REKINDLE FIRE FOR MISSION

“WHI helped me rekindled the fire for mission within me. To reach the lost at any cost”

Edson Lowane

I attended WHI/ORU in 2019 and 2020. It really helped me establish my faith and my understanding of God’s word. I always had a passion to evangelize and conduct missions but always had the fear of stepping out by faith. During our practicum in 2019 we have to go door to door knocking home visits. I was very fearful at first because Fiji is very foreign to me. But I take all I learn throughout the year and push myself to knock on my first door. I was rejected but now I finally break that fear. In 8 weeks of home to home visitation I was able to plant 8 cells for the glory of God. WHI helped me rekindle the fire for mission within me. To reach the lost at any cost. Today I am back in my home country and I have been going on mission trips to villages in the interior to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so happy and blessed that I made the decision to Join WHI/ORU. Thank you WHI. I LOVE YOU.

Rekindle Fire For Mission

God's Smuggler for Missions

Brother Andrew

Who is Brother Andrew? Andy van der Bijl, now known as Brother Andrew, was born in 1928 in the Netherlands. Still alive today, Brother Andrew is known for his mission to bring the Gospel behind the Iron Curtain and then to persecuted nations all around the world. He drastically surrendered his life to the Lord and then risked everything he had for the Great Commission. He spent his life bringing Bibles to the persecuted and lost. Brother Andrew is still serving the persecuted church today through his Open Doors ministry. 

Brother Andrew was born during a hostile time in the world. As he entered into adulthood, he chose to fight against the injustices of communism. Communism restricted Christianity, and the Christians were strongly persecuted against.

Andrew was crippled in a hospital, with no one but nurses to take care of him.

These nurses happened to be Franciscan nuns, who were so joyful that it caused Andrew’s curiosity to wonder. Upon asking them why they were so joyful all of the time, the nuns replied,

“It’s the love of Christ. Why it’s right here in the book beside you.”

— Franciscan Sister

Andrew realized the nun was motioning towards his mother’s Bible.

This experience convicted Andrew. It also spurred on questions inside of him that he had not recognized before. Brother Andrew was wondering about the Gospel.

After leaving the army, Andrew felt purposeless. And when the Dutch lost the war, he simply wanted to die. But he remembered those nuns, and he remembered his mother’s faith in the Lord

In missionary training, Andrew had to have a great deal of faith for God’s provision.

Each student was given 1 Pound and was sent out into Scotland for missions. The students did not have a place to stay or any food provided for them. They had to rely on God and his provision for their every need. At the end of a month, each student, including Andrew, found that they had more than enough. Even after tithing, they had more money than what they started with.

“In the years of living this life of faith, I have never known God’s care to fail.”

— Brother Andrew, God’s Smuggler
Brother Andrew

Working Among the Cannibals

John G. Paton

Born in Scotland in 1824, John G. Paton was a Christian missionary to the cannibals on the New Hebrides Islands of the South Seas until he died in 1907. His life was filled with many trials, as his first wife and their child soon died after their arrival on the island of Tanna, and Paton had to flee for his life almost on a daily basis from the natives.

Paton’s faith withstood testing and he continued to work among the Aniwan people and preach the gospel for several years while also raising support for missionary work and writing his own story. He would later be known fifty years later by Charles H. Spurgeon as the “king of the savages”.

John G. Paton (1824-1907) was a Scottish Christian missionary for 49 years to the former cannibals in the South Sea Islands. He was alone on an island for four years with the hostile natives and his life hung in the delicate balance of constant danger. However, John trusted that he was immortal until God saw fit for his work to be done. Today, the impact of his life and dedication to faith in Jesus Christ can be seen in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

John learned early on that prayer was to be involved in every aspect of life. Before John was ever punished for an act of disobedience, his father first got on his knees and prayed. This taught John and his siblings the importance of inviting God into every area of life.

John Paton was also greatly influenced by the faith of his mother when she prayed. In one particular year, there was a severe crop failure and the family had run out of food. Amidst all their struggles in rearing a family of eleven, this was the hardest time they had ever had.

Seeing that there was no food, John’s mother encouraged all the children to rest, telling them that she had told God everything and that He would send them food in the morning.

The next day, being moved by God and not knowing anything about the family’s circumstances, John’s grandfather sent a present to his daughter. He sent her a bag of new potatoes, ground meal, and some homemade cheese–plenty of food for the large family to survive. John’s mother, seeing the children’s surprise for how God answered her prayers, had them kneel with her on the ground to thank God for his goodness, and said:

“O my children, love your heavenly Father, tell Him in faith and prayer all your needs, and He will supply your wants so far as it shall be for your good and His glory.”

This phrase, “so far as it shall be for your good and His glory,” would stick with John until his dying breath.

 

Working among the Cannibals

William Carey

Pioneer to India and Father of Modern Missions.

Known as the Father of Modern Missions, William Carey was the first missionary to India who served for forty-one years translating the entire Bible into Bengali. He is also known for being a shoemaker, pastor, founder of the English Baptist Missionary Society, botanist, cultural anthropologist, educator, author, social reformer, and the first to bring the printing press to India.

In 1761, William Carey was born to Edmund and Elizabeth Carey who were weavers by trade in England. When William was six, his father was appointed the parish clerk and village schoolmaster. William was also the oldest of five children.

At a young age, William hungered for historical and scientific knowledge, although he never had any formal education after the age of twelve. He turned himself into a productive self-educator and an enthusiastic reader. He delighted in books of travel and adventure and had a special interest with plants so that he crowded his room with various specimens of them. He made frequent excursions into the woods and across the fields, always on the alert to discover and identify a new bird or animal or plant. Even as a young child, he showed determination in completing anything he ever began, such as when he broke his leg after falling out of a tree to study a bird’s nest and went to retrieve it a third time with the cast on his leg.

hortly after his conversion and upon becoming a pastor, William read a book called “An Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd” about David Brainerd’s missionary work among the Native American tribes in the United States, written by Jonathan Edwards. He also read The Journals of James Cook, the explorer, which most people in England would consider were merely thrilling stories of adventure. For the next five years, William would begin to devote his spare time to making maps of faraway lands and gathering data on their location, size, population, and religions. Both of these written accounts began to spark something in William and he became deeply concerned with sharing the gospel with people who did not have any access to a Bible or a church.

Father of Modern Missions

Pioneering a Legacy in Missions

A short story of David Barinerd

David Brainerd’s fervor and passion for the Lord and for lost souls is contagious and convicting. His life has inspired countless missionaries and preachers for centuries and continues to motivate people today.

In 1742, David Brainerd received his license to preach by Jonathan Dickinson, who later founded Princeton. Dickinson was also a Commissioner of Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, a Christian missionary sending organization. He tried to re-establish David in Yale, but with no breakthrough. After his unsuccessful attempt, he asked if David had considered becoming a missionary instead. After praying about it, Brainerd was overwhelmed by a strong desire that God wanted to use him in the work of missions to the lost souls of the Indians.

On November 25, 1742, Brainerd was examined for his fitness for the work and appointed as a missionary to the Native Americans along the Delaware River. His missionary commitment is expressed in his words:

“Here I am, Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in thy service, and to promote thy kingdom.””

Whenever David preached a sermon among the people, the entire tribe would fall down on their faces and weep for hours because they were concerned that they had never known about their great sin towards the Lord before. They discovered fierce longings in their souls for Christ, to save them from the misery they felt and feared. The Spirit of God was at work in awakening the native’s hearts and calling them out of their sin and shame while revealing His great love for them. David has several accounts in his journal where he tells the story of the Indian’s repentance and love for Christ.

Hudson Taylor