throwing dirt on him.
My family moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1979 and began working with an Indian group. People there asked me if I knew Tomás Moreno. They described him as an old man who traveled in the mountains telling people about Jesus. I said that I did not know him. Only recently I learned that Joe’s name was Ab Tomás Moreno. He died in El Paso in 1987. For someone unqualified to be a missionary, he did a great missionary work!
Fall 2025
By Chris Matthews, Director
We have seen a drastic reduction in the number of missionaries going to the field since 2020, and churches now struggle to find missionaries to support. We are losing more missionaries off the field than we can send to replace them. Too few are going, and of those who do, many return prematurely. Faced with these challenges, it is past time for us to assess the situation and take corrective action.
It is said that anybody can find a problem, but it takes leadership to find the solution. Let us dive into the problem and then start the conversation on some possible solutions.
Who is at fault? Was it COVID and the tightening hand of world governments that resulted from that season of time? Is it that the church is failing to promote missions and urge its members to consider missions as the primary call of the New Testament? Is it the family unit that is willing to give its finances, prayers, and well wishes to others but not willing to send its children and grandchildren?
COVID certainly had its damaging effect. Most governments around the world tightened their grip on their people. While we were busy arguing about whether a person should wear a mask or not, the governments were tightening their control in many more pressing ways. Some countries have used COVID-19 as a reason to expel foreigners from the country and have been reluctant to allow them back in. Visas in many countries are for shorter periods and more challenging to obtain. Nevertheless, some countries, seeing the detrimental effects of not welcoming foreigners, have opened their doors wide, allowing tourism, business, and even missionary work to flourish. We are not of this world, and it is not the governments that determines where we go as missionaries. It is time that we shrug off the excuses and get to the biblical mission, which is missions.
It is also possible that our churches took a lackadaisical approach to missions for a season. Just a few years ago, pastors received many calls and emails from missionaries, and they had to weed through and determine which missionaries they would accept and which ones they would refuse. It seemed that many were going, and so possibly the urgency to see folks sent from their church diminished. I believe it ought to be the goal of every church to fulfill the Great Commission beginning near them at what we might call their “Jerusalem and Judea,” then to the people in foreign places that maybe are not so easy to love in their “Samaria,” and to the unreached people groups in their “uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It seems that we can allocate labor and money for almost anything we want to accomplish in the church, other than sending missionaries. How do we fix this? I certainly do not have all the answers and would be a fool to assume I have the answers for every individual church, but here are some suggestions.
Beginning with the youngest ages, as we tell the Bible stories of people who went and served God, we can encourage our children that God will send them to do a great work for Him if they are willing. We could stop using negative statements, such as “not everyone is called to the pastorate or to be a missionary,” and instead tell every person that they have a calling. They are commanded to go. Going honors God, allowing us to trust in the promise found in Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.” God will order our steps, which will provide both the place and methodology if our feet are surrendered.
We must preach the truth to our people that the Gospel requires us to go and share it with others so that they might be saved. Yes, it ought to be to our neighbor and our coworkers, but it also ought to be simultaneously to the uttermost parts of the earth. We must realize and preach that God does not just want our prosperity but also our person to go overseas.
Families need to awaken to the great opportunity of missions and to the high calling that it is. I do not have a biblical command to be a doctor, lawyer, electrician, laborer, etc., but I do have a command to preach the Gospel to every creature. Our families ought to be on their knees together, praying that the Lord would allow them and/or their children or their grandchildren to go and preach the Gospel where it has not yet been proclaimed. Faithful worship at the house of God ought to take precedence over the worship at the stadium that many families seem to see as a priority. Let us cheer and shout when family members share the Gospel with a friend or somebody they meet along the way. I would rather my children be in the most dangerous place on earth and in the will of God than living at ease with riches and glory but without the presence and approval of God.
It is time that in every Christian setting, missions be our first priority. If you believe this to be extreme, then it would be a good time to consider the commandments given in the New Testament. The four Gospels all end with a Great Commission to go and preach the Gospel. Acts begins with the admonishment to go, and Romans asks the questions “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” The New Testament is written by men who went, preached, suffered, and died for the sake of the Gospel. It is time that we live for the same cause.
Who is at fault? Certainly not God! He is the Lord of Harvest, and with his help, we must find solutions and make corrections.
Fall 2025
by Joyce Reed
John Eliot was born in 1604 near London, England. We know little about his early years, but he received a degree from Cambridge University in 1622.
