I’ve always enjoyed true stories that illustrate the truth of the angel’s announcement to the shepherds on the night of Jesus Christ’s birth: “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). To follow is one of those stories.
Juan Pereda, 52nd President of Bolivia
In October 1978, Luis Palau, “the Billy Graham of Latin America,” conducted a three-week evangelism campaign in three major cities in Bolivia. A Presidential Prayer Breakfast was held with Bolivia’s new President, General Juan Pereda Asbun, twenty-five high ranking military officers, eight cabinet members, and many other leaders.
In Palau’s twenty-five-minute address, he read Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and outlined the positive national benefits that result from a country seeking and obeying the Lord. In response, President Pereda stood and reaffirmed the importance of setting “personal and national spiritual priorities.”
Afterward, in a private meeting with the President, Palau asked Pereda about the condition of his own soul. The evangelist shared the Gospel (good news) of forgiveness and salvation through faith in Christ and His atoning death on the cross. There in his presidential office, Pereda bowed his head and prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior.
During a press conference at a prestigious La Paz hotel that same week, Palau noticed when the eleven-year-old daughter of the hotel’s elevator operator slipped into the meeting room. As she stood quietly nearby the evangelist, he thought she might desire a copy of one of the books he had written. He picked up one of them, autographed it, and handed it to her, while saying with a smile, “The Lord bless you, sweetheart.”
Luis Palau in 1976 evangelism campaign
“Mr. Palau,” the young girl responded unexpectedly, “what I really wanted to ask you was how I could receive Jesus in my heart.” The previous evening she had watched the evangelist counsel people on national television. She had seen him lead a high school student to Christ and now desired to receive the Savior herself.
The press conference was brought to a hasty end and the newsmen were asked to leave. Palau then prayed with the girl as she received Jesus as her Savior. “Publicity is necessary and fine,” he commented afterward, “but the rest of their questions would have to wait until another time.” Quoting 2 Corinthians 6:2, he added: “Now is the day of salvation.”
180,000 people attended those three weeks of evangelistic meetings in Bolivia. More than 18,900 individuals made public decisions, committing their lives to Christ. Like President Pereda and the elevator operator’s daughter, those trusting in Jesus were of all ages and from all walks of life.
This Christmas season we exalt our Lord Jesus Christ for coming as the Savior for all people. If you have not yet done so, may God graciously draw you to believe and receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
December 8, 2024, marks the ninetieth anniversary of John and Betty Stam’s martyrdom at the hands of Communist rebels in China. The Stams were a beautiful young American missionary couple who wholeheartedly and courageously served Christ Jesus in both life and death.
Their shocking deaths stirred up countless Christians of their generation to serve the Lord with greater consecration and to actively, sacrificially play a part in advancing Christ’s kingdom at home and abroad. The Stams’ commendable example has continued to inspire and encourage believers down to the present time in their relationship with and service of Jesus.
John and Betty Stam gravestone in Wuhu, China
To follow are links to four earlier blog features I’ve written on the Stams. Three of these blogs explore some of the key lessons to be gained through John and Betty’s example. A fourth blog suggests a pair of highly recommended books to read on the Stams. Hopefully one or more of these blogs will catch your attention and whet your appetite to read and benefit from a particular aspect or a full account of John and Betty’s lives.
“Carefully Fulfilling Our Calling—John & Betty Stam” (10-31-14 blog): Their examples remind us of the importance and appropriateness of prayerfully seeking God’s guidance as to how He desires us to serve Him with our lives, then to carefully fulfill the ministries the Lord directs us to carry out.
“Having Water from God for Others—John Stam” (11-12-14 blog): John learned and modeled a vital lesson about the importance of cultivating a devotional relationship with God through His Word, the Bible, in order to strengthen one’s service of Him and others.
An outstanding new biography has just been released entitled By Life or By Death: The Life and Legacy of John and Betty Stam. The Stams were a young American missionary couple martyred by Communist rebels in China in December 1934. Their example continues to inspire and encourage Christians today.
This commendable biography is authored by Andrew Montonera, the great-grandson of Cornelius Stam, younger brother to missionary John Stam. The volume is published by Moody Publishers, just in time for the runup to the ninetieth anniversary of the Stams’ martyrdom this December 8.
Montonera presents the essential features of John and Betty’s lives and ministries in an engaging fashion. He relates: their Christian upbringing and conversions; their call to missionary service and budding romantic relationship while at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago; their brief missionary service and marriage in China; their unexpected martyrdom and the remarkable preservation of their newborn daughter; the significant ongoing impact of their abbreviated lives from the time of their deaths to the present day.
John and Betty Stam
The author researched his biography thoroughly, drawing primarily from a breadth of original sources as well as from the two earliest biographies written on the Stams in the years immediately following their deaths. This work contains a considerable amount of new material not included in earlier biographies about the Stams. That new material was drawn from a volume of Betty’s poems published after her death, the memoirs of John’s brother Cornelius, the archives of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and other sources.
