The purpose of these mission stories is to let God's people know that we serve a mighty God who can do for those who are faithful what they cannot do for themselves. We are to trust the Lord in everything for He alone knows how to save us.

My Hopeless Case

I had a difficult childhood. I quit school when I was 12 and could barely read or write. I stayed away from home as much as possible, spending most of my time sleeping in boats or on the beach in my homeland of Barbados. I hung around places were tourists passed and I begged for something to eat. I stole and used drugs; as my crimes grew more serious, I went from juvenile homes to jails to prison.

I fled Barbados for a place where the police didn't automatically suspect me of every crime that was committed. But I continued stealing, dealing drugs, and smuggling. Again I was arrested, and this time I was put in a maximum-security prison on a remote Island.

It was a terrible place, reserved for the worst criminals. We had almost no food, no change of clothes, no electricity, no toilet facilities - just jungle, snakes, and alligators. People died in that prison.

Desperate, I planned my escape. I borrowed the prison boat and paddled with a plank to an island in the distance. But I was captured and beaten. Prison guards came to get me, and again I was beaten. When I arrived back at the prison, I was beaten again. I was barely alive.

I spent the next 18 months in solitary confinement in an underground cell barely big enough to lie in. When I was finally released, I was malnourished and could barely walk. Once more I was living on the streets, eating from trash cans. But drugs were always available, and I was quickly addicted.

I returned to Barbados and landed in prison again. I tried to commit suicide, but I failed. I pleaded with my mother to get me out, and she posted bond. Once more I was on the streets, where my life of crime had begun.

One day I saw a tent a few blocks away. I was curious and discovered that it was an evangelistic meeting held by Seventh-day Adventists. I went to the meetings with drugs in my pocket and body odor perfuming the air. I sat in the back and listened to the speaker.

After the meeting I waited until everyone had gone. Then I asked Bruce, the night watchman, some questions about God. He answered my questions and became my friend, even when he had to chase us away from the tent where we were smoking and talking. But I sensed that my life was changing. I had found hope. One night I skipped the meeting to buy some drugs for my brother. In a quiet moment I heard a voice saying, "Is this what you want for yourself?" I had heard that voice once before in prison. It was God. I knelt down and for the first time in my life I prayed. "Jesus, help me! I'm a sinner, and I want Jesus in my life." That night I gave God my addictions, and He took them away.

I bated and cut my long hair. People noticed that I was changing. Church members were glad, but my brother was angry. When he heard me playing Christian music, he smashed my radio. Normally I would have reacted violently, but peace filled my heart, and I didn't become angry. This surprised both of us.

Church members nurtured me in my new faith. I was baptized, and a year later I left my job in construction to become a literature evangelist - even though I couldn't read or write.

Because I couldn't read, I listened to the Bible on tape. I listened to Adventist books on tape, and God gave me the memory to remember what I had heard. God taught me how to speak in public and present my canvass. I became a successful literature Evangelist. I would memorize a list of Bible texts so I could give Bible studies. During evangelistic meetings I volunteered to be a Bible worker. God blessed me in this job. Eventually I became the associate publishing director in Barbados.

One day I met a schoolteacher in the Adventist bookstore. We talked, and eventually I asked her out. I married her. She worked hard to teach me to read and write.

God has blessed me with so many souls through the literature work. A woman living nearby owned a rum shop, a bar. I invited her to study the Bible with me. She became an Adventist, closed her rum shop, and reopened it as a children's day-care center.

I met a young woman who had lost her parents. She wanted to commit suicide. I told her a bit of my past, and we prayed. She and her sister accepted Jesus into their lives, and God turned their lives around.

I know that God can change anyone; after all, He changed me.

The Zapotecan Indian's Trust

A Zapotecan Indian, a youth, whose people alone of his village had found the gospel path, and had learned the promises of Holy Scripture, wrote of his experience during one of the risings of revolutionary times in Mexico:

"When we read Psalms 34 and 91 and Revelation 3:10, wherein are contained God's promises to His faithful children who keep the word of His patience, our hearts are greatly encouraged. Has He not promised, `The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them?' Because of our unbelief, at times we doubt and think that we have received nothing of the Lord. Yet the Lord has promised that He will lift up a standard against the enemy.

"One day the time came to try our faith in the Lord's promises. The revolution covered all my country. The troops were called away from our town, so that the authorities could not give us protection against the rebels. When I saw this condition, I felt that our security was in the Lord, Rom. 8:31. My mother advised that we hide all our belongings, for fear the rebels would come and destroy everything, as they were doing at other places captured. I told her that God's angels would deliver us from the rebel host, in case of an attack.