He became connected to the Puritans while serving as an usher in the grammar school of Rev. Thomas Hooker, where he saw the power of godliness in their lively vigor and service. John soon devoted himself to the ministry of the Gospel with the Puritans. However, the Puritan persecution by the Church of England was so great that they emigrated to America.
John, along with three brothers and three sisters, arrived in Boston on November 4, 1631. It was a very harsh time for them, but they made it. John entered the ministry there that year at the age of twenty-seven years. That same year, John married Miss Hannah Mumford. They would eventually have six children. He was called as pastor of the church in Roxbury where he would pastor until his death nearly sixty years later. John never received more than three hundred dollars a year for his service, but he considered himself rich. He was indeed rich in God’s blessings.
He longed to reach the poor Indians with Christ’s salvation message. However, he had to, first, gain their confidence and learn their most difficult language. It took him almost two years with the aid of a Pequot Indian named Cockenoe to do this, but the red men became devoted to him. The medicine men hated and persecuted him, but John was set to serve God among the Indians. He did this and still served his white congregation. In 1660, three thousand, six hundred Indians had become Christians.
John believed in the work of translating the Bible into the “heart language” of the people. He devised an alphabet for the unwritten Pequot language. With Cockenoe’s help, he translated the Bible into Pequot. In September 1661, the New Testament was printed, and two years later, the whole Bible was completed. This was the first Bible printed in America.
In John’s later years, he could no longer “go” to the Indians, so he asked church families to send their negro servants to him. Thus, he also became known as the founder of the Christian missionary work to the negroes of America.
Missionary opportunities lie at our very doors. John Eliot’s life teaches us to just go and do God’s will: reach the lost with the Gospel of Christ both near and far. Look what Christ can do through one life sold out to Him!
Winter 2025-26
Hardship would have been an appropriate middle name for Laura Hardin. Born in Calhoun, Nebraska, on September 28, 1858, Laura’s life of hardship began at four years of age. Her father, Even Hardin, enlisted in the Civil War in 1865, leaving his wife and five small children with no food or money. They endured a terribly cold winter with almost nothing to eat. God sent help, but the times were rough.
Around eight years of age, Laura checked out a missionary book from the Methodist Church. Her mother explained to her the need to tell the world about Jesus. Laura told her mother she would like to do that someday. God heard her heart and provided greatly so she could. One night, at a revival, she was saved! Her missionary desire grew strong.
God molded Laura in the fires of hardship that well prepared her for what she and her future husband would face on the mission field. Through an Indian uprising, a prairie fire, a freezing night alone on the prairie, a tornado, diphtheria, and typhoid, God prepared her. When crops failed and there was no money for her education, she questioned if she had been wrong about God’s call to her for missions. A well-meaning friend had mentioned that maybe it would not be so hard if God was really calling her to go. How many preparing for the mission field have let the devil so easily steer them from going? We must all realize that when hardships come, it is no indicator of whether God’s call is real or not. How tragic it would have been if she had listened to wrong advice!
On September 28, 1883, Laura set sail for Burma. In 1886, her fiancé, Arthur E. Carson, arrived. He was appointed to open a work among the Chins, who had never had a missionary. Laura and Arthur were married immediately. They soon left for the Chin people, going beyond civilization where no white woman had ever been. They faithfully served through daily hardships and sacrifices until God called Rev. Carson home on April 1, 1908. He had served faithfully for twenty-two years. Laura served for another twelve years before failing health forced her to return to America.
What if Laura had given up on her call because it was too hard? About ninety percent of an entire people group numbering nearly three million might not have ever heard the Gospel. This couple believed ALL hardships and sacrifices were endurable to give the Word of Life to people in their own language and to uplift the souls in darkness to God’s marvelous Light. Hardship and sacrifice come with every worthwhile venture. To what greater venture can we give our lives than to the fulfilling of Christ’s commission?
Source: Laura Hardin Carson, Pioneer Trails, Trials and Triumphs
Photo Source: HathiTrust Digital Library.
It was 1944 and WWII was still raging. Twenty-eight-year-old Mel Rutter and his battalion were sent to New Guinea to hunt for Japanese soldiers. After they arrived and were awaiting permanent orders, they had a lot of free time on their hands. These American soldiers had much uncertainty and fear in their minds and hearts. Being far from home, family, and facing certain death at any moment fostered a mindset of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.” Sin was rampant: liquor, gambling, cursing, and obscene stories were the norm.