Another attractive feature of Montonera’s book is a fine collection of photographs of John and Betty, their daughter Helen, and other family members, friends and associates. I had not previously seen a number of those photos, though I have spent considerable time in the past searching online for pictures of the Stams.
Helen Priscilla Stam – The Miracle Baby
The book’s final chapter, entitled ‘Legacy,’ includes testimonials of several well-known Christians whose lives were significantly impacted by the examples of John and Betty. Other beneficial aspects of this volume include: its carefully documented endnotes; a map of John and Betty’s locations in China; an appendix of John and Betty’s family members with their dates of birth and death; a thorough index of people, places and other matters referenced in the book.
Readers will also find the work to be of easily manageable length. The main body of the book, not including the helpful addendum materials at the end, is just 137 pages.
If you’ve never read a book about the Stams, this would be a great place to start. Even if you have read other books about them, I think you’ll appreciate and enjoy (as I did) this one with its new narrative materials and pictures.
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You may also enjoy reading my own biography John and Betty Stam, Missionary Martyrs (Christian Focus Publications). It contains a number of details and features of the Stams’ lives and ministries which are not included in Mr. Montonera’s excellent biography. I have also written several blogs on the Stams, which are posted on my writing website www.vancechristie.com. To access those blogs, just type “John and Betty Stam” in the website’s search box.
We hear a lot these days about professing Christian young people deconstructing their faith. The experiences of Adoniram Judson in turning away from, then coming to the Christian faith speak with relevance to those who are questioning their faith today.
Judson eventually became America’s first foreign missionary, serving for nearly forty years in Burma (modern Myanmar). However, as a young college student he rejected Christianity for a time. Here’s the dramatic true story of how God graciously led him through his unbelief to genuine faith in Christ.
Adoniram Judson 1811
Adoniram’s father was a conservative Christian minister who served a series of three Congregational churches in Massachusetts. Adoniram was an extremely intelligent boy who by age ten gained proficiency in both Greek and Latin. Barely one week after his sixteenth birthday in August 1804, Adoniram entered Rhode Island College in Providence (soon thereafter renamed Brown University).
Adoniram’s scholarship and outward conduct were highly commendable. But he had not yet been spiritually regenerated (born again) and manifested little interest in spiritual matters. In addition, he soon fell under the influence of one Jacob Eames of Belfast, Maine, an upper classman at Brown.
Eames was intelligent, talented, witty, and amiable, but a confirmed Deist. Deism was a popular, rationalistic belief system in that era. It taught that a Supreme Being had originally created the universe, but after that was totally uninvolved with the universe or humankind. Owing to similar tastes and sympathies, Adoniram and Jacob quickly became fast friends, and before long Judson joined Eames in his disbelief of Christianity.
Adoniram Judson in middle age
After graduating from Brown, Adoniram taught school for eleven months in Plymouth, where his family was then living. But he wanted to see more of the world and to make much more of his life. He also felt shackled and like a hypocrite living in his parents’ home and attending their church, never having revealed to them the change of religious beliefs he had come to have while in college.
Consequently, on his twentieth birthday, he abruptly left his teaching position and announced his intention to travel for a time. When his father pressed him for an explanation of that sudden change of course, Adoniram was forced to divulge his newly held beliefs.
His father responded with accusations of irresponsibility and ingratitude as well as warnings against rushing to his own destruction. His mother responded with tears and pleading. After enduring a week of domestic anguish, Adoniram mounted a horse and rode westward out of town.
Making his way to New York City, he joined a small traveling theatrical troupe. “We lived a reckless, vagabond life,” Adoniram later confessed, “finding lodgings where we could, and bilking the landlord where we found opportunity – running up a score, and then decamping without paying the reckoning.” He soon grew tired and disillusioned with such a lifestyle and left it without notice one night.
Continuing his journey on horseback, he stopped at a country inn where the proprietor, while showing him to his room, stated apologetically: “I have been obliged to place you next door to a young man who is exceedingly ill, probably in a dying state. I hope that will occasion you no uneasiness.”
Adoniram assured him it would not, but it proved to be a very restless night. What really disturbed him was the landlord’s statement that the young stranger was in a dying state. “Is he prepared?” Adoniram kept wondering. “Is he a strong Christian, calmly anticipating glorious immortality, or an unbeliever shuddering on the brink of a dark, unknown eternity?” Entirely against his will, Adoniram could not help but imagine himself on that deathbed facing eternity.
He felt himself blush with shame, for these questions exposed the shallowness of the beliefs he had come to profess in recent years. He further wondered what the clear-thinking, intellectual Jacob Eames would say about his immature perspectives.
When at last morning came and sunlight flooded his room, dispelling all his “superstitious illusions,” he felt much better. As soon as he was dressed, he sought out the innkeeper and asked about his fellow lodger. “He is dead,” came the sober reply.
“Dead!” Adoniram exclaimed.
“Yes, he is gone, poor fellow. The doctor said he would probably not survive the night.”
“Do you know who he was?” Adoniram asked further.
“O yes. It was a young man from Providence College, a very fine fellow. His name was Eames, Jacob Eames.”
