Wednesday 14 November 2012

John Hyde


 
JOHN HYDE
 
1865-1912, Missionary to India



It was to the Punjab that the son of an Illinois Presbyterian minister, John Nelson Hyde, felt led to begin his lifetime of missionary endeavor. At the time of his posting, he was one of only five missionaries in a territory holding nearly one million non-Christians. Progress was slow, but measured. In a letter to his seminary after his first year in India, Hyde wrote:

Yesterday eight low-caste persons were baptized at one of the villages. It seems a work of God in which man, even as an instrument, was used in a very small degree. Pray for us. I learn to speak the language very, very slowly: can only talk a little in public or in conversation.”

Hyde's inability to master the complex native languages was due in no small degree to his partial deafness. To the dismay of mission authorities, he devoted most of his time to Bible rather than language study, displaying the withdrawn intensity of a visionary rather than the engaging demeanor of the traditional missionary. In time, however, Hyde gained a certain fluency, though he never lost his zeal for Scripture. With periods of outright persecution by natives, and few, if any conversions, Hyde began leading his fellow missionaries in intercession for India. So deep was his call to prayer that by 1899 he began spending entire nights face down before God. In a letter to his college he wrote:

Have felt led to pray for others this winter as never before. I never before knew what it was to work all day and then pray all night before God for another… In college or at parties at home, I used to keep such hours for myself, or pleasure, and can I not do as much for God and souls?”

In 1904, Indian Christians and western missionaries gathered for the first of an annual series of conventions at Sialkot in what is today Pakistan. To support this time of spiritual renewal, John Hyde and his friends formed the Punjab Prayer Union, setting aside half an hour each day to pray for revival. The results of their prayers were plainly seen at the Sialkot Convention as a special anointing fell upon those gathered. Year by year the prayer union fasted and prayed, and at each convention a growing urgency for evangelism and intercession filled each attendee. John Hyde emerged as the prayer leader, and all were amazed at both the depth of his spiritual insight, and the ferocity of his burden for India.

By 1908, John Hyde dared to pray what was to many at the convention an impossible request: that during the coming year in India one soul would be saved every day. Three hundred sixty five people converted, baptized, and publicly confessing Jesus as their Savior. Impossible -- yet it happened. Before the next convention John Hyde had prayed more than 400 people into God's kingdom, and when the prayer union gathered again, he doubled his goal to two souls a day. Eight hundred conversions were recorded that year, and still Hyde showed an unquenchable passion for lost souls.

At the 1910 convention, those around Hyde marveled at his faith, as they witnessed his near violent supplications, "Give me souls, oh God, or I die!" Before the meeting ended, John Hyde revealed that he was again doubling his goal for the coming year. Four souls a day, and nothing less. During the next twelve months John Hyde's ministry took him throughout India. By now he was known as "Praying Hyde," and his intercession was sought at revivals in Calcutta, Bombay, and other large cities. If on any day four people were not converted, Hyde said at night there would be such a weight on his heart he could not eat or sleep until he had prayed through to victory. The number of new converts continually grew.

It was in Calcutta that friends persuaded Hyde to see a doctor about his rapidly deteriorating health. The years of travail had obviously taken a toll. Yet no one expected the medical examiner's incredible diagnosis. John Hyde's heart had shifted out of its natural position on the left side of his chest to a place over on the right. It was unlike anything the doctor had seen before, and he warned Hyde that unless he got complete rest he would be dead in six months.

In fact, Praying Hyde lived for nearly two more years, long enough to see a wave of revival sweep through the Punjab and the rest of India -- and long enough to have his own personal vision enlarged. Before he died, he shared what God had shown him:

On the day of prayer, God gave me a new experience. I seemed to be away above our conflict here in the Punjab and I saw God's great battle in all India, and then away out beyond in China, Japan, and Africa. I saw how we had been thinking in narrow circles of our own countries and in our own denominations, and how God was now rapidly joining force to force and line to line, and all was beginning to be one great struggle. That, to me, means the great triumph of Christ. We must exercise the greatest care to be utterly obedient to Him who sees all the battlefield all the time. It is only He who can put each man in the place where his life can count for the most.

 

Mary Slessor

 

 
Mary Slessor
 
The Story of Mary Slessor's Battle to Bring the Gospel
and Civilization to the "Dark Continent"
 
The place is the Calabar River on the slave coast of Africa. The time is an afternoon in September 1876. A rusty ocean steamer is heading toward the mouth of the Calabar. This part of Africa is known as the White Man's Grave, and only a fool could come here without being afraid. The land a few miles from shore is unexplored. Killer elephants and lions, swarms of insects, witch doctors, and cannibals live there. To enter that land would mean death.

