Emma Whittemore

Used to the glitz and glamour of the social scene in late 19^th century New York City, Emma Whittemore had it all.  With her husband Sidney, she enjoyed all that wealth had to offer.

One day, a friend persuaded her to attend a meeting to hear an evangelist at the local YMCA.  Unbeknownst to her, a separate friend had persuaded her husband to attend the same meeting.  Both were deeply convicted by the message, and both went forward to, in her words, make “firm resolutions to live a different life.”  They then returned home to pray and determine what that commitment meant.

Emma’s friend called on her again to see if she would be willing to accompany her to hear a man named Jerry McAuley.  Jerry, an ex-con and reformed alcoholic, had opened the nation’s first mission to the homeless, Water Street Mission.  They first resisted, but then agreed to go, “just this once.”  Emma spoke often of that first evening at the mission.  They heard cursing, saw fighting in the open, and saw clawing women dragged away to the police station.  The sights, sounds, and smells were something her refined self had never experienced. 

Walking into the meeting, Emma and Sidney whispered condescending words to each other about the people they were gathered with.  Their haughty attitude changed, however, when Jerry finished preaching and opened the floor for testimonies.  One after another, slum tenants stood up and praised God for deliverance from addiction, strength amidst temptation, and daily deliverance from sin. 

Astonished, both Emma and Sidney’s hearts sank in shame at the thought of their own pride.  They noticed a genuineness among the people – truly transformed lives – and not the veneer they knew they possessed.  Emma later wrote of her life prior to this meeting as a “useless life.”  Sidney stood weeping, covering his face with his hands in shame, and asked for prayer.  Jerry called him up to the front, and Emma followed.  Spontaneously, a group surrounded them, as Emma later wrote, “a drunkard, a thief, and a tramp on my husband’s side, and on my side one or two poor women…” and the drunkard led them in prayer for the couple.

Emma wrote of that night, “From that night I date the giving up of a worldly life.”  Their “just this once” trip to the mission turned into the first of many visits.  Jerry’s wife Maria mentored Emma, showing her how to minister to poor women and how to give her testimony.  Emma’s heart broke for the horrors she saw among the street women but she continually prayed, asking God for strength to continue.  He provided it.

Emma opened her first home for fallen girls on October 25^th, 1890.  She gave it the name “Door of Hope.”  Emma felt God was leading her to trust in Him alone for provision, so she never held a fund-raiser and never voiced a need.  Day by day, sometimes hour by hour, God provided.  Funds came in, just in time, time after time to meet the needs of Door of Hope.

Within four years, Door of Hope had helped 325 girls.  Emma’s primary concern was always that they would know the power of Christ in their lives.  As she put it, she could take them out of the dens of vice, “but only Jesus can get the vice out of the girls.”  Her second goal was to turn these women into evangelists, active in their efforts to share with others.

Door of Hope went international.  When Emma died in 1931, there were at least 97 homes around the world, in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Africa, Japan, and China.  The great evangelist Wilbur Chapman said of her, “She has probably been instrumental in saving more fallen women than any other one person.”

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/emma-whittemore-and-door-of-hope-11630627.html

Gladys Aylward

Gladys Aylward

Born north of London in 1902, Gladys Aylward left school at the age of fourteen, working as a parlor maid in the homes of London’s wealthy class.  Raised in a Christian home, she nevertheless allowed herself to be taken in by the seduction of wealth via her work.

In her mid-twenties, she went to a revival meeting and recommitted her life to Christ.  She became very active in sharing her faith.  Learning about missions work in China, she felt very convicted to go.  Gladys was accepted to training with China Inland Mission in 1929, despite her lack of education.  She excelled in the practical work, but failed the classroom work – having a very tough time with the Chinese language.  Her classroom failures resulted in her being dropped from consideration for the organization.

Undeterred, she went back to work as a maid, planning to get all the expenses to pay for herself to go to China within three years and secured the patronage of a lady missionary already on the field.  Her frugality and prayers resulted in earning all she needed in less than a year.  Traveling by train through Siberian Russia into China, at a time of war between the two countries, the trip itself was fraught with adventure and danger, including being detained by Russian authorities and having to covertly enlist the aid of the British Consulate to smuggle her into China.

Her initial job was taking care of mules.  Her mentor had set up an inn and a mule stop for travelers.  The provided a place to sleep, food to eat, and care for the animals.  In this context, Gladys became very fluent in Chinese and used the opportunity to witness to many travelers, and won many to Faith.