Adoniram was so thoroughly stunned, several hours passed before he attempted to resume his journey. As he set out again, one thought filled his dazed mind: “Dead! Lost! Lost!” He knew if Jacob was mistaken about his beliefs, then those words applied irrevocably to him.
In a state of despair Adoniram decided to abandon his travel plans. He needed to find resolution to these matters that had been brought so forcefully to his attention. He arrived back in Plymouth five and a half weeks after having left there.
A few days after his return, two notable clergymen visited the Judson home. Both had recently agreed to serve as professors at a new theological seminary being established in the small town of Andover, some twenty-five miles northwest of Boston. When they learned of Adoniram’s crisis of faith, they suggested he consider enrolling in the seminary as a sound setting in which to pursue further study and sort out his personal beliefs.
At first Adoniram declined that suggestion, opting instead to take a teaching position at a private academy in Boston. But he had no sooner started there, when a book came into his hands which again confronted him with issues of eternal import. Knowing he must settle those in his own mind and heart, he promptly resigned his new teaching position and entered the Theological Institution at Andover. Because he was not a ministerial candidate or even a professing Christian, he was admitted simply as a special student.
Adoniram’s professors at the seminary were used of the Lord to help guide him through his spiritual perplexities. His doubts concerning the Christian faith soon evaporated. By that November of 1808, he “began to entertain a hope of having received the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit,” and the following month he “made a solemn dedication of himself to God.”
Francis Wayland, Adoniram’s official biographer after his death in 1850, testified of his Christian conversion: “He was prayerful, reflective, and studious of proofs. And gradually faith, trust in God, and finally a hope through the merits of Christ, took possession of his soul, he scarcely knew how. And from the moment that he fully believed, I think he never doubted.”
Please permit a few closing thoughts intended for anyone reading this blog who is thinking of turning from the Christian faith: First of all, people do well to beware of the Jacob Eameses of life who seem so persuasive in opposing Christianity and in promoting some other belief system (or complete unbelief!) in place of Christianity. As happened with Deism in the past, so a hundred years or less from now, many of the most popular belief systems of our day will have fallen out of favor and been rejected. Yet true biblical Christianity will still be alive and well, or perhaps will have already been proven indubitably true by Christ’s return and the establishment of His Kingdom!
Secondly, please don’t ignore the necessity of addressing eternal realities. Many belief systems seek to provide people with a coherent understanding of life in this world, also with guidance and support to get through this life. But most belief (or unbelief) systems have little to say about life in the hereafter following our brief life on Earth. What those non-Christian belief systems say about the hereafter tends to be rather vague and not at all assuring. True biblical Christianity provides the clearest understanding, the strongest support, and the greatest assurance to get through this life and to prepare for eternity. We put ourselves at peril in this temporal earthly life and in the eternal life to come if we ignore the Bible’s Christian truths.
Thirdly, I encourage you to give true biblical Christianity a fair hearing. Many, many individuals who encourage people to deconstruct their Christian faith engage in all types of inaccurate and unfair characterizations of biblical Christian teaching. Those critics sound compelling and convincing if you listen only to them. But if people will read for themselves, as objectively and unbiasedly as possible, what Christ and His Apostles actually taught in the New Testament Scriptures, many of their questions and objections will be readily answered.
For the stubborn, tough questions that remain, those too can be addressed satisfactorily with the help of committed Christians who have studied those issues carefully, and who address them thoughtfully in their speaking ministries and/or writings. When people genuinely seek God’s truth as it has been revealed in His Word, the Bible, He helps them to discover and understand it. Conversely, when individuals automatically criticize and reject His truth, He conceals it from them.
For a trustworthy, thorough treatment of the issue of people deconstructing their faith, I highly recommend Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett’s excellent book The Deconstruction of Christianity(Tyndale, 2023). My biography Adoniram Judson: Devoted for Life(Christian Focus, 2013) provides a full account of his inspiring life and ministry.
We’re nearing the official launch on September 10 of my new youth biography, David Livingstone: Africa’s Greatest Explorer. The book is already available for pre-ordering from the publisher Christian Focus Publications, Christianbooks.com, Amazon, and other booksellers.
Here are a dozen succinct reasons (enumerated below as R1-R12) for young people to read this biography on their own or with their parents. The book is written for youth ages 9-14, but older teens and adults are sure to enjoy and benefit from it as well.
R1. To become acquainted with one of the most outstanding missionaries ever to serve the Lord Jesus. David Livingstone is probably the premiere Christian missionary to Africa. He helped to bring about greater good for more Africans than likely any other person of his generation.
R2. To gain a good overview of the highlights of David’s remarkable life in an abbreviated account that is engaging, well-paced and easily understood. A timeline of David’s life and a map of his African travels provide further help in following the story of his life and ministry.
Cotton Mill where Livingstone worked as a boy
R3. To be encouraged by David’s example in overcoming tremendous challenges in his boyhood. He was raised in a loving but poor family. Starting at age ten, he needed to work twelve hours a day, six days a week to help support his family. In order to get his education, he attended evening classes, then did his school homework late into the night.
