Missionary Stories

“You are a good man; we will not harm you.” Roger Williams was face to face with the fierce Native American warriors. There was fighting all around him, and the town was on fire. Roger was an old man now, and the Indians still respected him. Perhaps he was the only white man in the colonies that they trusted. This time, however, his peace-making efforts had been swept aside.

Roger Williams was a pioneer in politics, theology, church-planting, anthropology, and linguistics. He is best known as the governor of Rhode Island, the founder of the First Baptist Church in America, and an early advocate of religious liberty. He is less known for laying the groundwork for missions among the Native American tribes of New England.

Alexander Mackay was born in Scotland in 1849 and surrendered his heart to Christ as a young boy. Reports of David Livingstone, a fellow Scotsman and missionary in Africa, inspired young Mackay. He was interested in mechanics and building and went to engineering school, but he longed to serve God, too. In 1875, a letter published in the local paper spurred Mackay to action. The letter was written from Uganda by Henry Stanley: “King M’tesa has been asking me about the white man’s God… Oh that some practical missionary would come here…who can cure their diseases, build dwellings, and turn his hand to anything.”

The patient stirred. Dr. Wallace tried to soothe him in his Tennessee-accented Cantonese. The patient was waking from an abdominal surgery. They alone were left in the upper story of the Stout Memorial Hospital in Wuchow, China. Everyone else had taken refuge in the basement when the air raid alarm had sounded. The year was 1938, and the Japanese were invading China. Just then there was an explosion on the roof directly above them—and doctor and patient were thrown to the floor! Miraculously, neither were hurt.

Bill Wallace heard God’s call to be a medical missionary at seventeen years of age while tinkering in his garage one summer afternoon. For the next ten years, he did not cease to prepare himself until he was an excellent surgeon in the residency program at Knoxville, TN. At that time, Dr. Beddoe, administratorof the Southern Baptist mission hospital in Wuchow, China, sent a desperate plea to the mission board: “We must have a surgeon!” Bill Wallace sent in his application for missionary service the same month.

Nathan Brown, the oldest of five boys, was born on June 22, 1807, to devout Baptist parents. At age nine, he was convicted of his sinful condition after attending local revival meetings, trusted Christ as his Savior, and was subsequently baptized in a stream.

Brown graduated from Williams College at the top of his class and married Eliza Ballard on May 5, 1830. They moved to Brandon, Vermont, where he edited a religious newspaper. As he prepared to print letters from Adoniram Judson, the Lord burdened him and his wife for Burma. “What Christian,” he wrote, “can read the late appeals from Mr. Judson, and not feel a desire to go? I cannot think of staying back.” After seeking his pastor’s and parents’ advice, he resigned his job and entered Newton Theological Institution. He and Eliza sailed for Burma under the Baptist General Convention on December 22, 1832.

It was 1782, and George Leile didn’t see any other way: to escape slavery once more, he had to become another kind of slave. Years ago, his former master, Henry Sharp, had graciously freed Leile so that he could wholly pursue preaching the gospel in the Savannah area. But now that Sharp was dead, his family sought to re-enslave Leile. And so he struck a deal. To escape to Jamaica with his family, he would become the indentured servant of Colonel Kirkland.

Arriving in Jamaica in 1783, at the age of 33, Leile paid off his debt within a year and immediately set off to spread the gospel. The fiery preacher, who God had made so successful in Georgia, now had greater success than ever. He preached to the slaves and to the free; and with the help of some other immigrants, started Jamaica’s first black Baptist church. God’s hand was on his ministry, and within only a few years the church grew to over five hundred members! But such dedication to God often comes with a price, and his could have cost him his life.

