On this day in 1896, missionaries Samuel Zwemer and Amy Wilkes were married in Baghdad, Arabia.

As a senior at Hope College, Zwemer attended a rally at the school for the Student Volunteer Movement.  During the meeting, the desperate need for missionaries was presented and Zwemer, his mind awakened to the task of World Evangelism, rushed forward after the meeting and signed the pledge: “I purpose, God willing and desirous to go to the unoccupied foreign fields.”

After graduation and medical training, Zwemer applied to several mission boards to go to Arabia to start a missions among the Muslims.  But every mission board turned him down, saying it was foolish to try to reach a people who were so fanatical.  But Zwemer didn’t let anything deter him.  He responded, “If God calls you and no board will send you, bore a hole through the board and go anyway!”  So he set out across America with a another young man, James Cantine, to raise funds for their work, called the Arabian Mission.  In 1890, Zwemer set sail for Arabia.

Within a few years, the mission began to really grow and several other missionaries came to help the work, including Samuel’s younger brother.  In the early part of 1896, the Church Missionary Society wrote to Zwemer, asking him to meet two young female missionaries who were just arriving in Arabia from Australia and to assist them along their way to their new post.  One of those ladies was the charming, beautiful  Amy Wilkes.  When Zwemer met her, he fell in love.  The two were married in Baghdad.  The Arabian Mission had its first female member.

The Church Missionary Society wasn’t happy about Zwemer up and marrying one of their missionaries.  So they demanded that he had to pay them back for the cost of Amy’s preparation and journey.  So he did.  It soon became a joke among the Arabs that Zwemer had to buy his wife just like they did, according to Arab custom.

Despite the price, the new couple would go on to faithfully serve the Lord for the next forty years.

Source:

The Apostle to Islam

On this day 1814, thirty-three representatives of Baptist churches met in Philadelphia to form the General Missionary Convention, better known as the Triennial Convention (because it met every three years).

Two years earlier, Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice had set sail as some of America’s first foreign missions.  But they had been sent out under the blessing of the Congregationalist denomination.  On their way to India, both men, traveling on separate ships, began to study the Bible on the issue of Baptism.  They knew that once they got to India, they would be staying briefly with William Carey and the other Baptist there and wanted to be prepared to Biblical defend their position on Baby Baptism.  On during their study, they found that they couldn’t.  Once they arrived in India, both men were baptized and became Baptist.

This caused some pretty major problems back in the states.  The Congregationalist couldn’t support any Baptist missionaries and there were no Baptist missionary societies to  take up their support.  So the missionaries decided to send Luther Rice back to America to help the churches organize a society to support Baptist missionary work around the World.

 With the support of several influential pastors, Rice was able to bring together the group of delegates to discuss the Mission Board.  William Johnson, a Baptist pastor in Georgia, wrote an appeal to the churches:

What a dime spectacle will the convention present l A numerous body of the Lord’s people, embracing in their connection from 100,000 to 200,000 souls, all rising in obedience to their Lord, and meeting by delegation, in one august assembly, solemnly to engage in one sacred effort for effectuating the great command: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”

What spectacle can more solemnly interest the benevolent heart! What can be more acceptable to our heavenly Father! We invite you, dear friends, and brethren-we affectionately and cordially invite you-to embrace the privilege of uniting in so glorious a cause, so divine a work. God has put great honor upon us in giving us so favorable an opportunity of coming up “to the help of ‘the Lord against the mighty.” In doing so, he has conferred on us a distinguished privilege. Shall we be insensible to the honor? Shall we disregard the privilege? God forbid l Living in a country whose generous soil yields, with moderate industry, more than a sufficiency of the comforts of life, and professing, in great numbers, to be redeemed from our iniquities, our obligations to exert ourselves for the benefit of our race and the glory of God, are great indeed. O let us feel, impressively feel, the force of these obligations and act correspondingly with them.

This convention would go on to do mighty things for the cause of World Evangelism and shaped the early mission movement of the baptist churches.  Great missionaries like the Judsons, George Boardman, John Peck, and others would supported by the work of this convention.

Source:

Baptist History throughout the Ages

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On this day in 1817, Heinrich August Jaeschke, a Moravian Missionary,  was born in Germany.  Jaeschke was a missionary to Tibet that became famous for his work in translating. All of his life, Jaeschke was known for his superior linguistic abilities. As a young man, he mastered Latin, Greek, Polish, and Swedish. He later learned Arabic, Sanskrit, and Persian as well.

After teaching at Herrnhut, he went as a missionary to Tibet in 1857 and settled at Kyelang. Before doing much technical translation work, he spent time among the Tibetan people learning both spoken and literary Tibetan. Jaeschke became so skilled at the language that he published papers on the phonetics and grammar of the Tibetan language.

By the end of his life, poor health had taken him back to Germany. However, his work in the Tibetan language was not in vain. He was able to be a significant part of the translating of the Bible into the Tibetan language. Along with other translators, Jaeschke had his hand in getting the Bible to the Tibetan people in their own language. Because of this, the gospel has been able to be spread in Tibet.

What a great picture of a man who used his gifts to spread the fame of our God and make Him more intimately known to His people.  How can we use our gifts to further the gospel? Are we willing to live our lives in such a way that we are surrendered to God and free to have God use us for His glory with the ways He created us? Let’s learn from Jaeschke’s example and use our gifts not for wealth or fame, but for the glory of our God who gave them to us.

*Post submitted by Edward de los Reyes

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On this day in 1905, Maggie Whitecross Paton, the wife of John Paton, died in Australia at the age of 64.

After the death of his first wife, Mary, the heart-broken Paton returned to Scotland for a time of recuperation and to promote his work among the churches there.  While in Scotland, he met the daughter of the Reverend John Whitecross, Maggie.  The two began a friendship and it soon turned to love.  They were married and returned together to the New Hebrides, where they settled on the island of Aniwa.

Maggie proved to be a perfect match for her husband and threw herself into the work.  Despite the trials and hardships that came from the missionary life on a tropical island, she continued to look to Christ.  In a letter, she wrote, “If you came to be missionaries, you would find it uphill work indeed, to be sacrificing your whole life merely for the sake of those who could not understand your motives, and who know not what it cost you to give up home and friends. But Jesus regards every sigh, and whatever is done for Him will meet with a sweet reward even in this life; for He who has promised can never disappoint.”

For Maggie, creating a strong Christian home for her family was just as important as any missionary work her husband did!  And while she worked hard at the mission, her ultimate focus, and the place of her greatest efforts, was her home.  “The life of the Christian home is the best treatise on Christianity-a daily object lesson, which all can understand, can read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest; in fact, it is the only Bible which many of the natives shall ever read! It wakens a terrible feeling of responsibility to see how they sometimes look up to us”.

Source:

Banner of Truth

On this day in 1819, Pomare, king of Tahiti, was baptized by Henry Nott.  After nearly twenty years of laboring on the island, he was the first person to baptized on Tahiti.

In a report of the baptism sent to their society, the missionaries wrote:

“Pomare was observed to lift up his eyes to heaven and move his lips in prayer. The sight was very moving, especially to our older brethren who had been watching over him for so many years. Thus, after more than two decades of tears and toil, occurred the first baptism in Tahiti.”

The baptism of the king was only the first.  Within the following decade, hundreds of the islanders came to Christ and were baptized.  Pomare became actively involved in the work and supplied land and resources for building new chapels.  Old temples, once used for human sacrifices, were cleaned and converted to churches.  After years of laboring and praying, the work of Henry Nott was being rewarded.

Source:

Wholesome Words

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