R4. To find out how David was led to become a Christian after several years of spiritual struggle and resistance. To discover how he decided to be a medical missionary. To learn how God redirected his steps to serve as a missionary in Africa when initially he planned to go to China. David’s experiences relate to questions not a few kids have about becoming a Christian and serving the Lord with their lives.
David Livingstone and Africans attacked by a hippopotamus
R5. To enjoy reading about David’s many adventures throughout his thirty-two years of service in Africa. On numerous occasions he encountered hostile tribesmen and threatening wild animals such as lions, rhinos, and hippos. He often faced difficult and dangerous travel conditions on land, by rivers, and at sea. Great courage was needed to face those dangers.
R6. To observe how David overcame many other difficulties and discouragements as well. He often experienced: serious illnesses; long periods of separation from his wife and children; lack of food and other necessary provisions; unreliable servants who stole from him and refused to help him; receiving little or no interest from the Africans with whom he tried to share the Bible’s teachings. He needed to exercise exceptional patience, perseverance, and trust in God to get through these additional hardships. His example has much to teach us about facing our own trials in life.
Victoria Falls discovered by Livingstone
R7. To venture with David in his many important geographical explorations and discoveries. He journeyed through parts of southern Africa where no white man had ever been. He became the first European to discover a number of significant lakes, rivers, and other outstanding geographical features in southcentral Africa. His explorations and discoveries gave Europe and America a completely revised understanding of the people groups, geography, plants, animals, climate, natural resources, and other aspects of that part of the African continent.
R8. To see how David opposed the tragic slave trade in southern Africa and sought to bring it to an end by introducing Christianity, lawful commerce and other civilizing influences to the African tribes. More than any other person, David drew the attention of all Britain to the monstrous evils of the slave trade and stirred up the determination of the British public and Government to put a stop to it. The story of exactly when and how that was finally accomplished is quite amazing.
David Livingstone teaching Africans
R9. To discover that David’s top priority throughout his decades of service in Africa was to help bring God’s Word and the Christian Gospel to tribes which had never even heard of the Bible and the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. While David served in various important capacities for the good of Africa, he always viewed himself first and foremost as a Christian missionary.
R10. To profit from the book’s “Thinking Further Topics,” which help point out some of the spiritual principles and other practical life lessons to be gained from each chapter. These can be contemplated by individual readers or discussed by families reading the book together.
R11. To become acquainted with (or to be reminded of) the tremendous spiritual and educational benefits to be gained by reading youth biographies on exceptional Christians of the past. Christian Focus Publications has published scores of such beneficial youth biographies in its Trail Blazers series.
R12. Last but certainly not least, to be reminded that God should receive all the credit and glory for His gracious work in and through the lives and ministries of all Christians. Why? Because it is God who: draws people to faith in Jesus as their Savior; gives them the desire, abilities and opportunities to live for and serve Him; blesses them with whatever fruit and successes they have in their own spiritual lives and Christian service. All that is true, whether a person is a celebrated Christian hero like David Livingstone or an ordinary, unsung servant of Jesus.
God has recently brought about a special personal blessing involving my 2023 David Livingstone biography that I’d like to share with you. This is an exceptional blessing for both my mother (who celebrated her 90th birthday in April) and me, but also has the potential to bring great benefit to many other people.
In August of last year, I was highly privileged to publish a comprehensive biography on David Livingstone: Missionary, Explorer, Abolitionist (Christian Focus Publications). I also narrated an unabridged audiobook edition of the lengthy volume, which CFP produced and made available on Audible.com. Wonderful as all that was (and is), I was left with a perplexing challenge of how to make the book accessible to one very important person—my mom, Phyllis, who is legally blind.
Mom has only a small amount of peripheral vision in both her eyes. She can see some shades of light and color but not distinct shapes or details. With the help of magnification from a reading machine, she can, with difficulty, make out a few lines of larger type. But her eyes quickly tire, and soon she’s unable to distinguish individual lines of print.
In past years, before my dad’s heavenly homegoing, whenever I published a book, Dad would read it to Mom one chapter at a time. But Dad went to be with the Lord in 2018, while I was still in the early stages of researching and writing the Livingstone biography.
My wife Leeta with Mom Christie at Dad’s Gravesite
When given the opportunity to record the narration of the Livingstone audiobook, one of my primary motivations for doing so was believing that there should be a ready way to make the recording available to Mom. Due to my own lack of comprehension as to how audiobooks are accessed these days—on phones or computers rather than on older-form audio players—I didn’t foresee that it wouldn’t be quite so simple as I originally thought. (My dear wife is still trying to get me into the twenty-first century technology-wise! 😊)
Due to my mom’s limited eyesight, she doesn’t operate a computer or complicated audio players that have a number of dials and buttons. I looked into various types of audio players for sight-impaired individuals, on which files of the Livingstone biography could be uploaded. But for one reason or another, it seemed unlikely to me that they would work out well for Mom’s use.