After her mentor passed away, Gladys was offered a job by the Chinese government as a foot inspector.  The government of China had recently outlawed the practice of “foot-binding” – tightly binding the feet of young girls to change the size and shape of their feet as they grew.  Gladys had the authority of the government to go into homes and check on the feet of these girls.  This opened many doors to many families who otherwise would have never in their lives met a Christian, let alone an evangelist.  The Gospel was shared hundreds of times in this context, and many more were won to faith.

In her time there, at one point the local leader instructed her to intervene in a prison riot.  At 4’ 10” tall she was hardly an imposing figure, but the leader had heard her speak that a Christian had nothing to fear and directed her to walk into the prison and stop the riot.  Stepping in the midst of the angry mob she shouted, “I cannot hear when everyone is shouting at once!  Choose someone to be your spokesman and send him to me!”  The designated person told her of overcrowding, lack of food, and a hopelessness among the inmates.  Gladys promised to advocate for reforms and oversaw changes that brought in regular food.  She arranged for looms and a grindstone for grain so that the prisoners could be productive and useful in their incarceration.

In 1936, she saw a woman and a young girl begging by the road.  The young girl had sores and was obviously malnourished.  Speaking to them, she became certain that the child did not belong to the woman but was there as a ‘prop’ to aid in begging.  Gladys purchased the child for a small amount of money – this child becoming the first of over 100 children rescued by Gladys in the next two years.

In the Spring of 1938, Japanese bombs began to fall on the city.  She initially tried to stay but as the fighting got closer to the city, Gladys knew she had to leave with her children.  The Japanese had blocked the main roads leading into and out of the city, so she had to take her over 100 children over treacherous mountain paths.  Their food ran out, but that 12-day journey was rife with God’s blessings.  One night, a Buddhist priest hid them in his temple while they slept.  Another night, a group of Chinese soldiers came across them – providing them with food and guarding them while they slept the night.

Gladys had hoped to find boats waiting to help them cross the Yellow River, but when they arrived all the boats were gone.  Broken, Gladys broke down and wept until some of the children approached her and asked why they couldn’t ask God to part the sea for them as He did for the Israelites.  Admonished, Gladys called the children to her and they prayed and sang hymns.  Hearing the music, a Chinese officer found his way to them and was able to arrange for some military boats to transport them across the river to safety.  When the children had reached the safe haven, Gladys collapsed.  Taken into medical care, it was discovered she had Typhus. 

Gladys Aylward took many months to recover.  Greatly weakened, she was flown back to London where she took many opportunities to speak about the need for the Gospel in China.  After the war, she returned to China.

When the Communists took over and expelled Christian missionaries, Gladys moved to Taiwan and established in orphanage, taking in abandoned children.  She died in 1970 and is buried in Taipei.

The story of Gladys Aylward is captivating, and it was while she was still alive.  In 1957, a biography about her was published, entitled The Small Woman.  The book became the impetus for a 1958 movie called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness starring Ingrid Bergman in Gladys’ role.  When Newsweek magazine reviewed the movie and summarized the plot a reader wrote in, believing the story to be fiction, to say, “In order for a movie to be good, the story should be believable!”

Gladys Aylward appeared to be an unlikely candidate for mission work, but God chose her and gave her great determination to do the work.

 

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/missionary-gladys-aylward

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/73.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Aylward

Monica

Saint Monica

Monica was a woman born in northern Africa around 332 AD, still in the days of the Roman Empire.  A Christian woman, she was married at a young age to a non-believing Roman official named Patricius.

Monica determined to set a Christian example for her husband.  Despite his raging temper and propensity to cheat, she prayed for him and for her three children: two sons and a daughter.  Patricius mocked her piety, but allowed her some freedom to attend church and give alms.  Over time, he grew to admire her virtues and became deeply affected by her genuine love for him.  When he grew ill at a relatively early age, Patricius came to faith just prior to his death in the year 370.  Patricius’ mother and two of Monica’s children came to faith shortly after.

Praying fervently for her remaining son, Augustine, Monica was known to weep over his soul.  She later recounted the counsel of one church leader who told her, “the child of those tears shall never perish.”  Augustine chased the trappings of the world and traveled to Carthage to study Rhetoric – the art of public speaking and persuasion.  Enmeshed in Greek Philosophy and captivated by the ‘rock star’ status of a successful Rhetorician, Augustine met a woman with whom he lived and even had a child by that woman, despite Monica’s warnings against fornication.

Taking a teaching post in Rome Augustine moved there, and eventually moved from there to Milan.  He couldn’t outrun Monica though, either her prayers or her physical presence.  In Milan, Monica met the great church father Bishop Ambrose who joined Monica in praying for her son.  Monica’s persistence wore her son down, and he agreed to go with her to church to hear Ambrose – hoping that the famed Bishop could teach him a trick or two of oratory.

