Topic : Missions

But, for me personally, being anything but a missionary would be second best. Perhaps a story I recall hearing years ago explains it best. It seems the old Standard Oil Company offered an enormous sum of money to a missionary in China to work for them, to help with the development of Standard Oil in China. The missionary turned them down. So they doubled the salary offer. He turned them down again. They said, "What do you want? We can't give more money than that. He said, 'the money doesn't have anything to do with it. The job is too small.'

SIM/NOW, p. 3

• The Missionary as a Theologian, J. R. Blue, in Walvoord: A Tribute, Donald Campbell, ed., Moody, 1982, p. 315.

In his book Facing Loneliness, J. Oswald Sanders writes, 'the round of pleasure or the amassing of wealth are but vain attempts to escape from the persistent ache...The millionaire is usually a lonely man and the comedian is often more unhappy than his audience.'

Sanders goes on the emphasize that being successful often fails to produce satisfaction. Then he refers to Henry Martyn, a distinguished scholar, as an example of what he is talking about. Martyn, a Cambridge University student, was honored at only 20 years of age for his achievements in mathematics. In fact, he was given the highest recognition possible in that field. And yet he felt an emptiness inside. He said that instead of finding fulfillment in his achievements, he had "only grasped a shadow.'

After evaluating his life's goals, Martyn sailed to India as a missionary at the age of 24. When he arrived, he prayed, 'lord, let me burn out for You.? In the next 7 years that preceded his death, he translated the New Testament into three difficult Eastern languages. These notable achievements were certainly not passing 'shadows.'

Our Daily Bread, January 21, 1994

Pray for:

1. Protection from Satan's attacks on their faith and calling, tempting them to quit and go home.

2. God protect their marriages and families. Protect them from doing so much work that they neglect their families.

3. Protect them from getting so busy doing things for God that they forget to sit and listen to Him.

4. They could forget to find unhurried time for Bible meditation and prayer.

5. Protect them from losing their spirit of worship, love and devotion to you, Lord.

6. Protect them from divisiveness, criticism and crankiness with each other.

7. Protect their unity in Christ, their love for each other, their commitment to each other.

8. Protect their willingness to serve one another, and to esteem their sisters and brothers better than themselves.

9. Protect them from conflicts with local believers and national church leaders.

10. Protect them from squabbling over budgets and properties.

11. Protect them from misinterpreting each other's motives.

12. Protection from even hinting that the way we do it in America is best.

13. Protection from using their control of money to get their own way.

14. Unity in Christ among missionaries and believers is so important because unbelievers watch them. So they can see and grasp the good news that God loves them so much that He sent Jesus to this world.

15. Protection from defection for their souls, not their bodies.

16. Our primary concern should be for our missionaries perseverance in faith.

Jesus did ask God to protect his disciples, but not the kind of protection we usually think of. He warned them of what might happen. He simply asked His Father to protect the disciples 'so that they be one as we are one.'

1. They needed protection from fighting, jealousy and clamoring for position.

2. If the evil one cannot destroy their faith, he will disrupt their work by sowing dissension in their ranks.

3. If he can get our missionaries or us to believe gossip and suspect each other's motives, Satan does not have to resort to terrorism.

4. If he can maneuver them into head-on collisions with the national believers, he doesn't need car crashes to wipe them out.

Lord, teach us to pray for our missionaries more effectively, daily.

Protection From What? by Jim Reapsome

1. Oswald Chambers: "The thing that makes a missionary is the sight of what Jesus did on the cross and to have heard Him say, "Go."'

2. Daniel T. Niles: Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.'

3. Robert Wiler, a missionary volunteer connected with the Student Volunteer Movement, from a speech he gave at a conference in 1891: 'let us come to the churches having as our theme the highwayman's motto, "Your money or your life,? saying the needs are so great, the command so urgent, we have given our lives-will you not give your money"'

4. C. T. Studd wrote from Cambridge in 1883: "I had known about Jesus dying for me, but I had never understood that, if He had died for me, then I didn't belong to myself. Redemption means buying back, so that if I belong to Him, either I had to be a thief, and keep what wasn't mine, or else I had to give up everything to God. When I came to see that Jesus had died for me, it didn't seem hard to give up all for Him.? Studd also said, "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.'