But Mom does have one means of listening to books on tape which she, in fact, uses a lot and has for years. The Washington (State) Talking Book and Braille Library (WTBBL) has provided her with a machine that plays not one but ten full-length books on a single long-play cartridge. The WTBBL machine is very easy to operate with just a few control buttons.
Early last November I contacted Christian Focus Publications and WTBBL to inquire if they would be willing to make the Livingstone biography available free of charge as a service to the visually impaired. Donnie Morrison of CFP and Traci Timmons of WTBBL both responded affirmatively to my request, and they soon exchanged the needed information to get the process started. (By the way, while Mom lives in Washington State, I reside in Nebraska.)
WTBBL had many other Talking Book projects in its production queue ahead of the Livingstone volume, and the overall process turned out to be more complicated than was originally anticipated. While trying not to be a nag, about once a quarter I emailed Traci to learn how things were progressing. She remained thoroughly positive and supportive of the undertaking throughout the entire process.
Meanwhile I kept periodically lifting this matter up to the Lord in prayer, asking Him to bring the long process to fruition. I knew that if He smiled on the endeavor then it would succeed.
About three weeks ago Traci emailed to let me know the Livingstone book production was nearly complete, and it would soon be available to visually impaired patrons of WTBBL and throughout the entire National Library Service network. She kindly volunteered to mail my mom a long-play cartridge of the book as soon as it became available.
While I had told Mom that I was trying to work out some means by which she could listen to the audiobook, I did not mention my interactions with WTBBL as those were unfolding. I didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have them disappointed. Even after Traci emailed me recently, I still didn’t say anything to Mom, wanting it to be a complete surprise when the Livingstone Talking Book arrived at her home.
Mom phoned last week to share her amazement and delight at having just received the book on tape. When the WTBBL cartridge arrived, she slipped it into her player without noting the title of the book it contained. A moment later she heard the WTBBL credits being read, stating the title, author, publisher and reader of the volume. “I couldn’t believe it!” she told me. More than once she also stated of being able, at last, to listen to the book, “I’m just so happy!”
I join Mom in being filled with joy over this special blessing for both her and me. What a delight, as well, to contemplate that other people with little or no vision will have the opportunity to hear and benefit from this book.
When I emailed to thank Traci for her vital role in helping see this project through, she immediately credited the WTBBL production team for doing the “heavy lifting” in completing it. My sincere thanks go to everyone at WTBBL and CFP who had a part in bringing this about. Most of all, I’m grateful to God for granting this tremendous blessing. May He be greatly glorified as a result.
When passing through overwhelming trials, God’s people are sometimes tempted to think that He has forgotten them or no longer cares about them. They cry out to Him for help, only to receive silence from Heaven and no relief from their excruciating difficulties.
As a punishment for sheltering Jews from the Nazis in Holland during World War 2, Corrie and Betsie ten Boom (of The Hiding Place fame) were incarcerated in three separate prisons over a period of ten months. Their final place of detainment was Ravensbruck, the notorious German extermination camp for women. Of more than 130,000 prisoners sent to Ravensbruck, only 40,000 survived.
Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
Conditions in the concentration camp were nightmarish. Barracks were terribly overcrowded and had woefully inadequate toilet facilities. Prisoners lacked adequate food and clothing. Sickness and disease were rampant. Every day prisoners heard and saw instances of horrific cruelty, senseless suffering, and death.
There were times at Ravensbruck when Corrie experienced great despair and felt abandoned by God. But Betsie and the Lord Himself repeatedly reminded Corrie through various means of God’s ongoing watchcare over her.
Ravensbruck female prisoners at roll call, in The Hiding Place movie
One of those occasions was a cold early morning when Corrie and Betsie were walking to the daily 4:30 a.m. roll call outside their barracks. Seeing the beautiful stars, Corrie prayed aloud disconsolately: “Lord, You guide all those stars. You have not forgotten them, but You have forgotten Betsie and me.”
“No, He has not forgotten us,” Betsie spoke up. “I know that from the Bible. The Lord Jesus said, ‘I am with you always, until the end of the world’ [Matthew 28:20], and Corrie, He is here with us. We must believe that. It is not what we are feeling that counts, but what we believe!”
Years later Corrie wrote: “I slowly learned not to trust in myself or my faith or my feelings, but to trust in Him. Feelings come and go—they are deceitful. In all that hell around us, the promises from the Bible kept us sane.”
On another morning, Corrie awoke with a bad cold. Back in her hometown, with a hankie to use for blowing her nose, she would have easily tolerated the infirmity. But in the concentration camp, without so much as a hankie, she felt she could not bear her cold and runny nose.
“Well, why don’t you pray for a hankie?” suggested Betsie.
Corrie wanted to laugh. There they were imprisoned in a camp where thousands of people each week were being put through unimaginable suffering and many were dying. “And Betsie suggests I pray for a hankie!” she thought. “If I were to pray for anything, it would be for something big, not something little like that.”
Betsie, however, immediately and simply prayed, “Father, in the name of Jesus I now pray for a hankie for Corrie, because she has a bad cold.”
