DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT – WEDNESDAY WARRIOR! #40. ALL FOR CHRIST- C.T. Studd.

Over a hundred years ago, in February 1885, a group of young men set sail from England to become missionaries in China. They included graduates and ex-army officers and were known as the "Cambridge Seven" because they had felt called to the mission field after attending meetings at that University. The leading member of the group was Charles T Studd, the son of a wealthy indigo- planter who had retired from India to a large country house at Tidworth in Wiltshire. His father had been converted in 1877 when a friend took him to hear D. L. Moody preaching in London and he immediately gave up his pastimes of racing and hunting, and used his home for evangelistic meetings until his death two years later.

Charles and two of his brothers, Kynaston and George, were all at Eton when their father was converted and they were far from pleased by his efforts to interest them in the gospel. However, unknown to each other, all three were also converted when a visiting preacher went to stay with the Studd family during the summer holidays of 1878. The three brothers excelled at cricket both at Eton and later at Cambridge where they achieved a remarkable record of each captaining the cricket team in successive seasons from 1882 to 1884. The exceptional skills shown by Charles gained him a place in the England team in 1882 which lost the match to Australia which originated the tradition of the "Ashes" between the two countries.

The following winter he toured Australia with the England team that recovered the trophy but in 1884 his brother George was taken seriously ill and Charles was confronted by the question, "What is all the fame and flattery worth ...... when a man comes to face eternity?" He had to admit that since his conversion six years earlier he had been in "an unhappy backslidden state." As a result of the experience he stated, "I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worth while living for the world to come."

From then onwards Charles began witnessing to his friends and fellow players and helping his brother Kynaston who had started organising missions amongst students. Soon he had the joy of leading others to the Lord and he prayed for power to be more effective in proclaiming the gospel. Through the promise contained in Acts 1:8, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me....unto the uttermost part of the earth," he realised that his own zeal and energy were not sufficient and that he had to rely entirely upon God.

Up until that time he had felt content to witness amongst his own associates but after hearing a missionary speaking about the need for workers in China. Charles was increasingly burdened and convicted by verses such as "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Psalm 2:8). Although his friends and relatives tried to dissuade him, Charles knew he was being called to the mission field and he sought an interview with Hudson Taylor, the director of the China Inland Mission and was accepted as an associate member.

Studd's decision was followed by six others within a few weeks and as they prepared for the mission field, members of the "Cambridge Seven" spoke at meetings up and down the country with remarkable results. In addition to numerous conversions a great wave of missionary zeal swept through the students of Edinburgh, London, Oxford and Cambridge which was to have profound effects throughout the world in later years.For C. T Studd those future years were to see him giving away his family inheritance to help the work of George Muller, D. L. Moody, Dr. Barnardo and others and spending ten years in China where he suffered great hardships to reach remote areas where the gospel had never been heard before.

On returning to England he was invited to visit America where his brother Kynaston had recently arranged meetings which had led to the formation of the Student Volunteer movement. During this tour he experienced powerful blessing upon his ministry and the spiritual life in many colleges, churches and other bodies was radically transformed.

From 1900-1906 Studd was pastor of a church at Ootacamund in South India and although it was a different situation to the pioneer missionary work in China, his ministry was marked by numerous conversions amongst the British officials and the local community.

However, on his return home Studd became concerned about the large parts of Africa that had never been reached with the Gospel and in 1910 he went to the Sudan and was convicted by the lack of Christian witness in central Africa. Out of this concern Studd was led to set up the Heart of Africa Mission and when challenged as to why he was preparing for a life of inevitable hardship he replied, "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."

On his first venture into the Belgian Congo in 1913, Studd established four mission stations in an area inhabited by eight different tribes. Then a serious illness to his wife required his return to England, but when he returned to the Congo in 1916 she had recovered sufficiently to undertake the expansion of the mission into the World Evangelism Crusade with workers in south America, central Asia and the middle East as well as Africa. Supported by his wife's work of home, Studd built up an extensive missionary outreach based on his centre at Ibambi and although she made a short visit to the Congo in 1928 that was the only time they met again since she died in the following year.

Two years later, still labouring for the Lord at Ibambi at the age of seventy, Charles Studd died, but his vision for China, India and Africa had expanded to reach the whole unevangelised world.

Loving Father, help me by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be a warrior like C.T. Studd. I ask all of this in the mighty and wonderful name of Jesus, for His glory, and for the extension of His Kingdom. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT TUESDAY - CLASSIC TESTIMONIES… Too Late Warning for Irene Ferrel!

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. – Revelation 12:11.