5. March 19th, 1872, was David Livingstone's 59th birthday. In his diary we read these words: "My Jesus, my King, my Life, My All. I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.? A year later he was found dead on his knees by his bedside, a candle burning, his Bible open, himself in the presence of his King.

6. Student commitment made at a Frontiers Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1980: "By the grace of God and for His glory, I commit my entire life to obeying His commission of Matt. 28:18-20, wherever and however He leads me, giving priority to the peoples currently beyond the reach of the Gospel (Rom. 15:20-21). I will also endeavor to impart this vision to others.'

7. Words spoken by Rev. Festo Kivengere in a communications convention: "It is the Holy Spirit who puts jet engines on the word bombs of the Bible so they fly into the needy places in people's hearts and explode at the right time.'

8. A. T. Pierson: "There is enough jewelry, gold, and silver plate buried in Christian homes to build a fleet of 50,000 vessels, ballast them with Bibles, crowd them with missionaries, and supply every living soul with the gospel in a score of years. Only let God take possession and the gospel will wing its way like the beams of the morning.'

9. Robertson McQuilken in his book The Great Omission: "in a world in which nine out of every ten people is lost, three or four have never heard the way out, and one of every two cannot hear, the church sleeps on. How come? Could it be we think there must be some other way? Or perhaps we don't really care that much'

10. George Murray, director of the Bible Christian Union, tells us that for years he was "willing to go, but planning to stay.? Not until he became "willing to stay, but planning to go? did God move him to Italy.

11. Dr. A. B. Simpson: "Press on our heart the woe, and put in our feet the go.'

12. Dr. Bob Pierce: "When considering the needs of missions, don't fail to do something just because you can't do everything. "Others have done so much with so little, while we have done so little with so much.'

13. A South Sea Islander proudly displayed his Bible to a World War II G.I. "We-ve outgrown that sort of thing,? the soldier said. the native smiled back. "It's a good thing we haven't. If it wasn't for the Book, you'd have been a meal by now.'

14. Hudson Taylor: "I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up asking Him to do His work through me.'

15. Dr. Ralph Winter: "For the gospel to "go where it isn't,? someone has to go from where it is among his own people and go where he/she will no longer be "native.? Natives become foreigners when they become true missionaries. It is one thing to be concerned that the church grow where it is. It is something else to make sure the church goes where it isn't.'

16. Mr. Bernie May (U.S. Division Director of Wycliffe): 'the question is not, "Can I afford to take on the needs of the world when I'm so troubled by other things"? The question is, "Can I afford not to"?'

17. International Missionary Council, Jerusalem, 1928: "herein lies the Christian motive: it is simple. We cannot bear to think of men living without Him. We believe in a Christlike world. We know nothing better; we can be content with nothing less.'

18. William Booth once had an audience with King Edward VII of England. His Majesty highly commended the Salvationist for his unflagging zeal and wonderful work among the poor. How revealing was Booth's reply to the king's glowing words! He said, "Your Majesty, some men's passion is for art. Some men's passion is for fame. My passion is for souls.'

19. Theodore Williams of India said: "We face a humanity that is too precious to neglect. We know a remedy for the ills of the world too wonderful to withhold. We have a Christ too glorious to hide. We have an adventure that is too thrilling to miss.'

20. Andrew Murray said at World Missionary Conference in 1910, "We shall need three times more men, four times more money, and seven times more prayer.'

21. Dr. Samuel Zwemer, in a convention of the Student Volunteer Movement, hung a great map of Islam before the delegates, and with a sweep of his hand across all those darkened areas said: 'thou, O Christ, art all I want, and Thou, O Christ, art all they want. What Christ can do for any man, He can do for every man.'

22. Henry Martyn, at 23 years of age: "I feel that my heart is wholly for heaven, and the world mainly behind my back.? On his way to India: "I do not know that anything would be a heaven to me, but the service of Christ and the enjoyment of His presence. Oh how sweet is life when spent in His service.'

23. Betty Stam's covenant made as a high school student: 'lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt; send me where Thou wilt; work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.'