Corrie shook her head and walked away. A short while later she was standing by the window of her barracks when she heard someone call her name. Looking out, she spotted a friend and fellow prisoner who worked in the camp’s infirmary approaching her.
“Here you are,” the woman said to Corrie in a matter-of-fact tone as she extended a small package to her. “Take it. I bring you a little present.”
Corrie could hardly believe her eyes when she opened the small parcel—it contained a handkerchief! “How did you know?” she queried. “Did Betsie tell you? Did you know I had a cold?”
Handkerchief monogramed with C
The woman shrugged, then revealed: “I know nothing. I was busy sewing handkerchiefs out of an old piece of sheet, and there was a voice in my heart saying, ‘Take a hankie to Corrie ten Boom.’ So, there is your gift, from God.”
Later Corrie commented: “That pocket handkerchief, made from an old piece of sheet, was a message from Heaven for me. It told me that there is a heavenly Father who hears, even if one of His children on this little planet prays for a tiny little thing like a hankie. Not only does He hear, but He speaks to another of His children and says, ‘Bring a hankie to Corrie ten Boom’.”
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These and many other instructive incidents from the life experiences of Corrie ten Boom and several other outstanding servants of Christ Jesus are included in my book Timeless Stories: God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians (Christian Focus Publications, 2010). There’s plenty of inspiration and instruction to gain on a variety of Christian living themes (Family, Service, Faith, Prayer, Adversity, etc.) from the examples of Corrie, Amy Carmichael, William and Catherine Booth, Billy and Ruth Graham, Dwight Moody, George Muller, Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor, John Wesley, and George Whitefield.
Last week brought a special blessing when I received several complimentary copies of my forthcoming youth biography, David Livingstone: Africa’s Greatest Explorer, from the publisher. I’ve always found it a thrill and delight, as well as an occasion for much gratitude, to hold in my hands for the first time the fruit of my writing labor on a particular project in printed book form.
I’m grateful to God and Christian Focus Publications (CFP) for the tremendous opportunity I’ve had to write and have published this little work on one of the most prominent missionaries in the history of the Christian Church. I’m thrilled to think of many, many young readers (1) enjoying learning about Livingstone’s remarkable, eventful life and (2) being encouraged and strengthened in their own spiritual life and service for the Lord by considering Livingstone’s commendable example.
CFP has once again done an outstanding job in the production of this volume. The cover is colorful and appealing. The text is well edited and attractively printed. A map of Livingstone’s travels, a timeline of his life, and Thinking Further topics for each chapter add much to the benefit and helpfulness of the book.
This work joins scores of others that have previously been published in CFP’s popular Trailblazers series of Christian biographies for youth. These biographies are written for readers around 9-14 years of age. But I’m confident older teens and adults will also enjoy reading David Livingstone: Africa’s Greatest Explorer.
September 10 is the official launch date for the book. But people can pre-order copies from Christian Focus Publications or Amazon. CFP offers nice discounts if ten or more copies are purchased.
Edward Rogers and adult congregation, Maschwitz, Argentina (Edward Rogers standing fifth from right, Luis standing second from right, Matilde seated third from right.)
There have been countless thousands (perhaps millions) of highly dedicated and capable Christians who have served the Lord with tremendous faithfulness, fruitfulness and self-sacrifice but who never gained great prominence through their service. Gaining personal renown was not their objective, and they happily, heartily served Christ wherever they were led of Him to do so. In my opinion, such servants of Jesus were true Christian heroes, though they certainly didn’t think of themselves as such and usually weren’t viewed that way by others.
To follow is a partial account of the ministry of one of those innumerable unknown and unsung Christian heroes. His name was Edward Charles Rogers, and most of his acquaintances called him Mr. Rogers. Anti-spoiler alert: There’s quite a surprise at the end of this account, so no peaking ahead! 😊
Edward Rogers was a high-ranking oil executive and a British tentmaking missionary who worked and ministered in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1930s and the decades that followed. During the week he worked for the Shell Oil Company in the capital city of Buenos Aires. On the weekends he served as an evangelist and church planter in a series of smaller towns in the Buenos Aires region.
Rogers was a tall, quiet Englishman. He always dressed sharply in a suit. His head which was bald on top, his round-framed glasses and his neatly trimmed mustache combined to give him a dignified, intelligent appearance. At the same time, he was kind and caring toward others, warm and interested in them.
Plymouth Brethren congregation and chapel, Maschwitz, Argentina with its motto of Proclaiming Christ Crucified
The first Argentine town in which he ministered was Ingeniero-Maschwitz (usually called simply Maschwitz), a small riverside resort community about thirty miles northwest of the capital. There he evangelized by systematically going door-to-door to every home in town, offering a complimentary copy of an attractive Spanish New Testament to any and all households that desired to have one. He also established a small Plymouth Brethren chapel, the first ever evangelical church in Maschwitz, where he faithfully preached the Gospel of salvation and strengthened believers in their newfound Christian faith.