Augustine was unimpressed with Ambrose’s skills in rhetoric, but in talking to him was stricken by the deep convictions of Ambrose.  Around the year 387, at the age of 33, Augustine came to faith and was personally baptized by Ambrose.

The two made the decision to travel back to Carthage.  En route, Monica fell ill passed away outside of Rome.  Augustine’s grief over the loss of his mother prompted him to write his autobiography ‘Confessions.’  In that book, he records some of Monica’s last words to him: “Son, for my own part I have no further delight in any thing in this life.  What I do here any longer, and why I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are accomplished.  There was one thing for which I desired to linger for a while in this life, that I might see you as a Christian before I died.  My God has done this for me more abundantly, that I should now see you…become His servant.”

The Catholic Church holds Monica in high esteem, considering her the Patron Saint of homemakers, married women, mothers, abuse victims, alcoholics, and widows.  We hold her in high esteem as a diligent Christian woman, a warrior in prayer, and the mother of one of the great theologians of the early church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monica

https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/st-monica-mother-of-st-augustine-august-27/

Calvary Covers It All

 

Walter Taylor – Calvary Covers It All

Born in 1865 in Pittsburgh, Walter Taylor was an ideal student.  He got great grades and had a great reputation.  However, there was a darker side to him: as a youth, Walter ran with a gang.  As a youth, he habitually broke into rail cars, stole from street vendors, and seemed to love to cause havoc.  He was very adept at avoiding getting caught.

As a young man, his overriding interest was making money.  Walter, nobody knowing about his darker side, got a teaching credential.  He moved from teaching to contractor work, to auditing, and back to teaching again – always chasing the jobs that paid more money.  Eventually, as a young man in his early 30s, he became an executive in a Chicago-based pharmaceutical company and later became one of three men who entered into an agreement to buy the business.

With his life looking up, tragedy struck Walter in 1896.  His young wife struck ill and died.  She was a godly woman, a partner who begged him to come to faith – something he snidely mocked her for.  She asked to have women over for prayer meeting – another thing he stubbornly refused.  At her funeral, when all others had gone, he was alone in his room.  Remembering all the vile things he said about her faith, all the complaints he gave her about her faith, he fell to his knees.  In his heart, he realized that she was in Heaven and that if it had been him in the coffin, that he would not have gone to Heaven.  On his knees in his own room, he came to faith.

Taylor wanted very much to serve his Lord.  He prayed that God would extract him from his pharmaceutical company contract.  Not long after, his two partners asked if they could buy him out of his part of the partnership – something he readily agreed to.  Feed from the financial burden, he threw himself into Christian work at the Y.M.C.A.  He then attended Moody Bible Institute while volunteering at Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission to the homeless.  It was at the mission where he was set to sing a gospel song and he asked if there was a pianist who could accompany him.  A woman named Ethel, visiting for Christian work from Cleveland, stepped forward.  She played the piano and accompanied him vocally – and their voices meshed beautifully together.  In 1898, they were married.

Walter took his bride to a mission in Colorado, ministering to coal miners and rail workers.  After that, he accepted a position in Montreal.  While both ministries were fruitful, he later acknowledged that he was, in fact, running from God’s true calling of him to minister to the homeless.  He resisted because he remembered working in Chicago’s Mission, and specifically remembered catching lice from a man he had put his arm around.  He finally surrendered to God’s call when the Pacific Garden Mission called him back to lead the ministry.  Walter and Ethel, known affectionately as ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ Taylor, expanded God’s Kingdom among the most beat-up people in society.

It was during their tenure there that Ethel noticed a man in the service.  He was called “Happy Mac” – an alcoholic and a former dancer.  She and Walter had shared the Gospel with him many times and, despite his reluctance, he kept coming back.  This time, however, was very different.  She could see him intently listening to the words of the sermon – and could see that he was clearly troubled.  Catching up with him afterward, she asked him how he was doing.  “Mac” broke down, grieving his sin, saying “You don’t know how bad I am.  I can’t be saved, I’m just too bad.”

Ethel, remembering the words a guest speaker had used recently, told him, “Mac, Calvary covers it all!  All the sin of your past life, Calvary covers it all!”  “Mac” asked her to repeat it and she did.  God used those words to bring “Mac” – later to become the great evangelist Walter MacDonald – to faith.