One night at midnight the rebels came against our town. There being no resistance, they had every opportunity to destroy and pillage. As I lay in my hammock on the rear porch, I could hear them coming down the streets, the heavy tread of their horses' hoofs on the cobblestones, their excited voices giving commands and threats as men or women refused to open their doors, whereupon, with heavy timbers, houses were crashed into accompanied with all the horrors of war. As they came nearer, my heart went out to God in earnest prayer; and while they pillaged the town, I kept on praying. I could hear them running by our house and breaking into the neighbors houses about us. `Surely they shall not come nigh thy dwelling,' the Lord had said, and I believed His promise. There was not a house, save ours, that was not broken into.

The Widow and The Priest

Some years ago, while attending a missionary conference, President L.H. Christian, of our European Division, reported the following experience:

"I met not long ago a woman whose husband was a Roman Catholic; she is living in a Roman Catholic country of Europe. The priest came to her one morning and said, `We are going to take your children.' The woman had two young children, a boy and a girl. The priest said, `I will take that boy and make him a priest; I will take that girl within a week (and the law permits it), and make a nun out of that child of yours; and they will never see you again.'

"The mother turned to him and said, `Before you do it, I am going to pray to my God.' The priest mocked her an said, `Your God cannot stay the power of Rome.' She called a few of her friends together, and they placed their prayers against the papal power, and the priest never came and took their children! Something else happened that exposed and ruined him, and all who heard of it said, `A miracle has come to our people; there is a power in heaven that responds to faith and prayer.'"

The Elements Overruled

A Mantle of Mist

Well known in the history of the Vaudois Protestants is the incident of the providential deliverance of a company of them by a covering cloud of mist that came down upon them, on an Alpine height, just as the hosts of Savoy were surrounding them. So, too, fugitive bands of the old Scottish Covenanters were more than once veiled from their pursuers. The heroic Peden, leading a flight from the dragoons on a hill called the Sandy, prayed, "Lord cast the lap of Thy cloak over old Sandy, and save us this one time." And "in this he was heard," says the Scottish chronicler, "for a cloud of mist intervened immediately betwixt them." If this were not a record of modern mission providences, we would be constrained to follow further the story of providences among these Scottish hills,

But the untiring hands of missionary pioneers have had their share of deliverances by the intervention of the elements providentially overruled. A covering mist was a mantle of deliverance to a missionary party in the early South African days.

Cato, the chief of the Amazulu, was raiding the border. Mr. William Shepstone, a pioneer of Wesleyan missions, was compelled to flee from his station at Morley. In Mr. Shaw's "My Story of My Mission" we are told:

"The station was not abandoned, however, till the enemy were within a few miles, and until Mr. Shepstone and his people saw several kraals in flames, marking their destructive progress. Hastily packing up their goods in two wagons, the missionary families and the people left Morley toward the end of October, 1829; and most providentially a dense mist or fog concealed their movements from the invading Amazulu, or there is no doubt they would have been attacked on their way."

By Tempest and Meteorite

Twice over, after having established a mission station in the wilds of what is now western British East Africa, Mr. Stuart Watt and his family experienced deliverances through the providential overruling of the elements of nature.

Mrs. Watt tells her story in her book, "In the Heart of Savagedom." They were among the fierce Akamba, who were continually warring with neighboring tribes, Mrs. Watt says:

"One evening a vast multitude of warriors, who had determined to wipe out the white man from their country, were on their way to our station from a distant district, under the chieftainship of a very active and influential native, named Mwana Muka.

"By sundown large numbers of these armed men, dresses in full war paint, had reached the base of the neighboring hills, from which point they were to make an onslought on our station. Mwana Muka had told his warriors that they need not fear the white man, for he had made medicine to overcome all his powers."

The night came on. Mrs. Watt says they put the children to bed with clothing and boots on, ready for instant flight. "We had brought that matter of our position before the Lord." She adds, "and were assured that, if it pleased Him, He would in His own way bring us deliverance."

As the darkness drew on, and the armed host of natives bided their time of darkness, with torches prepared with which to set fire to the mission buildings, the missionaries saw the signal deliverance for which they had prayed. Rain came on. The heavens were lighted up with jagged lightning. Mrs. Watt says:

"As the earth was illumined by the flashes, we could see that, even where the ground sloped at an angle of 45 degrees, it was covered with a flowing sheet of water several inches deep, so copious was the fall. The two quiet, silent streams which daily wended their way on either side of the elevation on which our station was built, were turned into deep torrents, which roared as if the bases of the hills were being laid bare, and rushed through the valleys with such vehement impetuosity that huge trees were born up by the roots and carried out into the distant plains. During the space of half an hour the heavens were let loose on such a manner as I have never seen since or before in that land of tropical downpours.