One day while distributing New Testaments, Rogers gave one to a young married woman named Matilde who eagerly accepted it with gratitude. She was a devout Roman Catholic who regularly worshipped at Mass, confessed her sins to the priest, served in church by playing the organ, and did other good works. Despite all that, something was still missing, and she did not have inner spiritual peace.
So deep was Matilde’s reverence for God’s Word, that she read the New Testament on her knees, literally. As she did, she came to understand that Jesus is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). By trusting in Christ as the sinless, sacrificial Lamb of God who had come to save her from her sins, she found forgiveness and the peace her heart had longed to have for many years.
Matilde sought out Edward Rogers and told him of the peace she had gained through faith in Christ. When she asked Rogers if she should leave the Catholic church, he responded: “No, no! Stay there. Tell your friends what you’ve experienced. Many of them are probably still searching for what you have found. Then, in the evenings, come join our Bible meetings in our little chapel.” Matilde did that for a time, after which she started attending the Brethren church services Sunday morning and evening.
Several months later her husband Luis, who outwardly had shown no interest in spiritual matters, unexpectedly and publicly professed his faith in Jesus as his “only and sufficient Savior.” Luis soon joined Rogers in carrying out active evangelism in Maschwitz and other area towns. Every summer the two men selected a different town in which to hold evangelistic street meetings.
Luis took his whole family to help with the outreach meetings. Matilde played a portable pump organ and sing. Luis publicly shared his testimony of coming to faith in Christ. Their young son and daughters passed out Christian literature to those who gathered to hear what was being shared. Mr. Rogers preached the Good News of salvation.
Each year Rogers gathered the new converts from those months-long evangelistic efforts into a Christian congregation. Over the course of several years, Rogers and Luis were used of the Lord to plant nine new churches in different towns around Buenos Aires, most if not all of which are still ministering today. Sadly, Luis died suddenly of pneumonia at age thirty-four, about a decade after he became a Christian.
Luis Palau preaching in Monterrey, Mexico, 1966
The church building at which Mr. Rogers ministered in Maschwitz was tiny, measuring only twenty by twenty feet. Its walls and roof were made with sheets of corrugated metal, the most common building material available at that time. When the heavy winter rains poured down against the metal roof and walls, they nearly drowned out the sound of the congregation’s singing and Rogers’ voice as he preached.
But year after year he continued to faithfully minister to the small congregation in that humble setting. And through the years God did an exceptional spiritual work through Rogers and the church. Over the decades forty-four young people from the congregation were sent out into full-time Christian ministry.
Rogers grew older and his wife died. For a number of years, he and the elders of the Maschwitz congregation had talked and prayed about the need for a Gospel teaching church in extreme southern Argentina, where there was not a single evangelical church. Since Rogers’ health was no longer strong, his church leaders said that someone other than him should go. But after years of no one else going, Rogers determined that he would. “If I die there, I die there,” he stated decidedly. “But I am going to go.”
He traveled to the island province of Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina, some 1,500 miles south of Maschwitz and about 1,000 miles west of the Antarctica Peninsula. Rogers had very little money at that point, so as he traveled, he asked God to provide what he needed.
Upon arriving at Ushuaia, the province’s capital, he met a group of nuns. He offered to teach them English in exchange for room and board at their convent. In addition to teaching them English, he spent his days going door to door in the city, giving the book of Proverbs and the Gospel of John to anyone who would accept them.
Rogers formed the group of young believers he led to Christ there into the first evangelical church in Ushuaia. Not long thereafter, his earthly life ended, and he went to be with his Lord and Savior in Heaven.
One of the individuals who went out from Mr. Rogers’ Maschwitz congregation into vocational Christian ministry was a young man named Luis Palau. He was the son of Luis and Matilde Palau, who were pointed to Christ by Rogers, then joined the missionary in his street evangelism and church planting ministries.
Luis Palau, Jr., went on to become an eminent evangelist from the 1960s to the 2010s. He has been called the Billy Graham of Latin America, and ranked second only to Graham in the number of people he personally preached the Gospel to during his worldwide evangelistic career. Palau spoke in-person to tens of millions of people in more than seventy-five countries. He was used of God to guide countless thousands of individuals to trust Jesus as their Savior.
After visiting Edward Rogers’ grave while conducting an evangelistic festival at Ushuaia, Palau wrote of him: “He had lived for Christ. His life was burned out in the service of God. His practically unknown grave here at the world’s end was a paltry testament. His true memorial was elsewhere—in me, in the many lives he touched, and in the millions of lives touched by those he touched.”
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The above account of Edward Rogers’ ministry was gleaned from the opening chapters of Luis Palau’s spiritual memoirPalau: A Life on Fire (Zondervan, 2019). Chapter 3 in the book, “Lift High the Light, The Good News of Mr. Charles Rogers,” provides fuller details regarding Rogers’ sacrificial, fruitful ministries.
George Whitefield and John Wesley are well known as the primary human instruments used of God to spark the great evangelical revival in eighteenth century England and Wales. Far fewer Christians today are familiar with Selina Hastings (1707-1791), the English noblewoman who played a key role in supporting and promoting that same revival.