Mel, a young Christian, was saddened by such sin against His Lord and Saviour. To get away from it, he began walking, and before he realized what he was doing, he was deep into the jungle! In 1944, it was not safe to wander into the jungles of New Guinea where cannibal tribes still lived. Suddenly, his fears took shape in the form of a native cannibal standing right before him saying, “Hubba, hubba,” in broken English. Horror washed over Mel as he saw the filed-down, pointed teeth in the smiling face of this cannibal. Then Mel noticed the Book tucked under the cannibal’s arm. Never had his soul been so stirred and thrilled! This ex-cannibal was carrying a Bible! He looked at Mel, grinned with those pointy teeth, and asked, “Is white boy Christian?” Only God could orchestrate such a Divine appointment as this. Mel’s heart was greatly impressed by this humble ex-cannibal— a REAL missionary out telling anyone who would listen about becoming a Christian!
Back in America and years later, after attending two seminaries and pastoring three churches, Mel and his wife surrendered to missions. They sold all their belongings and went to Mexico. Two years later, they returned to Dallas where they taught missions for a year. Next, they went to Chile, South America. A year after that, they went to Costa Rica and attended language school to extensively study the Spanish language. Mel and his wife Dorothy then went to Peru, South America, and worked with Peruvians and the Quechua Indians for a number of years before returning to the States for health reasons.
In 1961, Mel and Dr. James W. Crumpton founded Maranatha Baptist Mission. At one time, it had one hundred twenty-five missionaries serving in eighteen countries and at home. For thirty-nine years, Mel was an international representative of Maranatha Baptist Missions. He died on December 30, 1999.
Have you had any Divine appointments? Is God moving you toward missions? Are WE fulfilling God’s Great Commission? Oh, that the love of Christ would fill us and overflow to the uttermost creature!
Winter 2024-25
On June 7, 2014, Stephen A. Metcalf, a faithful church planter and evangelist to Japan, passed away. He ministered in Japan for forty years with his wife Evelyn and their five children. However, Stephen did not always want to be a missionary to Japan.
Stephen was born on October 23, 1927, to George and Bessie Metcalf. The Metcalfs were missionary translators in Taku (now Dao-Gu), a mountainous Lisu village one weeks walk from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. At a young age, Stephen learned to fluently speak English, Mandarin, and Lisu. In 1934, when he was seven years old, his parents took Stephen to join his sister Ruth at a boarding school in Yantai. Except for Christmas visits, Stephen grew up in Yantai and rarely saw his parents.
By 1937, World War II was imminent. The Japanese invasion of China did not affect Stephen until 1942 when he and his schoolmates were imprisoned. Sickness continually plagued the filthy, cramped attic where the nineteen young men were initially quartered. Hepatitis A and a raging fever nearly killed Stephen, but God miraculously spared his life. As he lay weak and alone, his conscience convicted him of his sins. Overwhelmed, Stephen confessed His sins and believed that Jesus Christ died and rose again for him. In the following months, Stephen’s faith grew through missionary biographies that fellow inmates lent him. By the time Stephen was moved to the Weixian internment camp, God had taught him perseverance, faithfulness, and thankfulness. However, Stephen struggled to learn forgiveness.
Who could blame Stephen for despising the Japanese? His circumstances appeared to justify his attitude. Over two-thousand men, women, and children were confined within the sixty-acre internment camp. Sanitation was deplorable; water was inadequate; food was rationed; and medical supplies were scarce. Self-preservation was the daily mode of life. Individuals who retained ethical and religious convictions were either admired or scorned. Yet one such man’s godly character influenced others in Weixian.
Eric Liddell, famous Scottish Olympic gold medalist and missionary, chose Christlikeness over self-centeredness. Of all the prisoners, he easily could have demanded his rights and misused his influence. At the pinnacle of his athletic career, he left Scotland to be a missionary teacher in China. Instead of evacuating the country with his family in 1941, Liddell remained. He firmly believed that only faithful obedience honors God, despite any personal cost. Even in Weixian, Liddell continued obeying God as he served his fellow prisoners.
