Homeless Man Steve — INSIPIRATION STORY

 

This evening as I was leaving Best Buy, I noticed this man going through the garbage can outside of the store. As I walked to my car I watched him as he reached in the garbage can and pulled out fast food trash bags and inspected all that was in the thrown away bags. He […]

via Homeless Man Steve — INSIPIRATION STORY

John Clough (1836-1910), a Child of God who brought News of Christ’s Liberation to the Telugu in India

When John and his wife Harriet reached the Telugu in Andhra Pradesh in April 1865, they were faced with a situation in which ‘higher caste’ Indians refused to join in worship with ‘lower caste’ and ‘outcastes’. Asking God our Father for help he randomly selected 1 Corinthians 1:26-29:

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him”

(NIV) (BibleGateway).

Amazingly Harriet, standing at a distance from her husband, also read from the same text. Clough took this to be of God’s choosing.

“He announced that all were welcome in his church, that he would not accept a segregated congregation.

He started preaching, and conversions multiplied. Fifteen months later two Indian preachers stood in a river and began baptizing the converts. When they grew weary, other preachers relieved them. By five o’clock 2,222 [people] had been baptized, and the baptisms continued for two more days”

(Morgan, Robert J. (1997) On this Day in Christian History: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories of Saints, Martyrs, and Heroes. USA: Thomas Nelson, November 30).

Hallelujah! For God overcame despair and segregational hatred! Praise the LORD!!!

Also see:

John Clough Apostle to the Telugu | Moses on Missions

James Gilmore (1843-1891), a Child of God who Helped Spread the Gospel in Mongolia

Hugh MacKail (1640?-1666), a Child of God Sent to Heaven within a Year of Beginning to Preach

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAIL

Upon being captured, tried, and refusing to recant his Reformed faith Hugh was tortured in a way which brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it’s just the way in which Robert J. Morgan describes it:

“”…he was affixed in a chair, with a tight iron boot enclosed around his leg and knee. An iron wedge was inserted, and a jailer stood by with a sledgehammer… The judge nodded. The jailer gripped the mallet, took aim, and slammed it down on the wedge. Bone and muscles were crushed. A second blow. A third. Blood ran down Hugh’s leg and dripped from his toes. More blasts of pain. The eleven blows crushed Hugh’s leg to pulp. Radiating waves of agony surged through every inch of his body. Rough hands then jerked him from his chair and threw him into the dungeon…

[Days later he was] taken to the gallows and forced to climb a ladder to the platform… He awkwardly dragged his useless leg up the rungs, turning and saying, ‘Every step is a degree nearer heaven.’ At the top he took out his pocket Bible, read from its last chapter, and spoke of Christ. The rope tightened around his thin neck…, and his feet danced in the air until his soul ascended to God”

(On this Day in Christian History: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories about Saints, Martyrs, and Heroes (1997). USA: Thomas Nelson, November 28).

The Borneo Evangelical Mission (founded 1928)

I was actually looking for something on Ernest Presswood (1908-1946), a Canadian who worked for Christ in Indonesia. He:

“…crisscrossed mountain trails to remote villages. His feet became ulcerated by leech bites, but his passion was relentless”

(Morgan, Robert J. (1997) On this Day in Christian History: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories of Saints, Martyrs, and Heroes. USA: Thomas Nelson, November 27).

Alas I cannot find any videos about him. I don’t think that Ernest ever worked for the Borneo Evangelical Mission, but anyone who endeavours to spread the Gospel works for Christ, and Ernest certainly helped to lay a good foundations from which even he raised up a good harvest. His efforts are recorded for us in No Sacrifice too Great: the Story of Ernest and Ruth Presswood, part of the Jaffray Collection of Missionary Portaits, by Wing Spread Publishers.

The Love of Jesus – by Nathan Taylor

More about Me

My family in Christ, shalom.

Over the years I have come to appreciate and treasure secrecy. I suppose we are all secretive up to a point, but now I feel I have been foolishly holding back information which, naturally, my fellow disciples in Christ want to know in order to interact with me more easily. So I have rewritten my About page. I present a copy of it here.