Selina was the Countess of Huntingdon, having married Theophilus Hastings, the 9th Earl of Huntingdon. Following her Christian conversion through faith in Christ at age thirty-one, she was filled with desire and determination to point others to Jesus as their Savior. Besides personally sharing the Gospel with many of her acquaintances, she supported scores of Christian evangelists in their ministry of traveling about to proclaim the message of salvation. In her lifetime she funded the construction of sixty-four Gospel-preaching chapels in England and Wales, established a college where many evangelists were trained, and supported missionary endeavors in colonial America and Sierra Leone, Africa.
Theophilus and Selina Hastings, 9th Earl and Countess of Huntingdon
To follow is an intriguing set of events that unfolded in Selina’s life when she was in her late forties and early fifties. They typify how the Lord used her significantly throughout her life to bring tremendous spiritual good to innumerable people.
In 1756 Selina’s sixteen-year-old son named Henry became ill with an unidentified disorder that began adversely affecting his eyesight. She took him to London to obtain the best medical advice available. Despite the doctors’ efforts, Henry’s overall health continued to deteriorate, and he was gradually going blind.
In the spring of the following year, Selina brought Henry to Brighthelmstone (later called Brighton) on the southern coast of England. There it was hoped he would gain improved health through sea bathing, which in that day was thought to bring considerable benefit in the case of a number of ailments.
The Baths of Brighton, thought to be therapeutic
Shortly after arriving in Brighton, Selina was surprised when a woman she had never before met approached her in the street and exclaimed, “Oh Madam, you are come!”
Taken aback, Selina asked, “What do you know of me?”
“Madam,” the woman answered, “I saw you in a dream three years ago, dressed as you are now.” She went on to relate a dream she could never forget in which she had seen a tall woman dressed just as Selina was presently. She had understood that when that woman came to Brighthelmstone she would be the means of doing much good there.
Soon thereafter, Selina paid the woman a visit and learned that she likely had only a few months to live. The Countess shared the Gospel of salvation with her. The Holy Spirit had prepared the woman’s heart, and she immediately believed in Christ Jesus as her Savior.
Selina also heard of a soldier’s wife who had just given birth to twins and was not expected to live. The countess responded quickly by helping the young woman as much as she was able—physically, materially and spiritually. The dying mother wept as she began to understand her sinful state before God and begged Selina to return to teach her from the Scriptures.
Next door to the young wife’s lodgings was the public bakehouse, where the local residents would bring their dough ready kneaded to bake in the communal oven. Through a crack in the wall between the bakehouse and the soldier’s wife’s apartment, those awaiting their turn to bake their bread could hear snatches of the conversation taking place next door.
Word quickly passed through the neighborhood of the tall stranger from London, reputed to be a peeress, who was teaching about a way of forgiveness for sin. Soon other women asked to be admitted to this bedside Bible class. Before long the small room was filled with eager hearers on the occasions of the countess’s visits.
One day as Selina entered the apartment, she noticed a shadowy figure seated in a far corner, apparently hoping to avoid detection. This individual was Joseph Wall, a local blacksmith known for his foul mouth and immoral lifestyle. He had been urged to come and listen to the countess’s spiritual teaching.
As only women had attended the studies previously, Selina hesitated. She didn’t know whether or not to ask the man to leave, but instead decided to ignore him. She proceeded as usual by praying with the women and urging them to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness while they still had opportunity to do so.
God’s Word pierced the conscience of Joseph Wall, who believed its message. He was dramatically transformed spiritually, and until his death twenty-nine years later he lived a consistent Christian life.
Sadly, Henry died in Brighton in September of 1758 at the age of eighteen. Selina was deeply grieved at his death, having in earlier years been bereaved of her husband and two other of her six children. At the same time, she was strongly consoled by the fact that Henry had shown clear evidence of true Christian faith before dying. He actually died in happiness with the assurance that He would go on living eternally with his Savior in Heaven.
Not many months passed before Selina was able to perceive a further divine purpose in the trials she had experienced in Brighton. The small group of women who initially attended her Bible study at the bedside of the soldier’s wife had now become a society of both women and men whose lives had been transformed by God’s saving grace. Here was a group of infant Christians whom she could support and encourage in their newfound faith.
The next summer she recruited evangelists, including George Whitefield, to come and minister at Brighton. In the years immediately following she used her own funds to purchase land and erect a Gospel-preaching chapel in the seaside town. It was the first of more than sixty such chapels she would have built during the final three decades of her life.
The Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapel, Bath, England
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The above account was drawn heavily from Faith Cook’s outstanding biography Selina, Countess of Huntingdon(Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), pages 174-80, 184-85. Mrs. Cook’s account of Selina Hastings is an example of historical Christian biography at its very best. The work is comprehensively researched, substantive, thorough and factual. It is fair and balanced in its interpretations of Selina, her many associates, and their shared and differing convictions. The book is written in an engaging, readable fashion, is spiritually inspiring and edifying, and clearly glorifies the Lord for His extraordinary, sovereign work through His consecrated servants.