"We could not but see the mighty hand of God in this wonderful deliverance. Not only were the multitude of resolute warriors enfeebled by the drenching torrents, but their sinewy bowstrings were thereby rendered useless in discharging the poisoned shafts. Realizing that the elements, and probably God Himself, were fighting against them, they slunk back in a half-dying condition to their booths in the brush."

Again, at a later time, after a British protectorate had been declared over this region, the hostile Akamba were on the warpath. A government post, near the mission, had been overwhelmed. The officials at the nearest fort urged the missionaries to flee to it for safety. They felt, however, that to flee would leave the mission to be destroyed, and all the moral gains of past efforts would be lost. So Mr. Watt and his family again put themselves under the protection of divine Providence. Mrs. Watt says of the crisis:

"That night was a time of inexpressible tension and painful suspense. The two infant children were fast asleep, and although the others had been put to bed in their clothing, they were kept awake by the excitement of the hour and the perturbed expression, which we tried to hide, but which they readily detected.

"Every possible preparation had been made by my husband, with the few men at his disposal, to combat any attack upon our station. . . . Having done all that lay within our power to enable us to make a momentary show of resistance to the angry natives, we threw ourselves upon God, and prayed that it might please Him to defeat and confound the plans of these fierce, relentless warriors, and send us deliverance.

"While thus occupied, we heard an unearthly detonating sound overhead, and springing to the door to see what was the matter, we found the heavens ablaze with light, and our eyes caught a sight of a white-hot aerolite of immense proportions shooting across the firmament over our station. The gigantic fiery ball whizzed through the atmosphere with terrific velocity, illuminating the whole country with a lustrous, dazzling glow, and leaving behind it a great trail of fire as it disappeared, striking a mountain thirty miles distant.

"The huge meteorite had swept directly over the heads of the multitude of warriors, who were struck with such terror and mortal dread that they rushed panic-stricken to their homes among the hills.

Thereafter a great change was seen in the attitude of the people toward the mission. The victory had been won.

Turning the River Currents

While I was visiting the East Bengal district some years ago, Evangelist L.G. Mookerjee pointed out to me the old home of the late Mathuranath Bose, whose simple faith and trust in God led many to call him "the George Müller of Bengal." His old mission station, under the Church of Scotland, still stands close along the river bank. This whole region of the delta of the mighty Ganges River is a marvelous network of rivers and interlacing canals. One story of this man of faith was thus told me by Mr. Mookerjee:

"Mr. Bose had formerly been a judge, receiving an excellent salary. However, he felt called of God to give himself to mission work. His mission station was being threatened by some turn of the river current which was cutting into the bank. Day after day the current was wearing toward the very buildings. Mathuranath Bose felt that it was a case to bring before his Lord. He set himself to make earnest prayer to God to stay the course of the waters and save his mission station. The answer came. The current was turned; and remarkable to recount, the river channel turned in such a way that the silt was actually piled up along the bank by the mission premises. Gradually the bank was built up again by the heavy deposit from the muddy river waters. Even the Hindus all about were impressed that God had intervened. They knew of the good man's prayers to the living God, and to this day the heathen say that God delivered Mathuranath Bose's mission from the power of the waters.

We were told that again and again he was called by the villagers to pray for rain upon their fields in time of drought, the Hindus saying that the Christian's God does, of a truth, hear prayer.

Non-Christians Pray to Jehovah

In one of the remote valleys of Shantung, one of our Chinese evangelists, Mr. Liu, was invited to preach to the people by the aged schoolmaster of the village. The account, which appeared some years ago in the Far Eastern Division `Outlook, continues:

"After the discourse the schoolmaster remarked that now it would be most fitting if they all do honor to the great and only supreme God. He had been a student of the classics, as he said, and there it was stated that the ancients worshiped the one supreme God by a solemn `kowtowing' in the open air. He desired that they might revive that most admirable worship. And so they spread a mat in the courtyard, and solemnly lined up in two lines, elders in front and pupils of the school behind, and these forty or fifty people, who never in their lives before had worshiped anything but idols, filed forward one by one and `kowtowed' the head to the ground three times to the invisible God, tendering in the most respectful way known to their race their acknowledgment of His authority."