24. Nate Saint"in a Christmas meditation letter written just a short while before he and four other young men gave their lives in seeking to reach the Auca Indians in Ecuador, South America, December, 1955: "If God would grant us the vision, the word 'sacrifice? would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short; we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. May God help us to judge ourselves by the eternities that separate the Aucas from a comprehension of Christmas, and Him, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor so that we might, through His poverty, be made rich. Lord God, speak to my own heart and give me to know Thy holy will and the joy of walking in it. Amen.?

Abe C. Van Der Puy, The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc., Copyright 1987

Paul W. Powell, in The Complete Disciple, described this condition: "Many churches today remind me of a laboring crew trying to gather in a harvest while they sit in the tool shed. They go to the tool shed every Sunday and they study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and then get up and go home. Then they come back that night, study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and go home again. They comeback Wednesday night, and again study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and get up and go home. They do this week in and week out, year in and year out, and nobody ever goes out into the fields to gather in the harvest.

Paul W. Powell, in The Complete Disciple

What you can plan to face:

Malaria
Four kinds of deadly poisonous snakes
Scorpions
Crocodiles
Alligators
Three species of poisonous spiders
Shark-infested waters
Leading in cancer deaths (skin cancer)
Lightning deaths #1 (every square mile 50 times per year average)
Highest crime rate
Bicycle deaths # 1
Hurricanes.

In spite of this, more people are moving to this "mission field? than any other. Maybe you-ve figured out where this mission field is-It's right here in the U.S.?Florida.

1,000 people per day move to Florida.

Source unknown

• 91% of the world's population has heard of coke.
• 74% have seen coke
• 51% have tasted
• 10% of the world's population has heard the Gospel.

Source unknown

In 1722, Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf of Saxony founded a colony of pietist believers called "Herrnhut,? later known as Moravians.

He also traveled to America and set up communities that began to send out missionaries, first to Greenland, then to the West Indies, then beyond.

By the time Zinzendorf died in 1760 some 300 missionaries, all laypersons, had gone out from the various colonies.

In 1738 when some of the challenges of missionary life had become clear, Zinzendorf wrote his famous instructions, many of which sound strangely modern, despite their 18th-century language. Here is a selection, reprinted with permission from World Encounter, mission magazine of the Lutheran Church in America, copyright 1980.

It is better to send people into the wide world than to send no one. But you should be warned about the following temptations:

1. To have even the slightest dealings with clergymen.

2. To think about your purpose in the land only when you get there.

3. To test your vocation on the heathen once you are among them.

4. To give up because something doesn't work immediately.

5. To begin to make your home too comfortable, forgetting that you are really a traveler, a pilgrim among the nations.

6. To be prejudiced against the heathen because they are neither efficient nor pious, and to be irritated by how badly they run things.

7. To seek even the slightest advantage at the expense of your brothers.

8. To fill up whole diaries with descriptions of difficulties but write little or nothing about the ways in which our Savior has helped you.

9. To forget that one can do far more with a believing heart than with many word.

10. To judge your colleagues and particularly your superiors according to their personalities and then allow your relationship to be influenced by whether or not you approve of them.

11. To make a general rule of the experience you and two or three others have had.

12. To make so many plans that in the end you can't carry out any of them, but throw up the whole task.

13. Out of boredom to make up new articles of faith.

14. Vindictiveness.

15. To lose sight of the Savior.

16. Letting a quarrel last longer than a day.

17. To reflect and think that if you were somewhere else you would not have to die, or that things would be different for you; to think that the present lot which God has given to you can be avoided.

18. For any pretext or whatever reason to give the devil an opportunity to outwit us, to cast us down or to rob us of our peace.

19. It is not always a bad sign to be troubled by something.

20. To embellish the heathen with names of people, not even those of Luther, Herrnhut or Zinzendorf.

SIM/NOW

A one-legged school teacher from Scotland came to J. Hudson Taylor to offer himself for service in China. "With only one leg, why do you think of going as a missionary"? Asked Taylor. "I do not see those with two legs going replied George Scott. He was accepted.

Pillar of Fire, 1-1-83.