“Picture a teenage girl in a school cafeteria…. She’s slouched in a chair popping bubble gum. The whole world passes her by, yet she doesn’t even notice. Why? Because she’s tuned in to that little thing in her hand—a cellphone. Most likely she’s texting, instant messaging her friends, or browsing Facebook. Picture a young man on a computer in an internet café somewhere in a third world country. Or how about a young college freshman browsing the web on a laptop? The new generation coming along is radically different from you and me. I’m a young man myself and can barely recognize or connect with this new generation. But what if we could present the gospel to each of these people through their medium of communication? ….We can!” (~Jared Rowe)

Fourteen-year old Attie Bostick sat in rapt attention, listening as her older brother, a missionary to China, preached on Mary anointing the feet of Christ with the most precious thing she had. “She hath done what she could.” Attie could not forget those words and years later would say, “That day God spoke to me, and said that I would not be doing all I could unless I was willing to go to China, too.”

Attie was born in 1875 (the sixteenth of seventeen children) on a rural farm in the foothills of North Carolina. Despite “the humbleness and crowded conditions of the home,” her parents “still found time to take in and entertain preachers and missionaries whenever they were in the vicinity.” This early contact influenced the hearts of three Bostick children toward missions.

Ellie sat on the rough church bench clutching a small paperback book in her hands. Her brilliant white smile revealed her excitement as she spoke to me in Melanesian Pidgin, the trade language of Papua New Guinea. “This story strengthens my heart!” she exclaimed. The irony of her simple words silenced me for a few minutes. Ellie and I had just finished reading two chapters in a Pidgin biography of George Müller—a man who had been born two hundred years ago on the other side of her world but whose story was still living.

Most American believers know Müller only as the man who, through prayer, supported hundreds of orphans in England. But for many, his story dies there and is set on a shelf as admirable but impossible to replicate. As materialism engulfs our culture, believers increasingly look to their modern “stuff” to fulfill their needs. However, if we seriously look at Müller’s principles for living in complete dependence upon God, his stories of answered prayer will light a blazing fire of faith in our hearts, just like they did for Ellie.

Solomon Ginsburg asked his father—a Jewish rabbi—this question when he was only thirteen. Despite being soundly slapped in the face, his interest in the prophesy of Isaiah 53 did not die. As a young man, Ginsburg left his native Poland for London, England. There, a fellow Jew found him on the street and explained Jesus as the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah. After reading the New Testament, Ginsburg trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior, but was promptly disowned and cursed by all his relatives. He bore it gladly, recalling that Christ had been made a curse for him. Even several assaults by orthodox Jews in London could not dissuade him from his new-found faith.

After Maude Cary heard of the heathen in Morocco, no physical or spiritual trial could deter her from joining the missionary work in North Africa. Just before her twenty-third birthday, Maude and four other co-workers embarked for Morocco with the promise to spend their life’s energies evangelizing the Muslims and Berbers. As they departed, they sang, Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go; Anywhere He leads me in this world below; Anywhere without Him dearest joys would fade; Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid. Surely there would be opposition and heartaches, but Maude thought only of exciting campaigns to bring the gospel to wild tribes!

“A missionary who truly wants to see the gospel flourish and spread on the foreign field will work toward the end of seeing nationals won to the Lord and trained for the ministry to reach their own people.”

That is exactly what Sonny and Beverly Fritz did. Theirs was the work of many hands—national hands—and most importantly, God’s hand. God had used a very short mission trip to Mexico to set a fire so great in Sonny’s heart that he would give his entire life to God’s work among the Mexican people. His wife followed with an identical zeal. In 1965, after only a year and a half of deputation, they took their few belongings and their daughters to a new life in Monterrey. Working closely with the Ashcraft family, Sonny eagerly began witnessing as soon as he could; Beverly and the girls threw themselves into the lives of the women and children around them. They were careful not to Americanize the people they won to the Lord. They immersed themselves in the language, the culture, and the lives of people with such fervor that one man remarked, “To us they are truly Mexican!”

The son of a wealthy British planter, C.T. Studd accepted Christ at the age of 16. He lived the next several years in selfish pleasure and fame. An outstanding cricket player, he became captain of his team his last year at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1882, Studd heard the preaching of Moody and began to be burdened for lost souls around him. However, it wasn’t until 1884, when his brother took seriously ill, that Studd was faced with the question, “What is all the fame and flattery worth … when a man comes to face eternity?” He made a decision and later wrote: “I knew that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come.”