Sunday, December 22, 2019

Our History and the Hope of Christmas: Part One

During grad school at Wheaton, I had an assignment for a cross-cultural research class that required us to explore the Archives in the Billy Graham Center and write a simple report on something we found.

I didn't realize it before, but the Archives are laden with missions history.

Missionary journals, newspaper clippings, old photographs and more fill the carefully catalogued collections.  Not only that, but the grad school library connected to the Archives is full of books on missions.  It's basically a one-stop shop for all things missions-related!

For my assignment, I wound up reading a journal written by a woman named Florence who moved to Kenya in 1906.  At the time we had no idea we'd also be moving to Kenya.  Eli was still in medical school and we were years away from moving overseas.  We knew Africa was in our future, but the specific country was still unknown to us.  Regardless, the journal was fascinating.

Florence wrote a small entry every single day.  She wrote about leaving America on November 1, 1905, and journeying on a ship across the Atlantic. She landed first in Liverpool, England, where she was delayed for four weeks because of diphtheria, but eventually continued on through the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, around the Horn of Africa, and into the port of Mombasa.  She landed in British East Africa (as it was called then) on January 9, 1906.

Florence's ministry included teaching Bible lessons, reading, writing, and sewing.  She married a long-time friend a few months after arriving - his arrival in Kenya predated hers by a couple years - and together they worked among the Maasai tribe.  Her husband, John, compiled a dictionary of the Maasai language and also translated their language into Scripture.  They spent decades in Africa and had a fruitful ministry, and I am inspired by them.

I'm inspired not only because of their successes, but also because of their day-in, day-out reality.  What fascinated me so much about Florence's journal were the non-ministry details, the behind-the-scenes daily living that is so much of life.  She wrote about ants in the house, about ruining the bread, about her husband being sick much of the time, and about an elephant destroying their garden one night.  She wrote about going for walks and enjoying picnics, and about looking for colobus monkeys to send back to the Field Museum in Chicago!  This was their life, their faithful walk as they spent decades working to build the Kingdom of God in Kenya.

And I am inspired.

I, too, have battled ant infestations in our house.  I, too, have ruined the bread.  I, too, have suffered from extreme sickness here.  And although we've never had an elephant in our garden (thank goodness!) we know well the battles of trying to keep our house and garden intact just so we can keep on living here.  Some things, apparently, don't change much in a hundred years.

But many things have changed.  Living here is infinitely easier now than it was for Florence and John.  We have electricity (most of the time) and quick transportation.  We have modern technology and the ability to communicate easily with family and friends back home.  We have lots of options for food, even some Western goods, and access to basic medicine.

More importantly, though, is how much has changed in the last hundred years in the Church.  The ministry that we are able to do now, at a mission hospital that openly shares the Gospel with patients, is only possible because of the foundations that were laid by pioneers like Florence and John.  They advanced the Kingdom here.  They shared the truth and love of Jesus and they discipled many.  They prepared their generation for pouring into the next, which poured into the next and the next and the next...  And now we are here, nearly 114 years later, walking on the foundations laid for us long ago and doing our part to keep advancing the Kingdom here.

It wasn't until we'd been in Kenya for awhile that I remembered reading Florence's journal in grad school.  I wanted to look at it again and learn more of the history of missions in Kenya.  So, on one of our trips through Chicago during Home Assignment last year, I took the opportunity to spend a couple days at Wheaton and look at Florence's journal in the Archives again.  Furthermore, I took the opportunity to look through several books that pertained to the history of missions in Kenya.  The more I learned, the more humbled and encouraged I became.

The missionary pioneers I read about (which I'll highlight in the next post) endured much suffering and seemingly little success.  They sacrificed a lot and gained very little.  Sometimes I feel like that too, because something that's remained the same over time is how slowly things change.  We invest in time and energy and money and emotions and prayer and relationships...and the growth and change we came here to participate in happens very slowly.

When I, as a time-sensitive American, get frustrated or discouraged with the pace of change in our ministry, it helps significantly to remember where we've been.  Not just where we, the Horns, have been, but to look even further back to those who have gone before us.

Florence wrote this at the very end of her journal in 1906: "What this little book contains of joys and sorrow, struggles, and smooth sailing - may never be seen by other eyes.  Yet it has been a comfort to record them.  God has kept a better record for which we praise Him and are happy to leave ourselves in His hands for the next 365 days."

I am so grateful to Florence for writing a record of her ministry in Kenya.  I have read it and now I know and can remember what God has done.  I can remember and be encouraged by God's work and God's timing.  He intended to bring Florence to Kenya in 1906 and He intended to bring me here in 2016.  We are both part of a bigger story, a story of ages past filled with people crying out for a Savior, and of a God who provided a Savior who embodied eternal hope.  We are part of a story that declares "Christ has come" and "It is finished" and "Let the nations be glad."

I am filled with hope at this time of year as we reflect on all God has done this year.  And I think it would serve us well to remember beyond this year - to years past, to ages past - and remember what God has done in times and places beyond our own that have made our own time and place of ministry possible.




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