Reflecting on “Mac’s” conversion, Ethel later went alone into the mission worship center, sat at the piano, and wrote the words to the great hymn, ‘Calvary Covers It All’:

Far dearer than all that the world can impart; Was the message that came into my heart;

How that Jesus alone for my sin did atone; And Calvary covers it all.

Calvary covers it all.  My past with its sin and stain;

My guilt and despair Jesus took on Him there,

And Calvary covers it all.

The stripes that He bore and the thorns that He wore; Told his mercy and love evermore;

How my heart bowed in shame as I called on His name, And Calvary covers it all.

How matchless the grace, when I looked on His face; Of this Jesus my crucified Lord;

My redemption complete I then found at His feet, And Calvary covers it all.

How blessed the thought, that my soul by Him bought, Shall be His in the glory on High;

Where with gladness and song I’ll be one of the throng, And Calvary covers it all.

Christian History e-mail: 09/03/2021

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/it-happened-today/9/3

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/walter-grand-taylor-converted-in-his-room-11630646.html

https://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=JYYudWCKwuc%3D&tabid=367&mid=1190

https://www.rmjc.org/node/603

https://baptistbiblebelievers.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=0zvVEqYzU4Q%3d&tabid=229&mid=745

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cameron Townsend

Cameron Townsend

William Cameron Townsend was born into a Christian family in Southern California in 1896, the fifth of six children.  He enrolled in college after High School and, during his junior year, 1917, a missionary from an organization called the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) spoke to the class, challenging them to give their lives to the ministry of evangelism.  Cameron spoke with the missionary and committed himself to the cause of SVM.

Cameron had previously enlisted in the California National Guard to serve his country in World War I.  He applied for, and surprisingly received, a discharge to instead go onto the mission field in Guatemala.  He committed to sell Spanish-language Bibles there for a year.  Nearing the end of his year-long commitment, Cameron was approached by a native Cakchiquel Indian asking him what he was selling.  He explained that it was the Bible, and it was God’s Word to him.  The man flipped through the book, then condescendingly asked, “If your God is so smart, then why doesn’t he speak my language?”  Learning more about these natives, Cameron was astonished to find that they were a group of about 200,000 people on the margins of Mexican society, many of whom spoke no Spanish at all.

The man’s remark impacted Cameron so much that he ended up remaining in Guatemala an additional 13 years, devoting that time to translating the Bible into the Cakchiquel language.  To do so, he had to invent an alphabet and a system for writing, and commit time to education of the people.  When his mission organization chided him for spending so much time in translation and less time in evangelism, he wrote back, “The greatest missionary in the Bible in the mother tongue.  It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.”  He focused not just on the linguistic needs of the natives, but arranged with other mission groups for medical and vocational assistance as well.

Understanding that the Cakchiquel Indians were but one of thousands of unreached people groups, Cameron sought to expand his vision.  He returned to the United States in 1934 and founded an organization called the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).  SIL’s focus was technically on preserving linguistics of indigenous cultures – preserving oral traditions and history in the native tongue – and in literacy education.  This secular emphasis opened doors for missionaries in many closed countries.  Partnering with SIL was Townsend’s other organization, Wycliffe Bible Translators, whose purpose is decidedly spiritual: Bible translation and missionary activities.  Providing logistical and technical support to both organizations was yet another organization, the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS).

Today, the services of SIL International remain true to the intention of “Uncle Cam” in providing literacy services worldwide.  SIL is the most extensive linguistic operation in the world – currently involved in 1,341 communities in 98 countries and impacting nearly a billion people, per their website at the time of this writing.

Nearly a century after the finishing of that Cakchiquel Bible, Wycliffe Bible Translators have translated the full Bible in more than 550 languages, the New Testament in over 1,300 languages.  They estimate that about 1,800 languages still need a Bible translation to begin.

Cameron Townsend introduced the idea of “people groups” and “heart language” into the modern study of missions.  “Uncle Cam” once said, “The greater need is where the greatest darkness is.  Our orders are to forget self and to give our lives in service for the Master.”  His vision has guided nearly a hundred years of missionaries.  When he passed away in 1982, he was lauded as one of the three most impactful missionaries of the 20^th century.

docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/33c277_a5294400facb93dcd183b3ed1d3e46fb.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cameron_Townsend

https://www.wycliffe.org/blog/featured/a-man-with-a-vision

https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/william-cameron-uncle-cam-townsend-4453/

https://www.thetravelingteam.org/articles/william-cameron-townsend

https://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/townsend.htm

https://www.sil.org/

Saint Lawrence

Saint Lawrence

Lawrence, martyred in the third century, is one of the more recognized ‘saints’ of the Roman Catholic Church.  A staunch believer and a personal friend of Pope Sixtus II, he was asked in the year 257, at age 32, to be one of the seven Deacons in Rome.  In his case, it was a great position of trust which included care and maintenance of the treasury of the church and distribution of alms to the poor.