 
Life means little along the Calabar. Slavery is common and to kill a woman or a slave means nothing. If a family has too many children, they will just leave the unwanted child in the bushes to die. The birth of twins is thought to be an evil sign. Twin babies are cruelly murdered, and their mother is driven from her home to die in the jungle. There is no respect for truth and honesty here. "Do right" would be a meaningless phrase, for these people do not understand what is right. The law of the jungle is "do whatever you can get away with." For this reason, people live their short lives in fear and filth. The boat drops anchor well up the Calabar River beside a rough town. This is Duke Town. The mission station at Duke Town is the destination for the only woman traveling aboard the steamer.
 
 Mary Slessor is coming from Scotland to serve God in this harsh climate. A small boat from the

 
mission comes alongside the steamer and takes her to shore. Mary Slessor is 29 years old. She comes from a poor family. Her father was a drunkard, but her mother was a godly woman. Since she was 11, Mary has earned her living working in factories for twelve hours a day, six days a week. Despite these hard circumstances, she served God faithfully in Scotland, and the hardships have helped prepare her to serve Him now in Africa. The Duke Town missionaries have had some success in the coastal regions. They have built a school, hospital, orphanage, and chapel at the station. Through their preaching and teaching they have been able to stop some of the worst heathen practices. The village leaders are beginning to realize that what they call "God-law" (the teachings from the Bible) makes sense. On any Sunday there are several hundred natives in services. This was the situation when Mary Slessor began her work teaching in the mission station and visiting in the coastal and river villages. As soon as Mary could learn the local languages, she went without a translator. She was told that it was dangerous to travel alone, but she found that she could get to know the people better in this way.

 
 The farther Mary traveled from the mission station, the greater needs she found. Mary told the

 
natives the good news of Christ. She urged them to quit worshiping the skulls of dead men and not to be afraid of "evil spirits." The new missionary taught, "Do not kill the wives and slaves of a 'big man' when he dies. They cannot help him in the next life." She showed the women better ways to fix food and keep homes and children clean. Sometimes at night Mary would lie awake on a dirt floor in some coastal village. "Oh Lord," she prayed, "I thank Thee that I can bring these people Thy Word. But Lord, there are other villages back in the jungle where no white man has gone. They need Jesus, too. Help me reach them!" Then, whenever she had an opportunity, she would ask another missionary or a native about her going to these villages. The answer was always the same: "No. You would be killed. They cannot be reached." Her worst enemy was the tropical diseases which hit her so suddenly. There were many times when it seemed as though she were about to die, but she pulled through. It was a real temptation to forsake this unhealthy area and return to the cool mists of Scotland. The Scottish missionary did go home on a short furlough, but she soon came back to Africa. She was thrilled to learn that she was now to be on her own at an outstation. Her new home was Old Town, some distance upriver from Duke Town.
 
Her first view of Old Town was of a human skull swinging from a pole in front of the town meeting house. Each hut had its own little gods. Mary's "home" was a mud hut next to a trader. Her days were full of treating sick, teaching the Bible, and visiting neighbors. Mary became known throughout the area for her wise, fair counsel. There was a Christian chief, King Eyo Honesty the Sixth, who often asked Mary for advice in dealing with white men. She, in turn, asked him for help in working with the natives.

 
 Mary was successful in Old Town, but she was also deeply burdened for the remote Okoyong tribe that had never heard the gospel. How could she bring the love of Christ to these people as well? They valued only three things: guns to have power, chains to keep their slaves, and liquor to dull their minds. But God was leading her there, and Mary was willing to trust God to show her how to win these savage people to Christ. Mary prayed for God's leading. At last, in June 1888, she quietly announced that she would go upriver alone and find a place to settle. "You will die. You will die," her friends told her. They wept at the prospect of her leaving. King Eyo Honesty said that if she must go, he would send her as a "big person" in his own special canoe. It was the grandest canoe in all of Calabar. Mary accepted Eyo's offer and headed for the land of the Okoyong. The farther they went, the more her twenty paddlers wanted to turn back. They feared the Okoyong. But the Lord was with the group, and they arrived safely. The Lord had also prepared the heart of the chief of the first village they found. Mary was the first outsider ever allowed to live there. The chief also said that she could build a school. This area was far more wicked than any Mary had seen. The people respected only vengeance and cruelty. To a people who did not know what love was, Mary brought the love of Christ. This was a wild time for the missionary. Hardly a day went by without a serious crisis. Mary knew that she could not expect to change their lives immediately, but she could not merely stand back and watch these people do wrong. She got little rest and her health was bad. But she was always there when she was needed. Whenever Mary heard of any trouble, she would rush to the scene. As she approached, the men would be preparing for war. They passed around liquor, danced, and yelled threats at the other side. They were in war paint, and their spears and shields glimmered in the sun. The skulls and scalps of earlier victims waved from poles. Just as the two sides were about to rush together, they saw a small, seemingly calm woman standing on a log between them. "Out of the way, Ma. We fight!" She ignored the shouting warrior. "Out of the way. You die, too, white Ma. Move on!" "Shoot if you dare!" she called back.

