SPECIAL M ISSIONARY SURVEY : Part H
T H E V I S I O N T H A T M A D E B I O L A G R E A T the M issiona ry Graduates of the B ib le Institu te of Gos A n yeles as told to B e tty B ru eeh ert
February, 1959
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God delights in transforming the most unlikely lives: “ The town drunk accepted the Lord, and he and his wife are bap tized believers,” writes Robert Smith of Chile, and Milton Warkentin of Mexico has a similar report: “ Before we arrived with the Gospel, the one who is now our native preacher was a noted drunkard. How wondrous is the grace of God!” And Mrs. Robert Bogema of Nigeria tells of “ one saved Fulani boy, with a crippled body” who “has stood alone for the Lord for two years, enduring ridicule, and suffering for Christ’s sake.” Often God uses ordinary human kindness to reach the heathen heart: “ There was much enmity against us,” writes Bill J. Chesbro of the Phil ippines, “ Then one of the strongest Roman Catholics in the village suf fered a heart attack and immediately we loaned our car to get him to the hospital. Afterwards the talk against us died down, the Lord gave us many friends, and some converts.” From the beginnings of human gov ernment, God has used the civil power to accomplish His will where the missionary enterprise is concerned: “ Our local government,” says T. Glenn Lawrence of CBFMS, in Bel gian Congo, “ ordered all seven hun dred African evangelists to refrain from preaching. We prayed! The governor reprimanded this adminis trator and gave the Christians great f r e e d o m . Unbelievers commented, ‘Now we see the true God has more power than man,’ and thousands ac- Rev. and Mrs, William Webster have es tablished the Maili Bible Center in Hawaii.' Photo shows mixed ancestry of children.
I N t h e January issue of The King’s Business appeared the first install ment of a brief report of the mission ary labors of the graduates of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Based upon answers to a questionnaire from the missionaries themselves, this sur vey covered mission boards under which BIOLANS labor; peoples, tribes and tongues to whom they minister; lands which they claim for the Gos pel; types of missionary service they supply; and religious systems with which they deal. These missionaries, from the vantage point of actual mis-
great mass of inspiring material fol low. Sincere regrets are expressed by the compiler that lack of space alone prevents the inclusion of every bit of information furnished. “ Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; And to wait for His Son from Heaven” (I Thess. 1:9-10). To the missionaries the “ outstand ing incidents” in their ministry pri marily concern the conversion of the people to whom they have been sent. “ Each day is a miracle of God’s leading and grace,” writes Fred Wal- dock from Assam, “ and the conver sion of a Hindu ‘holy man’ on our field is an outstanding example of what Christ can do.” C. H. Wintersteen tells of the sal vation of another kind of religious zealot: “ A well-qualified priest was sent to Bolivia from Spain to combat the work. He was saved here and is being used to turn many to Christ, including another priest.” God has wrought great wonders with present-day witchcrafters: “The missionary dealt with a spirit doctor who conducted devil worship. The man was saved and burned his spirit altar and now endures perse cution for Christ” (Dorothy Uhlig, Thailand). “A witchwoman rose up on her deathbed and accepted Christ. She re covered, burned her fetishes, and gave public testimony to her salvation” (Carl Hendrickson, Rhodesia). “ God worked in hearts and the pagans brought forth from hiding places family skulls which had been their family altars and had been con sulted” (Don Fairley, French Equa torial Africa). Patience and prayer are required of the missionaries of the cross: “ For two months before we cele brated the centenary of the birth of Pandita Ramabai, we prayed day and night, and saw the hand of the Lord in the many who dedicated their lives to Him” (Virginia Nicholson, India). “When we first gave Oawosan a tract on the street car, he refused it. God convicted and saved him. Now he has finished the six-year Seminary course and has a church of his own” (Vince Gizzi, Japan).
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Missionary Bill Samarin giving out Word to natives of French Equatorial Africa (Brethren Missionary Society). sionary experience, also rendered a verdict with regard to the adequacy of the training they had received at the Institute. That this verdict was unanimously f a v o r a b l e occasioned great thanksgiving to God. From these replies, a number of im pressive facts came to light, among which were the deeply spiritual and practical quality of the missionaries; the wide extent of their labors; the fervency of their passion for the lost. For it is this vision that has made BIOLA great — not a vision of ma terial prosperity or intellectual superi ority — but the vision of a world “ dead in trespasses and sins” which the Lord Jesus Christ described as “ fields, white unto harvest.” The missionaries were asked to cite an outstanding incident of God’s working on their fields, and to de scribe some of the results of their labors. Representative replies from a FEBRUARY, 1959
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