"The evangelist, perceiving their sincerity, entered heartily into the proceedings, suggesting that they close the ceremony with public prayer led by himself. Some of the farmers present asked if it would be proper to pray to this invisible God for rain, as they had been doing, alas, in vain, for many days to their idols. Shantung had had a drought for three years, and the small farmers were reduced to starvation. The wheat this year had already been planted some time, but no rain had yet come to make it sprout, and should it not come very soon there would be no hope for the poor people but to sell their wives and daughters into slavery, and take their sons and go begging. The evangelist took the situation by faith, and read to them from the Bible of Elijah's experience, and then he prayed earnestly that God would send rain immediately.

"The meeting closed, and while the evangelist was going through the ceremony of taking his departure, the raindrops began to fall. A heavy rain followed, soaking the evangelist to the skin as he made his way across the fields to a neighboring village. `The incident was blazoned through the district,' wrote the missionary in charge, `interest in idols and deities waned, and many people await a teacher to instruct them in the worship of the Christian's God.'"

Delivered by Lightening

It was in post-war times in one of those countries of Eastern Europe where Protestant separatists from the state church have had to endure much. Of one group of Sabbath keepers, all were arrested and haled before the judge.

The priests demanded a beating first. The account of an evangelist in that region at the time reported:

"They did beat them - flogged them cruelly - and decided they would sentence them the next day. But I want to tell you what happened. The judge came home that day, and found that everyone of his cattle had been killed by lightening! The neighbors remarked on it as looking like a judgment, and consternation filled his heart. He said, `It must be that I am sinning against God in sending those people to prison.' It is a serious thing in those countries for a man to lose his cattle; it is almost like taking his daily bread. The next morning he called the company into the court, discharged them, and asked them to pray that the Lord would not further punish him. That is the way God sometimes cares for His own.

Rescued from Bandits

A timely eclipse of the moon was the overruling means of deliverance that saved a Chinese lad who later became a winner of souls. Not that the eclipse itself timed for young Keh's rescue. These lunar and solar eclipses were timed from creation, and the circuits of the heavenly bodies have run on through the ages with infinite, unvarying precision. But an overruling Providence surely timed the crisis in the experience of Keh and his father, so that the eclipse spoke the message of deliverance at exactly the right hour.

Young Keh's father was a Christian in a region hostile to Christianity. One day the father and his son were seized by an armed band and taken into the mountains. The narrative is given in Mrs. Emma T. Anderson's "A'Chu and Other Stories," as told in later years by Evangelist Keh himself:

"Dorty-nine strong men, armed with knives and firearms, entered the village as the sun was setting. Kej Cheng Suan stood by the door of his house when three strange-looking men passed that way. He greeted them politely, and they paused beside his door. As they were talking together, one of the men took up the boy Tsu Eng rather roughly in his arms.

"`I beg you, do not tease the lad,' said the father Keh. `These few days he has not been well, and only today has begun to get better.'

"These words had scarcely passed his lips when the whole armed band dashed into sight. Seizing both father and child, they hurried to get away.

"Mrs. Keh was inside, preparing the evening meal, when the scuffle of feet and the loud tones of strange voices drew her to the door in time to see the angry mob seize her husband and child. At the risk of her own life she dashed into their midst to rescue the child, but the men threatened her with their swords and drove her back into the house. In the tumult of rebellion there was not a soul to hear her cry, so the helpless woman gathered her remaining children with her into the house to pray.

"That evening Evangelist Keh Cheng Soan and his eight-year old son, Tsu Eng, were taken to the neighboring village, where they were locked in a dark room alone for the night. Next morning the captives were told that a great army was to be raised, and when all the towns and cities of the surrounding country had surrendered to the rebels, they would celebrate their victory by sacrificing the Christian preacher and his son on the mountain top before the flag. This threat was repeated over and over to the victims for three days in succession.

"Shut up in the dark room, with no way to escape, the captives were not alone. In telling this incident, which he still well remembers, Pastor Keh Nga Pit (Tsu Eng) said, `My father prayed day and night, beseeching God to open the way before us, to hear our prayers and deliver us from our enemies. He often spoke to me, "Son, fear not. Our heavenly Father is able to save us. Only believe, and do not doubt His promises."'

"On the evening of the third day, being the fifteenth day of the Chinese month, the moon came up beautiful and bright. The rebels were in high spirits, and all the inhabitants of the village, both grown people and children, came out into the moonlight, and gave themselves to merrymaking, with wild dancing and playing.

