October 1932
T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
444
MISSIONARY PAGE . . . B y J ohn A . H ubbard
ther the parents nor the. children have ever been inside a Sunday-school. “ Souls have been saved, lives have been transformed, and some have expressed a desire to go into full-time Christian work.” Besides Mrs. Todd (Louisa Uhlinger, ’23), Mr. Todd had as his helpers dur ing the summer months two other Bible Institute graduates, Grace Junkin and Dor othy Hosking, both o f the class of 1932. Reading Campaigns Among Cakchiquel Indians I n t h e s p r in g o f 1931, the first shipment o f Cakchiquel-Spanish New Testa ments arrived at Guatemala City. Probably not ninety-five per cent of the Indians o f Guatemala can read. But to ap preciate and profit by the New Testament in his own tongue, the Indian must be able to read. So the thought came—why not or ganize reading campaigns among the In dians ? Mr. Townsend, who translated the New Testament into Cakchiquel, prepared a sim ple primer, which, with the New Testa ment as a textbook, provided equipment. One evening, about thirty Christian In dians gathered in the chapel at Patzicia, to hear about the campaign to teach them to read. “ The men and children were quite enthused; but the women were very pes simistic about it being possible for them to learn,” reports Mr. Townsend. “ However, we divided them into small groups and be
“ But there is also a black cloud in the Lisu work. The fact is that the Lisu have been Christians for about ten years, and the new glamour of the Christian religion has worn off. Very few want to go back to demon worship. They laugh at the sug gestion. But they want to live for self in stead of for God, “A partial famine visited the district, and smallpox, measles, and typhus followed close on its heels. W e cried to God in help less darkness. W e had a day of fasting and prayer. The very next day, a village which had been quarrelling for a year ended its quarrel by a real Christlike sacrifice on the part o f - one young man. Every few days since then, sunshine has been bursting through the dark cloud.” Needy Fields at Home jT W m o n g the many busy workers in the f 'll home mission field is Henry D. Todd, a graduate o f the Bible Institute in 1923, who is now a missionary of the American Sunday School Union. Something of the size o f his field may be gleaned from the following paragraphs from a recent letter : “ Our work is located in seven counties, leading out from Sacramento, Calif., as a center. Sunday-schools have been opened in communities where no religious meet- , ings of any kind have been held for four teen years. Many of these places are from twelve to twenty-five miles from a church. Large families have been found where nei-
The Clouds of Lisu-Land A /li'R . and M rs . A llyn B. C ooke grad- JVJL uated from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1918 and went to China under the China Inland Mission, where they have been serving ever since. Beauty and pathos and Christian heroism surround the ac companying bit of description written jointly and published in a recent issue of China’s Millions. About the time it was written, Mr. and Mrs. Cooke were expect ing to take the long journey from their sta tion in Yungkang, Yunnan, to Chefoo, in order to enter their little son, Joseph, as a pupil in the missionaries’ school. He has an older brother there whom the parents have not seen for about four years ! “As I write this letter, sitting on the porch of our bamboo hut, I can look down to the foot of the high mountains and see the little Mengting plain with its yellow carpet and winding river. On the pther side, mountains are piled one behind the other in seven distinct tiers. The most dis tant o f these are -several days’ journey away, so they have the delightful blue tint of distance. “ {Later) Darkness is covering the scene. It seems as though God has sprinkled star dust here and there, for fireflies light the air; and glowworms glimmer on the ground. And now the moon is turning all to silver; even the grass huts seem to shimmer in the moonlight. The plain and the distant mountains are clothed in mystic beauty. “And again, the night is past and the broad plain, yesterday so yellow and bright, has gone to sleep under a blanket of white cloud, and we are above the mist. W e see only a floating ocean of glistening white clouds with green mountains standing like islands in a sea of white foam. “And now the plain has awakened and is tossing off its white blanket. The little clouds are chasing each other, playing hide and seek in the canyons. Some are trium phantly sitting on the top of the range wait ing for their companions to catch up with them before they wing their flight up into the blue canopy and flee away until tomor row morning, when the plain will call them back to be its blanket. “ In the winter, the plain below us, where the Shan live in heathen darkness, is cov ered with mist every day until about noon. But we Lisu live far above in the glorious sunshine where we see only the glistening side o f the cloud. W e Lisu! O f course, I am not a Lisu, but I sometimes almost wish I were, when I hear the Lisu out in God’s open air singing hymns and beating time with their shovels as they till God’s earth. The Bible speaks the truth when it says, ‘Much study is a weariness of the flesh.’ Yet the weariness is all forgotten when evening comes, and our Lisu children ga ther in with glad expectation and ask, “ ‘Have you translated a new hymn for us today? Teach it to us n ow l’ “Dear friends, do you wonder we rejoice in this work which even angels might de sire to do?
Work Among Hopi Indians
ly increased, and “the most progressive In dians in the reservations today are those who have beeh reached with the gospel of Christ.” In a place that was formerly a “hot bed o f sin and hostility,” where there were many hindrances to the work o f evangelism, there is now a group of stalwart ^Christians. They are shown, with their bright-faced boys and girls, in the accompanying oicture.
e q u ip p e d with a working knowledge of the Word of God, received at the Bible Institute o f Los Angeles, Fred A. John son, a Hopi Indian, returned to ,his own people at Tuba City, Ariz., soon after his graduation in 1922. There, affiliated with the Moencopi Mennonite Mission, he has carried on a splendid work for the Lord. During this, time, he has witnessed marked progress among the Hopis. Their knowl edge of industry, sanitation, etc., has great-
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