A year after he was appointed, the Roman Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all leaders in the church should be put to death and all church properties and wealth seized.  In the middle of Church services, Pope Sixtus was seized and immediately put to death.  Lawrence was arrested and, the Prefect of Rome knowing Lawrence knew the details of the church’s wealth, offered Lawrence his freedom if he would present the full wealth of the church to him.  Lawrence replied, “I need three days to gather the wealth of the church, the church is very rich.”  The Prefect agreed and freed Lawrence.

According to Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Lawrence spent the time arranging for the security of vital church documents and distributing the full wealth of the church to the poor and indigent.  On the third day, he appeared before the Prefect and invited him outside to see the riches of the Church.  Eagerly following him, the Prefect was astonished to see not gold, but an assembly of the blind, the lame, and the sick.  “Here are the true treasures of the church,” Lawrence told him, “In these vessels of clay reside the treasure of God, the Holy Spirit.  You see, the church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor!”

Furious, the Prefect ordered the preparation of a great gridiron, a large metal grate on which the prisoner would be chained and slowly roasted alive over hot coals.  His intention was for Lawrence to suffer slowly before dying.  Many sources report that, as he was being tortured, he defiantly shouted to his persecutors, “I am cooked on that side, you might want to turn me over!”

Many conversions to the Faith followed his execution, including a number of Roman Senators who witnessed the execution.

Christian History e-mail, 10 August 2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lawrence

https://www.britannica.com/topic/martyr

 

 

 

Francisco Penzotti

Francisco Penzotti was born in Italy in 1851, and emigrated with family to Uruguay when he was 13 years of age.  He became a carpenter and at age 19 married a Spanish immigrant named Josefa Joaquina Segastibelza.  When they wed, the local Catholic priest insisted on a large fee in gold to perform the ceremony.  They scrounged up the money, but soured on the church because of it.

Soon after they wed, the couple was on their way to a dance when a Bible distributor from the American Bible Society offered Francisco a copy of the Gospel of John and invited him to a Methodist meeting.  Though the Roman Catholic Church issued strong warnings against attendance at such meetings, Francisco and Josefa went and were eventually led to Christ.  He later said that the thing which impressed him most about these meetings was their eagerness to study the Scripture.

After conversion, the persecution began.  Arsonists burned down Francisco’s carpentry shop.  He took this as a sign from God to go full-time into Bible distribution and received backing from the American Bible Society.  He traveled around South America visiting Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Chile, and Peru establishing mission posts and distributing the Scriptures.  He ended up settling in the Peruvian seaport city of Callao where he found the fields ‘ripe for harvest’ and his little church grew wildly.

At the late 1880s, Article IV of the Peruvian constitution forbade the public exercise of non-Catholic religious observances.  Bible sales were legal, but discouraged and, as a result, most Peruvians were ignorant of the teachings of Scripture.  Penzotti sold Bibles and held private meetings to expound the Word of God.  His meeting houses overflowed and he had to rent larger and larger meeting places – raising the ire of local Catholic priests.  At times, objects were thrown into his meetings and even the occasional rifle shot to intimidate the congregants.

On July 26^th, 1890, Peruvian officials arrested Francisco Penzotti while he was eating breakfast for violating Article IV of the Peruvian constitution.  He was forcibly marched to prison at bayonet point.  He was housed in a filthy prison with hardened convicts and his health was nearly broken.  However, he won a number of his fellow inmates to Christ.  The church, with well-trained leaders, prospered even more in Francisco’s absence.

The President of Peru intervened, and ordered Francisco’s release after about 8 months of confinement.  Persecution continued, however, with “Death to the Protestants” vandalizing the church doors and continued harassment.  He was jailed again.

This time, a picture of him behind bars was smuggled out of Peru and published in American and Italian papers, along with his story.  Francisco’s story caused public outrage in Italy, the United States, and Great Britain.  The American Secretary of State himself intervened with the government of Peru, demanding assurances that the safety of Protestant missionaries could be guaranteed.  This international pressure helped ease the persecution suffered by Peruvian Christians, as well as across South and Latin America.

Francisco Penzotti, the Italian-born man, is seen as the man who opened the door for Protestant missions in Peru, as well as much of South America.

Christian History e-mail 26 Jul 2021.

https://www.bu.edu/missiology/2020/02/28/penzotti-francisco-g-1851-1925/

https://www.umc.org/en/content/penzotti-francisco