"It is the impassioned pleading of a quiet little Scottish lady that linked my life with the Sudan,? wrote Rowland Bingham (a founder of SIM). "In the quietness of her parlor she told how God had called a daughter to China, and her eldest boy (Walter Gowans) to the Sudan.

"She spread out before me the vast extent of those thousands of miles and filled in the teeming masses of people. Ere I closed the interview she had place upon me the burden of the Sudan.'

A year and a half later Bingham returned to Canada, alone. Walter and Thomas Kent lay buried in Nigeria's interior. "I visited Mrs. Gowans to take her the few personal belongings of her son,? he recalled. 'she met me with extended hand. We stood there in silence.

"Then she said these words: "Well, Mr. Bingham, I would rather have had Walter go out to the Sudan and die there, all alone, than have him home today, disobeying his Lord."'

Our success in this venture means nothing less than the opening of the country for the gospel; our failure, at most, nothing more than the death of two or three deluded fanatics. Still, even death is not failure. His purposes are accomplished. He uses deaths as well as lives in the furtherance of His cause.

Walter Gowans, 1983, a founder of SIM. On Dec. 4, 1893, Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham of Toronto, Canada, and Thomas Kent of Buffalo, N.Y., landed at Lagos, Nigeria. Their aim was to establish a witness among the 60 million people of what was then commonly known as the Sudan, the area south of the Sahara between the Niger River and the Nile. Gowans and Kent died in the first few months. Bingham returned to Canada, formed a council, and went back to Africa in 1900. That attempt, too, was unsuccessful. In 1901 Bingham sent out a party that succeeded in establishing the Mission's first base, at Patigi, 500 miles up the Niger River. When these first SIM pioneers landed in Nigeria, Gowans was 25 years old, Bingham was two weeks away from his 21st birthday, Kent was 23.

Source unknown

The following article is based on a sermon by missionary Del Tarr who served fourteen years in West Africa with another mission agency. His story points out the price some people pay to sow the seed of the gospel in hard soil.

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year's food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.

October and November...these are beautiful months. The granaries are full'the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday's Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.

December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal. Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day.

By February, the evening meal diminishes. The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don't stay well on half a meal a day.

April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.

Then, inevitably, it happens. A six- or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. 'daddy! Daddy! We-ve got grain!" he shouts.

"Son, you know we haven't had grain for weeks.'

"Yes, we have!" the boy insists. "Out in the hut where we keep the goats'there's a leather sack hanging up on the wall-I reached up and put my hand down in there'daddy, there's grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!'

The father stands motionless.

"Son, we can't do that,? he softly explains. 'that's next year's seed grain. It's the only thing between us and starvation. We're waiting for the rains, and then we must use it.'

The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt! Why? Because he believes in the harvest.

The seed is his; he owns it. He can do anything with it he wants. The act of sowing it hurts so much that he cries. But as the African pastors say when they preach on Psalm 126, "Brother and sisters, this is God's law of the harvest. Don't expect to rejoice later on unless you have been willing to sow in tears.'

And I want to ask you: How much would it cost you to sow in tears? I don't mean just giving God something from your abundance, but finding a way to say, "I believe in the harvest, and therefore I will give what makes no sense. The world would call me unreasonable to do this-but I must sow regardless, in order that I may someday celebrate with songs of joy.'

Copyright Leadership, 1983

When Hudson Taylor was director of the China Inland Mission, he often interviewed candidates for the mission field. On one occasion, he met with a group of applicants to determine their motivations for service. "And why do you wish to go as a foreign missionary"? he asked one. "I want to go because Christ has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,? was the reply. Another said, "I want to go because millions are perishing without Christ.? Others gave different answers. Then Hudson Taylor said, "All of these motives, however good, will fail you in times of testings, trials, tribulations, and possible death. There is but one motive that will sustain you in trial and testing; namely, the love of Christ.'

A missionary in Africa was once asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was shocking. 'do I like this work"? he said. "No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse...But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to "Go,? and we go. Love constrains us.?

Source unknown

She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little-but it was all I had.

Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby's mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive.

Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother's heart stopped, but her little girl lived.

Love is a costly thing.

God in His live for us (and for a lost world) 'spared not His own Son? to tell the world of His love. Love is costly, but we must tell the world at any cost.