 
 When the two sides came to remove this gray-haired obstacle, Mary knew that she had won. She would scold them as children, plead with them to show mercy, or suggest they move to the shade of a tree to talk. Mary knitted while they talked, and she got a lot of knitting done. After hours of

 
talking the men were calmer and too tired to fight. They went home without bloodshed. News of trouble might come too late for Mary to get there in time. If this happened, she would go to her table, pull out a fine piece of parchment, and quickly make big marks all over it. She then sealed

 
this with wax and tied it with a great red ribbon. A runner sped this important document to where

 
the fight was about to begin. Mary's scribbles were nothing but nonsense, but none of the Okoyong could read! The warriors would spend the day puzzling over the important piece of paper sent by the "white Ma." They would still be studying the document when Mary arrived in person to settle the dispute.

 
 After a time, Mary realized that as long as the Okoyong had nothing else to do, they would get drunk, and drunkenness always led to fighting. "Perhaps," she thought, "if they knew there was something better, this would stop." Mary displayed her nicest possessions: some cloth, a teapot, and an old sewing machine. The Okoyong liked what they saw. "You can have nicer things than this if you take the palm oil and yams to the traders," she told them. "These things you have--very nice," said one chief. "But it is no good. Traders afraid to come here. No good for us to go to them. River gods kill us." "I will go with you. You will be safe." "No. Too much bad." Mary told of the wonderful things down the river. Finally they agreed to go and loaded a canoe. The chiefs and warriors shook with fear as they set off towards Duke Town and Old Town. King Eyo hosted a great feast for the visiting chiefs. He showed them the good things they could have if they gave up their old ways. He told them that the God of the "white Ma" was the true God. Eyo was kind to the poor, backward Okoyong chiefs. Before they left he gave them each presents, including some fine cloth. The Okoyong could hardly believe their good fortune.

 
 As a result of these meetings, the Okoyong region was opened to outsiders. Mary had done what

 
traders, soldiers, and diplomats had been unable to do for four hundred years. There was now a

 
reason for honest work. This experience was a turning point in the life of the Okoyong people.

 
In time, many of the Okoyong would accept the gospel. Free of their pagan fears and drunkenness, they could now understand God's love for them. The idols disappeared from the villages and in their place small churches were built. A court system was established to settle disputes, and Mary was made the first judge. Civilization came more quickly to the Okoyong than it did along the coastal regions. For hundreds of years the white traders along the coast had tried to force the natives to change. It was not until the gospel changed the people's hearts that real progress was made. As for Mary, she felt a tug on her heart for the region beyond the Okoyong. Her converts in Okoyong protested, "We love you. They will kill you. Do not go." Mary loved the Okoyong people, just as she had loved the people of Old Town. But her call was, "Onward! I dare not look back." Mary's reputation as a great and wise woman and as a fair and honest judge had gone before her into the land of the Azo, a dreaded cannibal tribe. At first the Azo people seemed to show little interest in her message, but soon many accepted Christ. Mary reported that there was one town that had two hundred converts. None of them could read, so she pleaded for pastors to come to instruct the new Christians.

 
 In the time she had left, Mary did all she could. She walked the paths until she was too old and feeble. Some Scottish friends sent her a cart that could be used to pull her to the villages. They urged Mary to come to Scotland for a rest. She wanted to, but prayed instead that God would give her the strength to finish the job among the cannibals. Strength came and she worked faster and harder. Two years later, in January 1915, the Lord took Mary home to be with Him. A government boat was then sent to carry her body down the river to Duke Town. She was buried on a hillside by the mission station where she had first served. The group which gathers on that cemetery is a testimony to the life Mary Slessor lived. There are high government officials who found they could trust this woman's advice. A dignified tribal chief, once a cannibal, stands there. He found the "white Ma" a faithful friend. There is a young man whom Mary nursed through a fever. Twins are there who would have been murdered at birth had she not come. As they look up from her grave to the land around them, they see a country that Mary Slessor claimed for Christ while standing on the deck of a rusty ocean steamer almost forty years before.
 
This land cannot be the same again, nor can they.
 

William carey




David Brainerd

 
 
David Brainerd

Wednesday 29 February 2012