We fear the beating of the drum for classes is inciting the Jeunesse." Nkedi, the Congolese director of the Baptist primary school in Mangungu, spoke with concern. The Jeunesse ("youth") were rebels, notorious for massacres and tortures. They had forced all the village schools to close. Beating a drum (the Congo school bell) was a daily reminder to the terrorists that the mission school was still operating. This spelled danger, for the Marxist guerrillas considered Christianity their most formidable competitor.

Standing in shade in front of their house, missionaries Irene Ferrel and Ruth Hege listened with sympathy as teachers agreed with Nkedi that the school should be closed for a couple weeks until the threat passed. As they talked, the whir of an airplane was heard.

"Avion! Avion! Avion!" shouted the Africans. Excitement was high because airplanes are the lifeline of many remote mission stations. All ran together as the pilot flung out something that trailed a white bandage. It fell into nearby bushes. Attached was a note.

Opening the letter with trembling fingers, Irene read, "Are you in trouble? All missionaries have been evacuated from Mukedi. Kandala Station burned and missionaries evacuated." The note asked them to signal their intentions. "If you want to be evacuated, sit on the ground. We will send a helicopter for you." The red and white plane circled back to get their response. There was no time to weigh options. "Lord, lead us," they gasped. They did not want to abandon the African Christians, and yet, as the only two white women in the region, they stuck out as targets, inviting attack.

Hand in hand, Irene and Ruth walked to the clearing and sat. The Cessena plane dipped a wing to show that their reply was understood and zipped away. It was three o'clock, on this day, January 24, 1964 in the Congo (Zaire).

There was no time to lose. No doubt the helicopter would be winging toward them within the hour. "We will be back," they promised their loyal Congolese friends, and hurried to wrap up final details, packing, paying workmen, hiding the car.

Evening brought no helicopter. Christians gathered for a farewell service. When the meeting broke up at midnight, pastor Luka said, "We will be right here. We are not going to our houses to sleep tonight...We want to be here to see the Avion come down."

Despite the war, the station had been so peaceful that even now Irene and Ruth found it hard to believe that they were in danger. Ruth went to bed. Suddenly the night air carried urgent cries, Luka and others shouting a warning. There was a sound of running feet.

Shrieks and the crash of broken glass plainly told that the Jeunesse had come. Ruth leaped up and jerked on her clothes. She rushed to Irene's room. What were they to do? The Jeunesse poured into the house, looting everything, even grabbing Ruth's shoes out of her hand. Shoving, pulling, shouting, the drug-crazed bandits dragged the two women fifty feet across the lawn. Ruth's skirt was ripped from her with such violence she was almost flung to the ground. She thanked God that she and Irene were still together.

An arrow hurtled toward them, plunging into Irene's throat. "I am finished," gasped Irene. She took one step and fell--Baptist Mid-Missions' only martyr of the twentieth century. Crying Irene's name, Ruth collapsed beside her and passed out, wounded by a blow.

Because Ruth was bloody and motionless, the Jeunesse thought she was dead. When they had left, she crawled to a hiding place and survived four days of threats and terror before her rescue by helicopter. She managed to tell the Jeunesse of Christ's love. Later, the rebels tortured Pastors Luka and Zechariah, who shielded her, but they escaped and hid in the forest.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes, and give all you have, to win the lost to Christ? Then like, Irene Ferrel and Ruth Hege, put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water, and dare to follow Jesus wherever He leads you?

Loving Father, I thank you for the lives of Irene Ferrel and Ruth Hege, and I pray that anyone reading this may be inspired by their testimony to give their life to you, and that you would use them in the same way, as you used Irene and Ruth. By the power of the Holy Spirit, help me to be a person of like faith, that I may bring glory to your name. In the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged.
GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT TUESDAY - CLASSICAL TESTIMONIES… Althea Brown.

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. – Revelation 12:11.

By way of encouragement, I would like to devote Tuesdays to classical testimonies which have brought great blessing and glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. These are of men and women, who have faithfully served for the Kingdom of God. My prayer is that you will be blessed, encouraged, and inspired by these testimonies as I was. Enjoy…

Althea Brown Edmiston (1874-1937), African American missionary to Africa, was the daughter of Robert and Molly Suggs Brown of Russelville, Alabama. In 1876 the family moved to Rolling Fork, Mississippi. In the fall of 1892, she left Mississippi to study at Fisk University for the next nine years.

After graduating from Fisk, she applied to be a missionary in the American Presbyterian Congo Mission and left for Africa in August 1902. In the Congo, she was made mistress of the Maria Carey Home for Girls, a day school in Ibanche. She survived the destruction of the mission at Ibanche during the Bakuba uprisings in the Congo in 1904.