Such love is costly.

It costs parents and sons and daughters. It costs the missionary life itself. In his love for Christ the missionary must give up all to make the Savior known. If you will let your love for Christ, cost you something, the great advance will be made together.

Remember, love is a costly thing. Do you love enough'

OC International

• The average Christian in America gives less than $.20 a week to foreign missions. - Larry Lutz, Partners International, 1987
• Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. - C. T. Studd
• I had known about Jesus dying for me, but I had never understood that, if He had died for me, then I didn't belong to myself. Redemption means buying back, so that if I belong to Him, either I had to be a thief, and keep what wasn't mine, or else I had to give up everything to God. When I came to see that Jesus had died for me, it didn't seem hard to give up all for Him. - C. T. Studd
• If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him. - C. T. Studd

Sources unknown

Americans give $700 million per year to mission agencies. However, they pay as much for pet food every 52 days. A person must overeat by at least $1.50 worth of food per month to maintain one excess pound of flesh. Yet $1.50 per month is more than what 90 percent of all Christians in America give to missions.

If the average missions supporter is only five pounds overweight, it means he spends (to his own hurt) at least five times as much as he gives for missions.

If he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat), he could give ten times as much as he does to missions and not modify his standard of living in any other way!

Ralph Winter of the William Carey Library, 1705 North Sterra Bonita Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91104, in Leadership, IV,4,64

• Single woman outnumber single men 7 to 1 on the mission field according to EFMA, IFMA.

William Carey had to overcome great odds to obey the call of God. In The Challenge of Life, Oswald J. Smith noted that "even the Directors of the East India Company opposed [Carey's] work.

Following is the idiotic resolution they presented to Parliament: 'the sending out of missionaries into one Eastern possession is the maddest, most extravagant, most costly, most indefensible project which has ever been suggested by a moonstruck fanatic."?

Smith added, "In 1796, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed the following infamous resolution: 'to spread the knowledge of the gospel amongst barbarians and heathens seems to be highly preposterous.? One speaker in the House of Commons said that he would rather see a band of devils let loose in India than a band of missionaries. Such was the opposition to missions when Carey set forth. And yet, he was able to write, "Why is my soul disquieted within me? Things may turn out better than I expect. Everything is known to God, and God cares."?

William Carey stood the test, and became the father of modern missions.

Our Daily Bread, August 3

Some years ago, a very good friend of mine, Dr. E. Myers Harrison, gave a missionary message that I cannot forget. It was to a small group of people, but I will never forget the sermon. Dr. Harrison is now at home with the Lord, but he was a great servant of God and a great missionary statesman. He said that each of us as Christians must hear what God has to say. There is he command from above: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature? (Mark 16:15). Have you heard that? I've heard people say, "But God wants our church to be different. We're not supposed to have a missionary program.? I don't believe that. I believe the command from above is given to every Christian and to every assembly that God has raised up.

Then there is the cry from beneath. Remember the rich man who died and woke up in hell and begged for someone to go and tell his brothers? (see Luke 16). "I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house (for I have five brethren), that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment? (vv. 27,28). There is the cry from beneath. If you and I could hear the cries of people in a lost eternity right now, we'd realize how important it is to get the Gospel out. There's the command from above. Have you heard it? There's the cry from beneath. Have you heard it?

Then, according to Dr. Harrison, there is the call from without. Acts 16:9 says, "Come over into Macedonia, and help us.? People around us are saying, "Please come to help us!" So much money, time and energy is being spent on routine church matters in America when there is a whole world to reach for Christ! We face so many open doors!

Something Happens When Churches Pray, W. Wiersbe, pp. 102-3

1. 10% of the church's members are regularly and systematically praying for missions.

2. 10% of the church's members are regularly and systematically sharing their faith.

3. 10% of the church's budget is spent on cross-cultural outreach.

4. 1% of the church's members are entering cross-cultural service.

5. The church is working to involve one neighbor church in missions.

Association of Church Missions Commissions Newsletter, Autumn, 1989, p. 1)

Following a brilliant student career at Cambridge, rejected several opportunities in order to go to the mission field. He prayed, "Here am I, Lord; send me to the ends of the earth, send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort in earth; send me even to death itself if it be but in Thy service and in Thy kingdom.'