In 1945, just months before World War II ended, Stephen heard the words that impacted the rest of his life. During a Bible study on Matthew 5:43-48, Liddell taught: “When you hate, you are self-centered. When you pray, you are God-centered. Praying changes your attitude. It is hard to hate those you pray for.” Listening, Stephen was deeply convicted. He realized Liddell’s personal obedience to the Truth had changed his attitude toward the Japanese guards. God used Liddell’s testimony to break Stephen’s unforgiving heart. Together, the men began praying for their captors.
Days later, Liddell approached Stephen with a pair of patched running shoes. Stephen’s own shoes were completely worn, useless protection against the winter temperatures. Unconscious of his friend’s personal sacrifice, Stephen gratefully accepted them. Only weeks later did Stephen realize that he was walking in Liddell’s shoes.
One month later, tears stung and blurred Stephen’s eyes as he gazed down at his shoes. He tried to steady himself under the weight of his friend’s coffin. Though a brain tumor silenced Liddell’s earthly voice, his words echoed in Stephen’s memory. As he reflected on Liddell’s life, Stephen’s grief suddenly turned to resolution. At that moment, before God, he vowed to go to Japan as a missionary after the war.
Liddell’s obedience influenced Stephen’s obedience. Years later, in 1952, Stephen recalled Liddell’s words again as he began his life-time ministry in Japan. He no longer wore Liddell’s physical shoes, yet he daily walked in Liddell’s spiritual shoes. Both men’s obedience resulted in countless Japanese salvations!
When we obediently live the Truth, others will believe the Truth. Obedience reveals Absolute Truth which powerfully transforms lives for eternity. Through His own obedience, Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, demonstrating that the Word of God is Truth. His obedience to the Father’s will changed men’s eternal destinies (John 5:30, 6:38)! Christ set the example for us (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:21). His obedience cost Him everything. Likewise, obedience will cost us everything. Nevertheless, Christ’s obedience commands and compels our own obedience. We have a choice. We know the Truth. Yet Truth without obedience will never save a lost and dying world.
Christ wore the shoes of obedience, and He commanded us to follow Him. Obedience is a personal choice in response to a personal command. Though initially individual, our choice is eternally influential. Will we obey the Truth? Will we walk in Christ’s shoes? Will others walk in our shoes?
Spring/Summer 2023
“Satan knows well the power of concentration.” Do we? Do we dare to focus on Christ with such genuine intensity that His glory is our only motive and consideration for every choice we make?
In October 1876, John Ruskin, a famous English painter and severe art critic, consented to evaluate a young woman’s artwork. Astonished by her exceptional portrayal of artistic elements and principles, Ruskin immediately offered to train the artist. As time progressed, he declared that she was a rare talent destined to become one of the century’s greatest English artists.
The young artist, Isabella Lilias Trotter, was born on July 14, 1853, to an affluent family in London. Her godly parents intentionally instilled spiritual truths in her life which blossomed following her salvation. Lilias’s love for art was matched only by her passion for ministry. When faced with a choice between the fortune and fame of an artistic career and a simple life of service, Lilias chose to relinquish her rights to her talent and follow Christ. In 1879, she journaled: “Are our hands off the very blossom of our lives? Are all things—even the treasures He sanctified—held loosely, ready to be parted with without a struggle when He asks for them? It is a loss to keep what God says to give.”
After she surrendered her life and talents to Christ, He opened His way before her. At a mission conference in 1887, Lilias clearly knew that God wanted her to go to Algeria, North Africa. The following year, she moved to Algeria where she ministered to Arabs until her death in 1928. Although she worked closely with North African Mission, the ministry never accepted her as a missionary because her heart was weak. However, Christ was Lilias’ focus; nothing could dissuade her obedience. For the next thirty-nine years, she faithfully ministered to Algerian women and children through Bible studies, prayer meetings, and literacy classes. Her artistic and literary talents enabled her to write and translate many tracts, parables, Christian literature, and Scripture portions into both classical and colloquial Arabic. During her later ministry, Lilias and her team pioneered work among the Arab Sufi mystics in the Southlands of Algeria. When her weak heart left her bedridden, she continued writing. The famous hymn, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” was inspired by Lilias’ booklet Focussed, in which she wrote: “Dare to lay bare your whole life and being before Him, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His glory.”
Lives are legacies, yet only Christ-focused lives leave legacies of faithfulness. Focused lives fearlessly follow Christ without hesitation at the cost to oneself, family, friends, or ministries. “Christ—Christ—Christ—filling all the horizon. Everything in us: everything to us: everything through us. ‘To live is Christ.’—Amen.”