"In the midst of their gayeties, suddenly a strange dark shadow began to creep across the moon. `An evil omen!' hoarsely whispered the old men. They had planned a great war of rebellion that would throw the yoke of foreign (Manchu) rule from off the neck of the Chinese people, and exalt their native village to be the very capital of the empire. Now, lo, at the very beginning, the Lord of heaven and earth showed His displeasure with them by darkening the moon.

"An order was given to bring the drums at once. All the gongs to be found in the village and all the drums that could be mustered were brought and beaten violently to save the moon. But the dark shadow crept silently on. The people were terrified at the sight, and in the darkness groped their way back to their homes. They were filled with fear of a terrible punishment to be visited upon their wrong-doings.

"However, the eclipse passed over before midnight. Then the people cooked the small lunch customarily served at night on such occasions, and refreshed themselves.

"Up to this time the rebels had been very cruel to their Christian captives. `Formerly they threatened to kill us,' said Pastor Keh,' now they were changed, and begged us to eat with them the lunch they had prepared. Afterward they urgently besought my father to leave their village, and return to his home. On the seventeenth day, five days after my capture, they hired a comfortable sedan chair, and carried us home with a large escort of people.'

"In closing the recital of this incident, he said, `This is an experience I myself passed through when only eight years of age. Does not this plainly show that the true God hears and answers the prayers of His people?'"

A Chinese Heart Prepared

As one thinks of the gross darkness in the great non-Christian lands, it surely seems natural that the special providences of God should appear here and there as witnesses to heathen hearts. Here is one such story of North China, preserved by Andrew Stewart in his book, "Out of Darkness," published by the Religious Tract Society, London:

"A prosperous farmer living in Kuan not far from Peking had a dream one night. A heavenly visitant appeared to him and warned him against spending more money on the temple services. He had lived a devout and worthy life, had been faithful in his attendance at the temple and liberal in his contributions to its superintendent. The holy one told him that the services were not clean, and the priests were unworthy. He astonished him further by intimating that on the twenty-third day of the seventh moon he would meet a man who would tell him what to do.

About eight or ten years previously a messenger had given him a copy of the New Testament and one of `The Peep of Day.' While these had greatly interested him, and had more or less influenced his thought and his life, he had never had any clear conception of their meaning.

During the seventh month there came to his district a simple Christian evangelist, his own countryman. He was a book seller, and day after day he set up his bookstall and sold his books. He likewise had been guided by the divine Spirit to visit this district at this time, because God had a special work for him to do there.

On the day mentioned in his dream the farmer stopped at the bookstall, and entered into conversation with the evangelist, with the result that he invited him to his home. Here they spent three days discussing the things belonging to eternal life. Two months later they traveled together to Peking, where the farmer stayed for a short time. He did not return until he had been baptized, after which he set out with great joy for his home. Here he became a faithful evangelist, preaching the gospel successfully to his own people, proving that God is able to use the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.

Story of Lady in Japan

The evangelist Kuniya, of Japan, reported some years ago the following:

"An older lady about sixty years of age became interested and attended our meetings regularly. However, her husband and son opposed her, and she finally stopped coming.

A few days ago she called one of our young workers, and related her experience. `For some time,' she said, `I was troubled greatly because my family opposed my attending your meetings. I thought it not good to disturb the peace of the home with my new religion, so I decided to study and pray alone; but one night I was shown that I should attend the meetings.

I heard a voice say, "If you stop going to church, your soul will die." Still I had not the courage to go. Very soon I was taken sick, and suffered for several days. I prayed to the Lord that he might heal me, but the answer was, "No." I was perplexed and disappointed; but last night I saw the sin of neglecting to heed the warning of the messenger, and repented, and prayed to the Lord to heal me. Now the fever has left me, and I have promised to attend the meetings, and also to tell my friends and relatives of this truth.'"

She accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior, and her testimony was a blessing to others.

Was There an Angel Present?

An elderly Japanese woman who came to attend an evangelist's meetings had her attention was riveted upon the preacher and his message appealed to her heart by an uncommon experience. She could not read. Later she came to feel that in her ignorance God had in mercy drawn her attention to the Christian teaching by special means. After she had destroyed her idols and became fully a Christian, she told this experience reported by the same evangelist Kuniya of the previous story.

She stated, "When I came to the meeting the first night, I had never heard a Christian sermon. As I came into the meeting room with my daughter and sat down, there seemed to be a strange light by you while you were preaching up front. I asked my daughter if she could see it; but she said that she could see nothing strange. I continued to see it as long as you were speaking from the Bible; and since I heave learned more of the Bible, I have come to believe that it must have been an angel of the Lord sent to lead me to the true religion. I thank and praise Him for showing the light to me, a poor heathen."