On this day, November 2, 1904, the missionaries at Ibanche station in The Congo (Zaire), trembled for their lives. After making strong "medicine" that was supposed to deflect bullets, King Lukenga ordered that the hearts of all traders and the heads of all missionaries be brought to him, and every dwelling of a white person burned. In issuing this order, he was acting in rebellion to the internationally recognized Congo government.

A runner brought a branch dripping red to Ibanche, and said it was the blood of a Christian killed by rebel arrows. Warriors were on the march, burning Christian villages as they advanced. By evening, fierce fighting surrounded the mission compound. Night fell. "None of us expected to see the rising of another sun. Every breath we took was a prayer for deliverance or of fitness to stand before the King [God]," wrote Althea Brown later.

Althea Brown was an African-American who had learned patient trust in her God. When, without linguistic training, she accomplished the amazing feat of preparing a Bakuba grammar, she had to wait twelve years before anyone would publish it!

An honors student and beloved teacher, she left her native United States in order to tell the Bantu about Christ. On either side of the Atlantic, she was an example of applied faith, loving others and making things better for everyone through determined effort. She had even made and sold fudge in college to cover her expenses! She acquired any skill necessary for success, whether to learn a language or sew a dress.

But her efforts seemed destined to end that night. "The hours until dawn seemed endless. Then we sang the doxology."

During the day, the fighting eased off. There was a second long night of fear, until, on the following day, a few Congolese soldiers, well-armed, but fearful of attack, escorted the women and children to a safer town. "There must have been five hundred of us. It was a pathetic sight. Small children four and five years old were walking and even bearing burdens. The native soldiers, fearing an attack along the road ordered us to march at full speed."

Fleeing to Luebo, she met and later married Reverend Alonzo L. Edmiston on July 8, 1905. They had two children Sherman Lucius Edmiston (b. 1906) and Alonzo Leaucourt Edmiston (b. 1913). The Edmistons made their home at the newly rebuilt village of Ibanche. In 1906 she returned to America because their child had become ill, her husband joined her a year later and they settled in Tuscaloosa, Alabama until 1911.

After raising enough money, they returned to Africa, but left their son in America. He too became ill, so she took him to America and left both children with relatives so that she could return to her mission work. They came back to America in 1920 to raise money for the mission and returned to Africa in 1921, taking their children with them. Althea Brown Edmiston wrote the first dictionary of the Bakuba language. She died in 1937 in Africa of sleeping sickness and malaria.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes and give your all to win the lost to Christ? Then like, Althea Brown, put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water, and dare to follow Jesus wherever He leads you?

Loving Father, I thank you for the life of Althea Brown, and I pray that anyone reading this may be inspired by her testimony to give their life to you, and that you would use them in the same way, as you used Althea. By the power of the Holy Spirit, help me to be a person of like faith, that I may bring glory to your name. In the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged.

GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT – THURSDAY THOUGHTS #6… SOW WITH TEARS.

When asked how much time he spent in prayer, George Muller's reply was, "Hours every day. But I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk and when I lie down and when I arise. And the answers are always coming." - Source Unknown.

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. - Psalm 126:5.

The following article is based on a sermon by missionary Del Tarr who served fourteen years in West Africa with another mission agency. His story points out the price some people pay to sow the seed of the gospel in hard soil.

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of Savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year's food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.

October and November...these are beautiful months. The granaries are full -- the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday's Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.

December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal. Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day. By February, the evening meal diminishes. The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don't stay well on half a meal a day. April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.

Then, inevitably, it happens. A six- or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. "Daddy! Daddy! We've got grain!" he shouts.

"Son, you know we haven't had grain for weeks."

"Yes, we have!" the boy insists. "Out in the hut where we keep the goats -- there's a leather sack hanging up on the wall -- I reached up and put my hand down in there -- Daddy, there's grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!"

The father stands motionless. "Son, we can't do that," he softly explains. "That's next year's seed grain. It's the only thing between us and starvation. We're waiting for the rains, and then we must use it."

The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt! Why? Because he believes in the harvest.

The seed is his; he owns it. He can do anything with it he wants. The act of sowing it hurts so much that he cries. But as the African pastors say when they preach on Psalm 126, "Brother and sisters, this is God's law of the harvest. Don't expect to rejoice later on unless you have been willing to sow in tears."

And I want to ask you: How much would it cost you to sow in tears? I don't mean just giving God something from your abundance, but finding a way to say, "I believe in the harvest, and therefore I will give what makes no sense. The world would call me unreasonable to do this -- but I must sow regardless, in order that I may someday celebrate with songs of joy."

Loving Father, Help me by the power of the Holy Spirit, to sow in tears, that I may reap in joy. I ask this in the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Be encouraged.
GBYAY