Is our focus changing our lives? Do we dare?
Quotations from A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness
Winter 2022-23
Isaac McCoy was born in Fayette, Pennsylvania, in June 1784. He was the son of a Baptist preacher who, as incredible as it sounds, did not believe in evangelizing. Isaac and his father argued over this, but Isaac was not afraid to stand for the truth. He became a missionary to the Native Americans. Before moving west to the wilderness of Indiana and Illinois, Isaac pastored a church for seven or eight years. His first missionary assignment paid him $500 per year, and he worked with the Weas, Miamis, and Kickapoos in Indiana. He later worked with the Pottawatomie tribe in Michigan.
McCoy used education as a tool to evangelize children. In 1820, he moved to Fort Wayne and opened a school with ten English pupils, six French pupils, eight Indian pupils, and one African pupil. By the end of the year, he had thirty-two Indians living in his own home as members of his family! A year later, he reported that he had forty-two pupils. In 1822, he began a temperance society and made his first trip to Washington D.C. to plead for fair treatment for the Native Americans. Our government was shamefully famous for making and breaking treaties with the Indians They stole their land, relocated them, and viewed them as something less than human. However, Isaac McCoy did not see the Indians this way. He loved a people that others despised.
For many years, McCoy served under federal appointment as a commissioner, surveyor, or teacher among the Native Americans. On a trip to Washington [believed to have been in 1829] to report on his exploration, he visited the Mission Board in Boston. He found them making pleas for missionaries to Burma (Myanmar), Africa, and other countries, but not to the Native Americans. Not everyone shared McCoy’s burden to reach them. Some believed that the Indians would soon die out; therefore, they believed there was no need to evangelize them.
In 1828, McCoy preached the first Baptist sermon ever heard in Chicago. In 1832, he was present in the organization of the first Baptist church in the Oklahoma Territory. He was instrumental in the founding of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Kansas City, Missouri, where he lived until 1842. At that time, McCoy moved to Louisville, Kentucky and established the Indian Mission Association. On a return trip from Jeffersonville, Indiana, he was exposed to severe weather which resulted in a serious illness that caused his death on June 21, 1846. His dying words were, “Tell the brethren to never let the Indian mission decline.” It was said of him, “The American Indian never had a better friend than Isaac McCoy.”
Fall 2022
There was no headstone for Charlotte Rowe until her name was uncovered among the missionaries appointed by American Baptist International Ministries during research as it prepared for its 200th anniversary.
Charlotte White Rowe was the first woman missionary to be officially appointed from the United States by any denomination or agency. Charlotte was born in 1782. Her early life was marked by sadness. She was orphaned at age twelve and widowed at twenty-two. She moved to Massachusetts where she was saved and joined First Baptist Church of Merrimac.
In 1813 Charlotte moved to Philadelphia and joined the Sanson Street Baptist Church. There she met and joined Charles and Phoebe Hough who were going to Burma to help Adoniram Judson with printing work. She applied to the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in the summer of 1814. After much discussion, the majority consented to her approval but then said they did not have the funding to send her. She pledged her own small estate to the work and left for India. The next year, the mission society’s new ruling forbade the appointment of single women missionaries.
After four months at sea, Charlotte and the Houghs landed in Calcutta and traveled to Serampore. It took two months for them to arrange shipping for the printing press and supplies to Burma. During that time, she met missionary Joshua Rowe, a widower with three small boys. They were married and Charlotte stayed in India with her new family while the Howes went on to Burma.
Charlotte’s first task was to learn the local language, Hindi. She was a remarkable linguist and learned so quickly that she soon began establishing schools. It wasn’t hard to get native teachers for the boys. To get teachers for the girls she had to hold classes and train the women first. Her resources were limited so she began writing schoolbooks in Hindi.
After only seven years of marriage, with six children and a busy and thriving ministry, Joshua Rowe died. Charlotte was only financially able to continue for an additional three years. She traveled to London in hope of being appointed by the British Mission society, only to find that they, too, had established a ruling against single women missionaries. She then worked to raise passage back to the United States where she ran a boarding school with the help of her twin daughters until the girls died, one in 1851 and the other in 1852. Charlotte died in 1863 at the age of eighty-two and was buried beside her twin daughters in an unmarked grave.
“I am but a mere instrument in God’s hand . . .” —Charlotte Rowe
Summer 2022
1815 – 1872
“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
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