Donald Campbell, Nehemiah: Man in Charge, Victor Books, 1979, p. 13

Rev. Saul Paul
Independent, Missionary
Corinth, Greece

Dear Mr. Paul:

We recently received an application from you for service under our Board.

It is our policy to be as frank and open-minded as possible with all our applicants. We have made an exhaustive survey of your case. To be plain, we are surprised that you have been able to pass as a bonafide missionary.

We are told that you are afflicted with a severe eye trouble. This is certain to be an insuperable handicap to an effective ministry. Our Board requires 20-20 vision.

At Antioch, we learn, you opposed Dr. Simon Peter, an esteemed denominational secretary and actually rebuked him openly and publicly. You stirred up so much trouble at Antioch that a special Board meeting had to be convened at Jerusalem. We cannot condone such actions.

Do you think it seemly for a missionary to do part-time secular work? We hear that you are making tents on the side. In a letter to the church at Philippi, you admitted that they are the only church supporting you. We wonder why.

Is it true that you have a jail record? Certain brethren reported that you did two years time at Caesarea and were imprisoned at Rome.

You made such trouble for the businessmen at Ephesus that they refer to you as 'the man who turned the world upside down.? Sensationalism in missions is uncalled for. We also deplore the lurid "over-the-wall-in-a-basket episode? at Damascus.

We are appalled at your obvious lack of conciliatory behavior. Diplomatic men are not stoned and dragged out of the city gate, or assaulted by furious mobs. Have you ever suspected that gentler words might gain you more friends? I enclose a copy of the book by Dailus Carnagus, "How to Win Jews and Influence Greeks.'

In one of your letters you refer to yourself as "Paul the Aged.? Our new mission policies do not envisage a surplus of super-annuated recipients.

We understand that you are given to fancies and dreams. At Troas, you saw "a man of Macedonia? and at another time "were caught up into the third heaven? and even claimed the 'lord stood by you.? We reckon that more realistic and practical minds are needed in the task of world evangelism.

You have caused much trouble wherever you have gone. You opposed the honorable women at Berea and the leaders of your own nationality in Jerusalem. If a man cannot get along with his own people, how can he serve foreigners'

We learn that you are a snake handler? At Malta, you picked up a poisonous serpent which is said to have bitten you, but you did not suffer harm. Tsk, tsk!

You admit that while serving time at Rome that "all forsook you.? Good men are not left friendless. Three fine brothers by the names of Diotrephes, Demas, and Alexander the coppersmith have notarized affidavits to the effect that it is impossible for them to cooperate with either you or your program.

We know that you had a bitter quarrel with a fellow missionary, Barnabas. Harsh words do not further God's work.

You have written many letters to churches where you have formerly been pastor. In one of these letters, you accused a church member of living with his father's wife, and you caused the whole church to feel badly; and the poor fellow was expelled.

You spend too much time talking about the 'second coming of Christ.? Your letters to the people of Thessalonica are devoted almost entirely to this theme. Put first things first from now on.

Your ministry has been far too flighty to be successful. First Asia Minor, then Macedonia, then Greece, then Italy, and now you are talking about a wild goose chase to Spain. Concentration is more important than dissipation of one's powers. You cannot win the whole by yourself. You are just one little Paul.

In a recent sermon you said, "God forbid that I should glory in anything save the cross of Christ.? It seems to us that you ought also to glory in our heritage, our denominationalism and program, the unified budget, and the world Federation of Churches.

Your sermons are much too long at times. At one place, you talked until after midnight and a young man was so asleep that he fell out of the window and broke his neck. Nobody is saved after the first twenty minutes. 'stand up, speak up, and then shut up? is our advice.

Dr. Luke reports that you are a thin, little man, bald, frequently sick, and always so agitated over your churches, that you sleep very poorly. He reports that you pad around the house praying half the night. A healthy mind in a robust body is our ideal for all applicants. A good night's sleep will give you zest and zip, so that you wake up full of zing.

We find it best to send only married men into foreign service. We deplore your policy of persistent celibacy, Simon Magus has set up a matrimonial bureau at Samaria, where the names of some very fine widows are available.

