I’ve been reading a book titled “Seven Sevens of Years and a Jubilee: The Story of the Sudan Interior Mission”. Published in 1943 (and somewhat hard to find), it is the memoir of Rowland Bingham, a Canadian who founded and worked tirelessly to send protestant Christian missionaries into sub-Saharan Africa in the early part of the 20th century. It’s been an interesting and enjoyable read, even more so when I think about what sometimes ISN’T being said. I’ve read a lot of history and analysis of these same regions during this time lately and sometimes a very different picture is painted. I still would consider this guy “on my team”, while at the same time realizing that his account is going to tilt a certain direction and gloss over facts that may not fit well in the story he is trying to tell. The following is an example of what I’m talking about.
This is a book full of miracles. But these missionaries are not charismatics, but rather mostly baptists and Presbyterians. Nobody gets suddenly healed, there are no prophecies spoken, no distinct tribes spoken to in their own languages via glossolalia, and no exorcisms. It’s not to say these things didn’t happen. In fact, if even a fraction of the more personal accounts of these deep inland African missionaries are to be taken at face value, then nearly all these things were in fact happening. Exorcisms and demonic confrontations in particular figure prominently into many accounts of attempts to evangelize pagans. This holds for Christians of all traditions and denominational backgrounds, even ones that technically dismiss this sort of activity. But, it wouldn’t be fit to report THOSE stories back to westerners that had categorically ruled out their possibility. They might begin to doubt the rest of the story as well and withdraw their financial support.
Yet the book is still full of miracles. What miracles then? Money ones. These missionaries repeatedly set out on trips with barely enough cash to buy a train ticket to their next league of their destination, let alone enough money to outfit an 800-mile trek into Niger in 1910. But the money kept showing up. Random people they met would give them a thousand bucks. Someone would die and donate their entire estate to the mission. Bingham would be asked to preach during an impromptu service on a boat across the Atlantic and the offering taken up from the strangers there would be just cover all expenses. Should we be careful and scale things back during the war (WWI) they asked? No! Full steam ahead. And the war years turned out to be some of the most fruitful. Some donated a bunch of money in stocks to them. The financial advisers all said they should carefully invest them for the future. No way! Sell ’em all now and use the money to send some guys to Darfur. The quality at the center of each story was trust – trust that God wanted them to do this dangerous and seemingly impossible thing and how they went and did it anyway, with his divine assistance.
Or didn’t do it. The number of team members Bingham lost in the early days – most of them to malaria, was rather shocking. On several of his trips, he returned home having buried his friends in the dirt and seemingly accomplished nothing. Talk about discouraging! God wants us to do this thing! We even got all this money out of the blue and used it to buy supplies and passage to Ghana. Then we sailed up the river to find this unreached tribe we had heard a rumor of and…. half the team got sick and died and some Muslim slave traders tried to kill us. We returned completely empty-handed. And…. then got our act together and tried the whole thing over again the next year, with only slightly better results.
After years of that, actually establishing several churches in the bush, translating several of the gospels into the local language and baptizing thousands of converts would not seem like “business as usual”, but rather just like what it was – a miracle of sorts.
Now, you may wonder if I have personally ever experienced anything like this. The answer is yes. I won’t go into the details at this point but I will say this much: My wife and I have been technically broke or in debt our entire marriage. Two years ago we wanted to adopt our forth child. Nearly everyone, especially family told us it was a foolish and unwise idea. We decided to trust God that it was not in fact a stupid or misguided desire, but rather something He was asking us to do. In the end, it cost over $30,000. We didn’t do any fundraising and the naysayers didn’t give us a dime. We brought her home about 18 months ago. The bills are entirely paid off. True story.