It hurts me to tell you this, Brother Paul, but in all of my twenty-five years experience, I have never met a man so opposite to the requirements of our Foreign Mission Board. If we accepted you, we would break every rule of modern missionary practice.

Most sincerely yours,
J. Flavius Fluffyhead
Foreign Mission Board
Secretary

J. Harold Smith, "Your Good Neighbor?, November, 1952

When Hudson Taylor was director of the China Inland Mission, he often interviewed candidates for the mission field. On one occasion, he met with a group of applicants to determine their motivations for service. "And why do you wish to go as a foreign missionary"? he asked one. "I want to go because Christ has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,? was the reply. Another said, "I want to go because millions are perishing without Christ.? Others gave different answers. Then Hudson Taylor said, "All of these motives, however good, will fail you in times of testings, trials, tribulations, and possible death. There is but one motive that will sustain you in trial and testing; namely, the love of Christ?.

A missionary in Africa was once asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was shocking. 'do I like this work"? he said. "No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonable refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse...But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to "Go,? and we go. Love constrains us.'

Our Daily Bread

Last night I took a journey
To a land far "cross the seas;
I didn't go by boat or plane,
I trusted on my knees.

I saw so many people there
In deepest depths of sin,
And Jesus told me I should go
That there were souls to win.

But I said, "Jesus, I can't go
And work with such as these.'
He answered quickly, "Yes, you can
By traveling on your knees.'

He said, "You pray; I'll meet the need,
You call and I will hear;
Be concerned about lost souls,
Of those both far and near.'

And so I tried it, knelt in prayer,
Gave up some hours of ease;
I felt the Lord right by my side
While traveling on my knees.

As I prayed on and saw souls saved
And twisted bodies healed,
And saw God's workers? strength renewed
While laboring on the filed.

I said, "Yes, Lord, I have a job
My desire Thy will to please;
I can go and heed Thy call
By traveling on my knees.'

-Sandra Goodwin

Source unknown

One afternoon author Patsy Clairmont found herself on an airplane, sitting next to a young man. She writes, "I had already observed something about this young man when I was being seated. He called me "Ma-am.? At the time I thought, "Either he thinks I'm ancient, or he's from the South where they still teach manners, or he's in the service.? I decided the latter was the most likely, so I asked, "You in the service"?

"Yes, Ma-am, I am.?

"What branch"?

"Marines.?

"Hey, Marine, where are you coming from"?

"Operation Desert Storm, Ma-am.?

"No kidding? Desert Storm! How long were you there"? I asked.

"A year and a half. I'm on my way home. My family will be at the airport.?

I then commented that he must have thought about returning to his family and home many times while he was in the Middle East.

"Oh, no, Ma-am,? he replied. "We were taught never to think of what might never be, but to be fully available right where we were.?

Focus on the Family, July, 1993, p. 5

Alila stood on the beach holding her tiny infant son close to her heart. Tears welled in her eyes as she began slowly walking toward the river's edge. She stepped into the water, silently making her way out until she was waist deep, the water gently lapping at the sleeping baby's feet. She stood there for a long time holding the child tightly as she stared out across the river. Then all of a sudden in one quick movement she threw the six month old baby to his watery death.

Native missionary M. V. Varghese often witnesses among the crowds who gather at the Ganges. It was he who came upon Alila that day kneeling in the sand crying uncontrollably and beating her breast. With compassion he knelt down next to her and asked her what was wrong.

Through he sobs she told him, 'the problems in my home are too many and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have to the goddess Ganges, my first born son.'

Brother Varghese's heart ached for the desperate woman. As she wept he gently began to tell her about the love of Jesus and that through Him her sins could be forgiven.

She looked at him strangely. "I have never heard that before,? she replied through her tears. "Why couldn't you have come thirty minutes earlier? If you did, my child would not have had to die.'

Each year millions of people come to the holy Indian city of Hardwar to bathe in the River Ganges. These multitudes come believing this Hindu ritual will wash their sins away. For many people like Alila, missionaries are arriving too late, simply because there aren't enough of these faithful brothers and sisters on the mission field.

Christianity Today, 1993